It was nice to wake up to clear skies today. Everything was still pretty wet from the rain last night but I was hopeful the sun would be out to dry everything off.
The day started off walking through some young pine forests and burn areas. These trails are pretty wide and signs along them banning motorized use in the summer make me think they’re also for snowmobiles.
After the romp in the forest I went back up on the divide. I can tell the mountains are changing. There are bigger rocks, cliffs, lakes, and way less rolling grassy hills.
I didn’t see as many sobos today as I have the past few so I think I’m nearing the end of the pack. The southbound weather window is really tight and all these people need to make it through Colorado before the snow starts falling.
One of the sobos I saw was a guy named Chezwick that I actually met on the PCT in 2017. He’s attempting the Great Western Loop that connects the PCT, PNT (Pacific Northwest Trail), and the CDT. He just needs to finish the CDT and he’ll have done it.
I’m having socks shipped to the post office in the next town and on the day I arrive they’re open from 12:30 to 1:30. That means I need to get to the pass at like 11:30 am to have a chance of getting to the post office on time. I’m not even sure if the socks will make it there by then, but I need to give myself a chance because my socks are full of holes. There are 55 miles to go in two days so I think I can pull it off.
The last couple of hours before I made it to camp it rained. I used my umbrella for a bit and eventually put on my raincoat. I almost immediately took it off because I started a climb and it was too hot. Better to be wet with rain than sweat. It was nice the forest was spread out enough I could use the umbrella.
I made it 35 miles today and found out I had some cell phone service at camp. I called Meghan but the service wasn’t quite good enough to talk. As the night went on it sorta just stopped working. Could be something to do with clouds or the weather I guess? While I was cooking dinner, a visitor showed up!
This is the second owl I’ve seen on trail. It flew around the trees in camp looking at me. I was honestly a little nervous because I’ve heard of owls attacking people. It just seemed curious and flew away when I stood up and moved closer to it.
I also had another visitor, Poles, who caught up to me at the very end of the day. I don’t think he’s used to someone hiking as fast as him because he seemed surprised it took all day to find me.