If you followed my blog on the CDT this year, you will know how much I loved wearing my Oboz shoes on the trail.
Rain, snow, and mud were no match for my Oboz Lunas.
I shared some of my initial thoughts on the hike with Oboz…read more here!
You may have been voting daily since I posted about this contest towards the end of my hike, but the voting is still on and the CDT has a great chance at winning $25,000 to make trail improvements in New Mexico.
PLEASE vote for the Continental Divide Trail every day through 10/31 here: http://superiortrails.michelobultra.com/
How have I been home for 2 1/2 weeks already? Good news is that my list of things to do is getting shorter even though I continue to add to it.
I’ve been playing the hermit since getting home, probably a direct result of spending most of the last 6 months alone…I find it’s sometimes hard to make small talk, hard to sum up my 160 days in a few bite-sized snippets, hard to go right back to being the extroverted well-socialized and excitable hiker. I know that side of me will emerge again, probably once I have more of a direction with what I’m going to be doing now that I’m off the trail.
As for work I have a few irons in the fire, some exciting opportunities that I’ll be happy to share once confirmed, so really, this time can be devoted to relaxing, easing back into the fast-paced whirlwind of off-trail life, and just being. Except that’s hard to do…I find myself gravitating towards the more existential questions of life…and perhaps that’s because when I’m busy I never really give myself time to meditate on the deeper subjects.
Ok, that probably sounds a little doom and gloom, but that, folks, is post-trail readjustment.
A few of you have asked about my gear list…I’ve put together a page here...I need to get my hands on a scale to weigh all the miscellaneous things that don’t have listed weights on the product website. I never weighed my gear, so it’s kind of funny to be doing so now after the fact.
Time to keep on keeping on…
I have been sifting through the thousands of photos and hundreds of video clips I took on the trail this year and found these two from my time on the skis.
The shoe-bindings worked extremely well on the light-weight touring skis. I ended up skiing about 40 miles in the Southern San Juans…then I found steep avalanche-prone slopes were too risky for the late May-early June time I was there. Never fear, I’ll be working on putting some short films together this fall, should be a lot of fun!
There is almost too much to do, so I choose to do nothing. It’s as if I were preparing to hike a long distance trail, and the thought of 2,000 miles makes the first mile unimaginable. That is what getting home after an almost 6 month absence is like.
I want to look at my 6,000+ photos and hundreds of little videos and make movies. I need to unpack from our 2 week road trip. I want to see friends. I need to go through all my mail. I want to go to yoga. I want to read all the magazines I missed. I want to veg in front of netflix. I want to go for a walk. I need to work. I want to write lots of blogs and reviews. I want to packraft. I want to make things.
So I don’t do any of it, or I do it slowly and distractedly.
Did I just hike across the country? Man, seems like years ago now.
We’ve been putting some miles on our boats and I’ll share more later when I’m in front of a computer. It’s been kind of nice to leave the writing for a bit, but I also have lots on my mind and look forward to getting home and having the time to dive in.
In the mean time here are some photos of adventures so far:
First of all, thank you to everyone who followed along on my hike this year! All of your encouraging and support has definitely fueled my miles.
I’ll be writing up my gear list, writing reviews of everything I used, diving into life after the trail, making some short movies…but first Kirk and I are taking a couple of weeks to road trip back to Bend. We have our packrafts and hope to get up to some adventures I can share with you.
Feels so amazing to be done!
When I woke up my stomach was feeling better, and I knew i would have a good day of walking…and WOW, I wasn’t in the middle of the granite pillars of rock like yesterday morning, but the area was simply stunning! The copious lakes, wildflowers, rock grottos and lush meadows were otherworldly. I looked up at one moment and saw a beautiful little fox checking me out. We both sat there for about 10 seconds admiring each other before I ruined the moment and reached for my camera, sending him scurrying on his way.
I swore I could see fresh footprints on the ground before me and had a feeling a thru-hiker may have passed me since I made such an early camp the night before. I came upon a NOLS group out for a month and learned a fast hiker in a white hat was just about a half mile in front of me…a white hat? Didn’t sound like anyone I knew.
There were a couple of short, steep climbs before I reached Hat Pass and the world unveiled itself, magnificent!!!!!
AND I could see the white-hatted thru-hiker a ways down the trail, I’m gonna catch him! I came up upon Toast chatting to a couple out for a week. I’d heard of Toast on the trail, but this was my first time meeting him. We all stopped for a few minutes to soak in the view. Dude. Love the Winds.
Toast and I hiked together about 2 miles before my 10+ mile side trail to Pinedale came up and he kept going, having carried enough food to get him through the whole Winds. That was a bit of a bummer, I finally meet another northbounder, and only get to hike with him for 2 miles! Oh well, that’s how the trail works.
