January 1, 2015

I can officially say I’m hiking the Continental Divide Trail THIS year!

For those that have had to wait years between thru-hikes, and for friends and family that have heard me go on and on about the CDT in 2015 know what a milestone that is. Three more months of work baby!

Back to the trip…last night we skied about three miles before veering off the main trail to make camp in a small clearing near Todd Lake. We opened one of our beers to toast the New Year (and also lessen the burden in what had become a regrettably heavy pack). For some reason I had grabbed my new Western Mountaineering Ultralight sleeping bag (20 degree) instead of my -20 degree bag, and though the temps hovered around the 20s, my feet were still cold throughout the night. It’s hard to sleep with cold feet. But inspiration struck and I put on the down booties I had packed. Much better.

In the morning we lingered over coffee before hitting the snow.

The day was crystal clear.

And we were lucky to follow tracks most of the way up Todd Ridge.

Our lunch spot proved our first good glimpse of Broken Top.

We made sure to fuel our bodies with the proper nutrition.

And I had to rock the hikertrash hat!

Unfortunately temps rose just over freezing and the sunny patches of snow started to get sticky.

Madness! I stopped to scrape and wax about 10 times in the next hour or two.

And we finally called it good in a sunny meadow with a magnificent view of Broken Top.

And celebrated with another tasty brew.

The snow up here was more wind blown and between the stashes of pow were thick icy layers.

We set up our new Hyperlite mid and dug in a freaking awesome camp complete with snow sofa and table.

Peak to peak.

As the day came to a close we enjoyed a brilliant sunset.

And as the light faded we kept busy with a rousing game of UNO.