Epic fall colored aspen trees

Day: 146

Date: 06.10.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'247.7

Miles hiked: 32.6 miles / 52.2 km

Elevations: 3'133 ascent (955.6 m Aufstieg) / 5'269 feet descent (1'607 m)

Camping at: 8'553 feet / 2'609 m

It started raining during the night, but only for a short while. The tent was dry again in the morning, just the moist from breathing made the inside of the tent a little damp. I do feel much better today, more rested, even thought I didn't feel I slept great last night.

We continued hiking through beautiful aspen forests this morning. The weather was cloudy and coldish, but no rain. I hiked on and when I had to wait for Soccermum for 20 minutes to catch up (as he was busy taking pictures of the beautiful fall aspens), I got a little nervous if we will reach our daily hiking goal of 25+ miles a day. Uphill climbs, even if they are small, still are hard for me. I can feel the higher altitude a lot, but I do not have headache, just breathing seems much harder. Shortly before lunch I had to quickly stop and while I was breaking, I heard the sound of a trembling ground coming closer. What the heck is that? A herd of antelopes was running my way! They stopped immediately when seeing me, carefully watching me before they took off again. This was amazing, they were only a couple of feets away from me. 5 minutes later I run into Pilgrim and another hiker I met when hiking Nobo. Also these two came back to complete the closed section. They informed me that it has been raining heavily on them all the past week and even yesterday. We had some drizzles and a little rain in the morning, but then it cleared up in the afternoon. And we were only like 25 miles appart, having such different weather experiences. We must have been very lucky yesterday!

We stopped for lunch after 16.7 miles of hiking at around 1.30pm as a group of horse riders passed by. Also they told us about very bad weather yesterday, rain and even hail!

As we hiked on in the afternoon the sun finally came out. We reached a big official campsite at Hopewell Lake and met some fisher's there. We were given water, homemade sandwhiches and apples! And an elderly couple gave us a ride a few miles down the road, as they are both planning on thru hiking the CDT next year and wanted to know all about it! This ride helped us getting a big mile day in. We hiked on a couple of more miles, where we found the nicest campspot on the whole CDT so far, under a group of huge trees, after crossing a river on a sketchy log. While Soccermum walked over the log upright, I had to sit down and straddle over it😁🙈. We managed to cook and eat dinner just before the last daylight left and a nearly full moon rose up. I did feel much better today, but I am still looking forward to a long night sleep again!

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