Thursday, September 26th

Thursday,  September 26th. Day 100

Today's miles = 18.5 Total CDT miles = 1, 511.4

I didn't sleep much last night.  There was an animal around the tent last night that kept me up.  Between that and the temperature last night it was a pretty bad nights sleep. I tried to get up early as always but the air smelled like winter which did not help my motivation level. I felt like a thru hiker this morning.  My body hurt, I was hungry, I was cold... (ok,  enough complaining). But after about a mile of hiking I forgot about all of that when I started to see the views of the snow covered mountains I was climbing. The snow made it harder to hike but it sure was a pretty sight. The trail was up two passes in the morning (each at above 12,000ft) for the first 6 or so miles but then it was a good bit of downhill to the road. It was also freezing this morning up at elevation, but that too got better with the decent. The hike down to the road was beautiful. The snow was on the mountains on the horizon but the trail cleared off below 10,000ft. The leaves had their Fall colors and the sun actually came out.  I would have put sunscreen on if I had had any.  Once I got the road I began hitching immediately.  I got a ride in about ten minutes from a Mexican that didn't speak any English driving a yellow VW Bug. The ride to town was silent.  He dropped Baboon and I off outside the Safeway and we walked over to Pizza Hut. I suddenly realized that I hadn't eaten in over nine miles of hiking.  While at Pizza Hut I got a hold of Molassas, a guy I met on the AT two years ago that is here in Leadville going to school. He stopped by and picked us up after we were done eating and took us to his place to shower and relax.  Around 8:30 we went over to the distillery to meet some of his friends. I wasn't in bed until after midnight.