Breathtaking sunset

Day 106

Date: 15.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'129.9

Miles hiked: 26.6 miles / 42.6 km

Elevations: 5'741 feet ascent (1'751 m Aufstieg) / 5'262 feet descent (Abstieg 1'604.9 m)

Camping at: 7'526 feet / 2'295.45m

My alarm went off at 5.30am as usual. And as usual I kept on snoozing till 6am. It was still pretty dark outside. I can now suddenly feel that the days are getting shorter. 20 minutes later the sky was brighter already. But it was still pretty cold. Having only my shorts and getting into wet socks (they didn't dry yesterday after the hail and rain) and into my wet shoes doesn't help much. We hiked out an hour later. It is a lot of uphill climbing today and it starts already with a 4 miles uphill hike. Most of the time this first climb was a gentle uphill climb, with some small steep sections in between. 6 miles later we reach the last water source for the next 8-ish miles, so I cameled up and filtered 1.5 liter. It's cold, clear and delicious water. I hike out first, the sun is out and it is very hot again. The temperatures vary a lot during the day now. Mornings and evenings are brisk, during the day (if it doesn't hail and rain!) It is still super hot. 5 miles later I stop to wait for the group. Cheetah turns up first. She is worried we will not make it to our pre discussed campsite today, which is around 24 miles from this mornings campsite. It seems that Captain and Mouse are quite slow today. I must admit, I was also a little worried, specially as we still have to climb a lot. The next climb is very steep and shortly after 12pm, reaching a flat spot I wait again. I am not sure if we want to stop here to eat lunch. We planed to hike to the next water source and stop there for lunch, but the next water source is still 2 miles in and involves more steep uphill climbing. And an advantage of eating lunch here is, next to having a break, we will eat and drink water, which makes our packs a little lighter for the 2 miles climb. So we stop and eat and drink, and only an hour later we are back on trail, heading to the water source. This is the last water for 11 or 12-ish miles, so I camel up again and fill 2 liters. We hike on through some cool old death trees and get rewarded with amazing views. The downhill is super steep and the next uphill is like being back in Colorado, very very steep again. But luckily the very steep section is less than a mile long, not like in Colorado. But it still takes me much longer, as it is just straight up the mountain. On top of them mountain, Cheetah takes a shortcut, while I wait for them at the top of the mountain on the other side next to trees. Once Mouse comes along, we realized that Cheetah and Captain must have passed us. They are both sitting under a tree one or two miles up the trail, cooking dinner😁 Cheetah was wondering where I was, as I was ahead and while waiting she decided to use this time to cook. It is a very nice spot and only 4 miles to camp, even though it is still pretty early, only shortly past 5pm. So we all decided to break here for dinner. We hike out again, the light getting more and more golden and once we reached (and actually passed) the water source, which is supposed to be a little off trails, surrounded by hundreds of cows, and which we couldn't find, we decided to hike on two mores miles to the next creek. That was an absolutely great decision. We hiked on into the most amazing sunset I have seen so far on trail. The light was amazing, and so were the views. I really, really enjoyed this evening hike. We even managed to pitch our tents before it got dark. And having hiked two more miles today than planned, means we can sleep in a little longer tomorrow, as we go into town and there is supposed to be a shuttle service around 9.20am. And the best thing today was, it didn't rain, storm or hail on us all day long! If only all days were like this!

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