Thursday, September 19th

Thursday, September 19th. Day 93

Today's miles = 14.6 Total CDT miles = 1,429.9

It rained ALL last night. It didn't stop raining for a second. I woke up more times than I can count last night and had a hard time falling asleep again because there was a resident moose next my tent most of the night. I woke up around 7am and by the time I had my coffee, oatmeal, Luna Bar, orange juice (that I carried from town for this morning), multi vitamin, calcium pills, probiotic, and digestive enzymes it was 8am. I wasn't hiking until 8:40am.

The morning was frigid. The cold weather has officially begun. There was snow on the mountain peaks this morning. Normally this time of year on a Northbound hike it's the final push to finish the trail. But because I'm going Southbound I still have 1,000 or so miles to hike. The fortunate part about this, though, is that once I make it through Colorado I will be in the desert again (can't believe I ever used the words fortunate and desert in the same sentence). The desert will be cold at night but hopefully nice during the day. I was all bundled up this morning when a train if cars came splashing through the puddles on the car trails. I had no idea why so many cars would be on that dirt road at the same time. A few moments later they had parked and a whole class of elementary school kids came plowing out of the cars. It was a school field trip. Once I had made my way through the swarm of kids and got on the trail I realized that it was uphill most of the day (seems to be the trend). About a mile later three horses came down the mountain. The first and last carrying hunters and the middle horse carrying the head of an elk. It was staring at me...glaring...with it's tongue out. I couldn't help but wonder where it's body was. It puzzled me for the next few miles. Throughout the day I passed a handful more hunters. I was mostly in a very pleasant mood today and so I found myself whistling or humming while hiking. Those hunters wear all that camouflage so naturally I didn't see them until I was quite close and by that time I had already scared away all the animals. I don't think they cared for me very much today.

The whole hike today was in the trees and there was plenty of water. The only thing that could have made today better was if the sun had come out more. It was cold all day even while hiking. I cut the hike today a bit short because the upcoming trail is exposed, waterless, and at 12,000-13,000 feet. I did not want to camp under any of those circumstances let alone all three. So, I settled down next to a beaver pond on a nice flat patch of land...quite good real estate for a tent. I'm hoping to get up early-ish tomorrow and get a head start on the climbs.