For the last few town stops, my friends have been saying they want to do shorter days. We hiked 31 miles today. We also had our first rain storms.
We got moving somewhat early from the lake and got ahead of the 8 or 9 other hikers at the lake. I hiked alone with Cuddles for awhile, which was nice since we hadn’t seen each other in so long.
Today consisted of going up and over a bunch of mountain passes. Literally the worst thing to do when a thunderstorm is in the forecast. We knew it wouldn’t hit until around noon and we made it up and over the first pass while it was still nice out.
Eventually we saw clouds start to roll in and we heard the rumble of thunder. Soon after it started hailing like crazy and we rushed to put on rain gear and shelter in the bushes and scrubby trees nearby.
The storm passed quickly and we kept moving. The second pass cut things a bit closer. A second storm rolled through on our way up. We sheltered in the trees while it rained, but eventually moved on when it looked like it was clearing.
As we neared the top of the climb we heard thunder rumble in the distance, which made us get up and over faster.
We had to deal with rain for a bit but the sky cleared later on as we got closer to the road.
Our goal for the day was Cottonwood Pass, a pretty twisty highway that goes over the continental divide. We made it around 7 pm and rather than camp by the highway, we hiked on.
This is a unique part of the trail where we actually went down after getting to a pass, instead of right back up. There was supposed to be some good camping in 4 miles (all downhill) so we decided to go for it.
The trail was snowy and muddy, which got our feet wet. When we got to the bottom, we decided to ford a river to get to the really good campsites, instead of doing it in the morning.
It was almost 9pm when we got to camp so I don’t think my shoes will be dry in the morning. That’s the life of a thru hiker.
It felt good to get another big day in after the zero in Salida. With the way the rest of the towns are located in Colorado, we probably won’t have to go more than 2 or 3 days before we’re in town. That’ll help with the approximately 20lbs I’ve lost so far.