We left the San Juan Mountains behind and hiked through rolling, tree-covered, mountains during this stretch.
Day 52 – Mile 985.0 – Marmots, pikas, & moose poop
Today we woke up at the RV park and got bagels at the nearby bagel shop. Lucky, who we met at a restaurant last night and has thruhiked the AT, PCT, and part of the CDT, picked us up at 8 am to give us a ride back to the trailhead. Thank you! We first climbed up a mesa, which was neat. After lunch we had some challenging ups and downs. We saw tons of marmots and pikas today. We also saw moose poop. When Tim, Dirty Money and I were at camp, Eric walked up. We haven’t seen him in a few hundred miles. It was fun to catch up with him over dinner. -R
Day 53 – Mile 1014.6 – Gold!
Last night it rained on us but our tent kept us dry and cozy. In the morning we packed up the tent wet. We took a morning break next to Cochetopa Creek to filter water. The creek was generally fast moving but we stopped near a slow spot cut out from the bank. When we looked in the water we found gold! There were little shiny flakes of it that were being deposited by the creek by dropping out when the water slowed down. There probably wasn’t much, but it was neat to see. Too bad we didn’t have any tools with us or we would have staked out a claim and started panning! Most of the terrain today was dirt roads through a wide-open area. It was very different from the high mountains we have been hiking through lately. We hiked on to lunch at the top of a hill. We dried out the tent during lunch. In the afternoon we hiked past the 1000 mile marker. We’re 1/3 of the way done with the CDT! Then, it hailed peanut M&M sized ice balls on us. We took cover under some trees. It rained a bit before we got to camp, but during our final approach the rain stopped, the sun came out, and a huge rainbow filled the sky. It was an exciting day! -T
Day 54 – Mile 1040.0 – Wet
Today we woke up to fog. It was quite peaceful, but our tent and sleeping bags were a bit damp. About two miles into the day, I noticed my pants were on backwards. I was feeling lazy and decided I’d fix them later at lunch because we always take our shoes off at lunch to dry out our feet. When lunchtime rolled around, so did the clouds. We ate quick and then the rain started. I forgot to fix my pants and instead put on my rain gear. It rained off and on for the rest of the day with some hail and thunder occasionally too. We stayed dry in our rain gear though and kept moving to stay warm. At the end of the day we found Lamb Chop and Unit and are camped with them and Dirty Money near a nice stream. We had no snow on the trail yesterday or today, which made hiking easier! The rain and wetness are always a challenge though. -R
1000 miles ! Great 👍🏼