Camping near Grizzly's

Day 110

Date: 19.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'214.1

Miles hiked: 22.5 miles / 36 km

Elevations: 5'611 feet ascent (1'711.35 m Aufstieg) / 3'888 feet descent (Abstieg 1'185.85 m)

Camping at: 9'114 feet / 2'779.8 m

We hiked out at 6.40am already, again to a beautiful sunrise. I love this time of the day and hiking out to such beautiful sunrises. It was a gentle 1'000 feet climb in 3.3 miles back up to the official CDT route and to the Hardness Lakes. Up there, we run into 'Happy' and 'T-Bone'. After that, we had some pretty steep uphill climbs to master till lunch. I listened to Harry Potter all morning, so I get distracted from the climbs. After 7 miles we stopped for our second breakfast break at 9.30am. Even with all the climbs, we are doing good progress. Climbing here in 'lower' elevation (around 3'000 meters in elevation, still not super low!) is much easier than when we had to do the same amount of climbing in Colorado, where we were in much higher elevation. I was worried in the morning, when I checked our day in our app and have seen how much climbing we have to do today. We still have to do the climbs, it's not that I don't 'suffer', they are still mostly steep, but in comparison to Colorado they are for sure easier to handle. And it was a beautiful hike with very nice views today. When I stopped for lunch about 12 miles in at a spring, 'Happy' and 'T-Bone' were there already. They have taken a shortcut to cut some climbing, which we missed, and hence passed us unnoticed. However, I was worried where my group was. I hiked pretty slowly, but did not see them anymore, even so we walked on ridge lines and over hills with long distance view, and I could see pretty far back. I was worried they took a shortcut too and that they are ahead of me, but I don't know where. But Happy and T-bone haven't seen them either, so they must be behind me. About 30 minutes later they finally turn up. I have already eaten lunch and would be ready to hike out again. But a longer break is also nice😁 and also 'mountain goatj shows up. It was nice to have a lunch break without hurry and to chat to the other hikers. Hiking out it was a lot of gentle downhill and the miles flew by. I could hardly believe how many miles we hiked since lunch, time and miles seemed to fly by, listening to Harry Potter. I love that feeling, wish it would be like that all days! In the afternoon some dark clouds rolled over, the wind picked up and we could see rain and lightening in the closer distance. But we were lucky today, we somehow managed to miss the storms. Every now and then I could feel some raindrops the wind was carrying over, but we did not reach the storms. I didn't and at all! When we stopped for dinner at 5pm also Happy and T-Bone joined us. As we could feel some drops, we thought that now the rain has cought us too, but again we are super lucky. Only a few drops reach us, we all put on our raingear in a hurry. We think that the rain stopped because we put on our rain gear and we all feared taking the rainjacket off again 😁. As the weather forecast predicted some more thunderstorms at night and we are hiking on an exposed ridge line for the next couple of miles, we only hiked 1.5 more miles, were we set camp in a nice forest. It is still early and we could all hike on, but ending up in a thunderstorm and lightening on an exposed ridge line is too risky for us. Safety first! However, yesterday people commented on the app that two grizzly's have been seen here and down at the spring, were we ate dinner. Due to that, also Happy and T-Bone and later also mountain goat join our camp. The more the better. We carefully hang our food far away and hope that the grizzly's don't join our party tonight! Bears haveda very good noise and w have to hang our food and smelly products about 200 feet away from tent. Theoretically I should also put my day clothes in that bag, as they smell of food and me, but then I don't have a pillow (I use a drybag with all the clothes I don't wear during the night as my pillow)! Also I have cooked and spilled food in my tent several times before, I am sure they can still smell that. So I am as careful as I can and as it makes sense. I also pee close to my tent before going to bed, as that apparently keeps the Grizzlies away🤭 I know that Grizzly's are around here (also blackbears but I don't fear them), but I have never seen a Grizzly on trail. We did see their footprints and poop on trail though. However, in my mind they are always far away from trail! Knowing that hikers have seen two Grizzlys here only yesterday, they must still be close. I will put in my earplugs and hopefully have a good night sleep!

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