Twenty-seven miles to town. That’s a big day no matter how you look at it. I wanted to get to town early enough to get some food and maybe even find a hotel room.
I hit the trail at 6 am and hiked the 7 miles to the Wyoming border. I didn’t see any people, but I saw deer, elk, and heard what may have been turkeys. I had it all to myself.
Surprisingly, in Wyoming the trail became better marked. There were CDT markers, cairns, poles, and marks cut into tree. I’m Colorado, they only seem to care about the Colorado Trail. It’s a shame, because the best parts of the CDT were the parts that Todd not overlap with the CT.
I made good progress today and managed to hike 27 miles before 5 pm. That should give me plenty of time to get to town and get some food. Battle Pass is where I was trying to get a ride. There was a trail register and I knew there would be at least one familiar face in town despite me being so far ahead of my friends.
Not long after starting to hitch a Jeep pulled up and unloaded a couple hikers. One was 700, the guy who helped me with a ride into steamboat. The couple in the jeep owned the restaurant in town and told me to hop in.
Unfortunately they weren’t going all the way back into town. They were headed to a memorial BBQ and had closed their restaurant. They dropped me off somewhat close to town and a minute after they left, someone leaving the BBQ picked me up. The back seat was full of bullet casings. Welcome to Wyoming.
I went straight to the only restaurant in town that was open and sat with some hikers I hadn’t met before. That’s when ET showed up. We had some drinks and made our way to the campground across the street.
The campground had more hikers in one place than I’ve seen all trail. It reminded me of the PCT. We all sat around trading stories. A few people had beers so I went to find a store that was open. Unfortunately everywhere was closed, but the Bear Trap Diner sold beer to go! I bought a lot of Busch Light and gave it away to everyone.
Tomorrow I’m going to get some breakfast, some food for the next few days, then it’s off to Rawlins. I’d like to get as far ahead of my friends as possible to make it easier to catch them later. I think I’ll see them in the morning and we can have a proper goodbye before I head to a wedding in Washington for five days. I’m not excited for the wedding, but I am really excited to see Meghan.