I started down the Pole Creek side trail, and even though Ley’s maps said it was just over 10 miles, it felt longer. A brief storm passed through dropping hail and heavy rain, but it passed quickly, the mountains behind me didn’t look so lucky. I wonder if Toast ended up heading up Knapsack Col, a stunning pass, which can be quite difficult even in good weather (and an alternate). If I get up there and the weather doesn’t look good I’ll probably skip it, but I hear it’s one of the best views on the trail, so I hope I luck out!
About a mile before the Elkhorn Trailhead I ran into Marion and Bill who had been out for a week. I was able to secure a ride with them the 15 miles to town, and we had a great chat about gear and backpacking on the way down. They dropped me off at the Wind River Brewery where I had a pale ale and ruben sandwich. I left so full (I really don’t know why I get so full off a regular sized meal, what’s up stomach????) that I was in pain, and started walking towards the campground in the middle of town when Smiles, a 2014 CDT thru-hiker, stopped and asked if I needed a ride…well sure!!
She offered me a ride back to the trail tomorrow, and upon getting to the campsite, saw that it was closed….hmmmm…but there were a few tents set up anyway, so I got out and pitched my tent next to some great divide bikers. They weren’t sure what the deal was, apparently the city just bought the campground, but the previous owner was still there and said they could camp. I chatted with the 2 young guys who were biking, set up my stuff, chatted with Kirk and laid down to let my stomach do its thing.
It was a little noisy, but had a pretty good night’s sleep.
I did not sleep well. For some reason when I’m extremely tired my body decides to hold me hostage and withhold the much needed rest…and I’m developing a much deeper cough…a mild annoyance that has plagued me since New Mexico…is now a deeper chesty bark of a cough. I will need to do something about that soon.
We all roused ourselves and packed up camp in the chill of the creek valley air. We were on the road, and right around the corner entered another stretch of snow. Snow level seems to hover around 10,200-10,500…and we would be climbing to Elwood Pass at over 11,000.
The cold night had firmed up the snow, so we all walked confidently on top of the crust as the road wound up and up and up. Suddenly we had views! Oh beautiful blue-bird day, we hadnt seen anything quite so billiantly blue in a long time! However it was getting to be mid-morning and our much desired sun was now turning the firm crust into a slightly slushy mixture where every 5 steps I would break through and posthole to the ground beneath. Walk faster!! Seak shade!!
I motored around the curves of the road trying to find firm snow, cursing when I broke through. Finally Restless and I reached the point where the CDT joins the road, and stopped to spread out our wet gear on the still frosty snow…suprisingly you can still dry out gear on snow! Oh the sun.
I had already determined that I would continue walking roads to Wolf Creek Pass as the topo looked again to be a dangerous mix of steep slopes, ridgewalking on knife’s edges, and slushy unstable snow. Number 2, Restless, and Mark Trails however, were inspired by the blue above and wanted to go back on the trail.
We said our goodbyes and I made them promise to be careful.
The snow was just getting slushier by the moment, so I put on my skis and cruized the next 5 miles down the road until I hit pavement. Bliss! Skis are magical!
I took a nice long break at the end of the snow, and then began to trudge down the mountain roads…the valley was green and lush and the snow melt-off seemed to be increasing steadily…trickles and drips and seeps overflowed from the mountain sides as I walked.
When I bottomed out in a beautiful little valley I walked over to the creek running through the middle and found a safe spot to ford. Then crossed another tributary and up onto a road that would take me around to Wolf Creek Pass.
For the first time there were no other footprints to follow…others had the same escape plan I had, but now it was just me and the increasingly dark clouds over head. Hey, what happened to our blue-bird day?
I wound in and out of the ridge’s curves, started mushing through mud and snow, and hoped the sky wouldn’t open as it threatened to do.
Then footsteps! Hmmm, someone must have bailed out of the mountains here. Then more footsteps, it must be getting steep up there.
Finally I made it to Turner Pond campground…I saw the potential yoging opportunity in a place where people packed coolers full of too much food and drink. Tourists on the road for the summer would surely want to trade a cold beverage for a good mountain story! But, alas, no cars. This ugly little site had been clear-cut, you could hear the traffic from the highway up above, and the tent spots weren’t even flat! For $17 I could eat a huge meal in town, I will not be paying that when I could walk down the road and sleep in luxury in the forest.
So I did. Wolf Creek Pass tomorrow to meet Whiptale, a PCT friend, who would wisk me into Durango to have more adventures.
I knew it would happen sooner or later…bear with me as it will take a few days to get a new phone and get caught up to date on my posts!
It’s a good reminder though that it will probably happen again…either I’ll break the phone, be out of reception for long periods of time, or just decided to unplug for a while, regardless the hike will go on!
Happy hiking!
She-ra Hikes 