It’s been a long time since I’ve done a big day. With all the climbing and towns along the way, we just haven’t had to push past 30 miles. Today we had an opportunity.
The day started with a big climb up to Parkview Peak. We passed through a large burn area and then eventually made it above the treeline.
I think the building at the top is an old fire lookout. There was some modern looking equipment in there that looked like maybe a weather station.
We weren’t actually going to take a group photo, but an older guy up there with us wanted to get one. It’s his FOURTH time hiking the CDT!
From the lookout the weather looked great in all directions. What we found soon after was that the weather here can change quickly. Like clockwork, a thunderstorm rolled in at noon. Luckily it missed us and we were able to dry out our stuff from the condensation the night before.
A couple hours later another storm rolled through and this time we weren’t as lucky. We spent much of the day following ridges and I just barely made it down before the storm hit. We spent the next hour or so hiding from hail and rain under trees, then as the thunder moved away we made our way through the valley.
You can see most of our route in that photo. On the right side is the mountain with the lookout on top. You can see the ridge we came down and the valley we hiked through in the rain.
We climbed out of the valley and were treated with a few different rainbows. From here on out we walked a jeep road down towards steamboat.
We made camp along the road in a pullout usually used by car campers. It’s all a little wet from the rain but it’s flat and there’s water nearby. All in all it was about a 33 mile day with about 8000 feet of climbing.
Tomorrow we have about 20 miles to get into town. We don’t have a place to stay figured out but are sorta just hoping to join in on some 4th of July festivities and crash there. The rodeo is in town so maybe we can stay with some cowboys.