CDT Days 77-79 – Wyoming!

We crossed the border into Wyoming during this stretch, and the rolling mountains started to become quite deserty.

Day 77 – Mile 1516.6 – Wyoming & Halfway

Today was an exciting day for milestones. About 10 miles in we hit the Colorado-Wyoming border! We saved a beer for the occasion (a friendly house gave it to us yesterday), and at the border was another beer just sitting there at the base of a tree. Magic! One beer was a Wyoming Pale Ale. The other was a Colorado Coors. How fitting! Another hiker, Chilzin, showed up while we were there. We drank our beers and celebrated a bit (sort of). Chilzin is recovering from Giardia. Tim is recovering-ish from his cold. My cold is getting worse. But we were still all happy to be done with the challenging mountains of Colorado and looking forward to new experiences in Wyoming. A mile later we crossed the halfway point of CDT! 1500 miles down, 1500 to go! Wow! The rest of the day was a bit of a blur due to my cold. We saw two hikers ahead on the trail at one point, but as we got closer we realized they were moose! That brings our moose count up to seven.  At around 8pm we were hiking through a meadow looking for camping in the trees and saw a herd of elk grazing. There were 50+ elk. It was insane. When we got to camp, Tim put me to bed while he did the chores. It was very nice. -R

Day 78 – Mile 1546.1 – Wyoming is Wonderful!

The first stop of the morning was supposed to be a pit toilet 3 miles in… I couldn’t make it that far, so I ran off to the bushes to do my business just 0.3 miles before the toilet. Usually we don’t have the luxury of toilets out here and the bushes are just fine… But when one is sooo close, it is a shame not to be able to to use it. The rest of the day went by very smoothly. As expected, the landscape is still beautiful but much easier for walking. In the morning we had rolling mountains that transitioned to open sagebrush plains by the end of the day. It reminds me very much of New Mexico; We saw cacti all day and even a greater short horned lizard. We set up camp on grass near a river and we can hear coyotes (and cattle) in the distance. For dinner we had pesto flavored barley with refried beans, carrots, and peppers. Yum! -T

Day 79 – Mile 1577.1 – Rattlesnake excitement

We have been rationing sunscreen and Tylenol the past few days. We bought shorts in Steamboat Springs, but we forgot to check our sunscreen. Turns out it was almost gone. We have only been applying sunscreen to the spots of our legs that are starting to look red for the last two or three days. Luckily this morning Cramps walked by, and he gave us some sunscreen which we applied to our entire legs. It turned out to be a cloudy day today too, so we were really in good shape. Tomorrow we should get to Rawlins, WY in the late afternoon, so we should survive. We had lunch with Outlaw under a bridge over a stream. (There was no shade today. Just bushes.) We watched a rattlesnake on the other side of the stream, which was really neat. It didn’t seem to mind us. It was hanging out on some rocks then went down to the river to get some water then went back up to the rocks then disappeared. We also saw a weasel under the bridge. After lunch Tim headed out from under the bridge first. The rattlesnake was on the beam at the level of his head! It rattled at him just a bit. Luckily he was able to get out of the way quickly because a bite to the head or neck could have been really bad… I left the bridge from the other side. We think it may have been going for the swallowl nests under the bridge. Later in the day we also saw a dead rattlesnake on the road. That brings our count up to 3 live rattlesnakes and 1 dead rattlesnake. We also saw a badger today and can hear coyotes from the tent. We are loving Wyoming so far! -R