Sleeping on a couch last night was pretty awesome. I’m finally getting really comfortable on my pad, but a warm house and a soft couch was great.
After sleeping in a little, our host made us breakfast. He didn’t think we’d eat all the pancakes, but we did.
The sun came out and we all laid our tents in the driveway to dry out. Once we had that done, it was time to go into town and finish resupplying. Our first stop was REI where I got some new shoes.
My shoes had some holes, but the biggest problem was the foam in the soles was totally smashed. At the end of every day my feet would feel bruised. Now hopefully they don’t.
The climb out of town was a big one, but it was very gradual. We saw tons of Colorado Trail hikers making their way towards Breckinridge and lots of locals out on day hikes and bike rides.
It’s fun seeing the Colorado Trail hikers because they don’t all look like they know what they’re doing. One person today had two massive sticks instead of trekking poles and another had an enormous backpack and was wearing work boots. It doesn’t matter what they have as long as they’re having a good time and it seemed like they all were.
We made it to camp around 7:30 and the site had a great fire ring next to a creek. After all the rain, I looked at the national forest fire restrictions and found out there weren’t any. We decided tonight would be our first fire on trail.
At first it almost felt illegal to have a fire, but soon we got used to it and really enjoyed it. We’ve gotten so used to being worried about wildfires, the idea of actually having a campfire almost didn’t cross our minds.
Tomorrow we’re going to work our way towards the highest peak on the CDT. We probably won’t summit tomorrow, but we should the next morning.