Despite staying up pretty late last night, I still woke up bright and early with the sun. I had plans to resupply and hit the road right away, but the store didn’t open until 8.
I used that extra time to charge my battery pack and take a shower. Taking a shower without a towel or clean clothes kinda sucks, but at least it got the layers of sunscreen and big spray off of me.
After going to the store and getting my resupply from the very limited choices, I went back to enjoy some pop and chocolate milk. The breakfast of champions. At this point I could try getting a ride back to the pass or I could sit and wait for the first restaurant in town to open at 11. Not hard to guess which I picked. I also wanted to wait and say goodbye to my friends before taking 5 days off the trail, in case they don’t catch up to me.
As I was waiting for the Mangy Moose to open, Raider showed up. I had passed him two days before and knew everyone else would be pretty close behind. Another guy, Pitch, had to wait over an hour for his ride. When he eventually made it down he reported that Caddyshack had just arrived at the pass and the others probably weren’t far behind.
By the time everyone got into town I was done eating and ready to leave. They all wanted to resupply and get lunch so I started hitching back to the trail. After about 20 minutes of walking to the other side of town I got a ride, but there was one stop she had to make on the way.
She had to let her horses out to pasture! I got out of the car and watched as the horses ran out into the fields. They followed her around but watched me warily.
The woman had recently retired from the forest service and she had some interesting info about the local wildlife, like how the bighorn sheep herds were struggling and things like that. It was really nice of her to give me a ride since I’m pretty sure she wasn’t actually going up the pass.
The trail from here gets much easier than I’m used to in Colorado. There was a medium sized climb over Bridger Peak before the trail started dropping into the plains.
It was out here I saw Honey Badger, a hiker I met in Grand Lake going north. He had decided to get out of Colorado when he hit steamboat and went north to Rawlins. Bold choice since that means a lot more uphill hiking.
As the day wore on, I was still alone and needed to find a campsite. I could see rain clouds in the distance and got sprinkled on a few times. Eventually the sun began to set and through the trees it almost looked like they were on fire.
I found a somewhat sheltered area and set up tents. The mosquitoes weren’t terrible, but I still needed to cook while sitting in my tent. A few more sprinkles rolled through and I expect a few more tonight. It’s time for Wyoming!