First hero day on trail!

Day 107

Date: 16.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 2'141.5

Miles hiked: 11.6 miles / 18.6 km

Elevations: 748 feet ascent (228.3 m Aufstieg) / 981 feet descent (Abstieg 299.2 m)

Camping at: 7'297 feet / 2'225.6m

We 'slept' in till 6.30am. It is only 4 miles to the highway and the shuttle from the trailhead to Lima should be there around 9.20am. Lima, a pretty small town in Montana, offers three shuttles a day to hikers. 9.20am, 11.20am and 5.20pm. A service which we hikers appreciate lot, as it is super hard to hitch here. So we want to make sure to be there on time, and hike out at 7.20am. The 4 miles are super easy, slightly downhill on a dirt road and we make it to the highway by 8.30am already. Well then, we wait I guess. I get out my sitting pad and arrange my backpack for a little nap while waiting. All my devices are out of battery and so is my power bank, hence there is nothing much to do for me. The shuttle arrives at 9.15 am with many well known faces. 'Mr. Freeze' I can hear from several people, 'why are you here and not far ahead of us?!'. Well, I guess I did a couple of zeros in Wyoming and waited for my current trailfamily. There is 'Mud bath' and 'Sonic', whom I seem to see in most of the towns. When I get in, they leave😁. There is 'Mountaingoat', whom I seen last in Salida, Colorado. 'Cream', who I already know from the PCT in 2018 and seen also for last time at the beginning of Colorado, and 'Rattler', who started on the same day as I and whom I've seen last in New Mexico! That's so funny. We will not be far behind them, as we plan to take the 5pm shuttle from town back to the trailhead today and for sure see them soon again. That would be my first hero day on trail. Hero means, going into town and leave on the same day.

We drive to 'town', with a population of about 200! A very small town hence. I like small towns, means hikers can get around easily without cars. The Motel, where the laundromat is located, is opposite the restaurant and about 150 feet from the gas station, my only resupply option here. 'Cream' already warned me. Because of all the hikers lately, the shelves are pretty empty, but they will get restocked tomorrow. Well, tomorrow we are not here anymore. I will have to buy what is still left. We first hit the restaurant for breakfast. I get a huge portion of biscuits and gravy, with a side of 4 buttered toasts and a country fried steak - a 'Schnitzel' (I know very strange, but it is a side on the breakfast menu!). I loved it, a kind of a Wiener Schnitzel for breakfast, exactly what we hikers love, and eat it all up! I was busy charging all my electronics during our whole stay. It seems that the voltage here was not very high and it took all day to charge my gear. Then I resupplied with whatever was still left. I will have 'old fashioned donuts' for breakfast, ritz crackers with beefsticks or jerky and cheese for lunch and for dinner mashed potatoes or ramen. Then I bought a ton of m&ms, twix and sweets for in between. Yes, that all is super heavy, but all I could find. Next, we get our laundry done. Laundry takes 2 hrs, that is very long but at least our clothes should be very clean then. In the meantime I downloaded the audiobooks of Harry Potter, books 3 to 7, and was busy with a lot of things next to that. We also got to meet 'Mayer', a southbound hiker. It turned out he was Dixie's boyfriend and I have seen him on some of her youtube videos when she hiked the CDT in 2018, as he visited her along her hike a couple of times. Dixie homemade wanderlust is a youtube star in the thru hiking world. She hiked all three famous long distance trails in the US, the PCT, the AT and the CDT, and other longer trails too. One either loves or hates her. She was the first one to vlog (video blog on youtube) her thru hikes, tips and trick, do's and dont's, etc. and her videos are of very high quality. I love her. She was the one who made me hike the PCT in 2018. I can't believe I met someone who knows her well! We chat while I do all my other chores next to it. And I can use his room to get a free shower! Time runs, we are all running around trying to get our chores done. By 4pm Captain and I go the restaurant across the street to order take-out dinner. While waiting, we both get Pie's, mine with ice cream. It's 4.45pm by the time we got our food and the shuttle driver turned up. Noooo, I still have to eat. At least my side salad, as I can't carry out these styropor boxes. My hamburger I squeeze into a zip lock bag for later🤭🙈 I wolf down my salad, get my electronics from the charger and pack up within these 15 minutes. What a busy afternoon! Cheetah is totally stressed out and proposes to stay here for the night. This thought obviously would be very nice, but we also want to reach the Canadian boarder before winter comes. Also, the upcoming stretch is not that long, around 100 miles, but every SOBO thru hiker we have met so far, including Mayer today, informed us about a very hard but beautiful section - a rollercoaster of trail. It will be a lot of super steep climbing, little water, no trees, following the Idaho/Montana boarder along a ridge line. Hiking 25 miles a day could be hard. Specially with my heavy pack on and the extra water we have to carry. It's definitely gonna be tough. But if we hike a couple of miles today already, we can hike out early tomorrow, enjoy the cool morning air for the first few climbs and have to hike little less than 25 miles a day. As my group has send themselves food boxes again to Leadore, our next town stop, we have to wait till Monday anyways to pick them up. We will not make it on time by saturday and on sundays the post office is closed. That just gives us some more time for this hard section. And the weather is supposed to be good for the next few days.

So we get in the shuttle and hike out again, on a dirt road next to hundreds of cows. At the trailhead, where there is a creek, and before the steep climbing starts, we set camp. In middle of all the cows. I hope I can sleep tonight with all the 'muuh's' of the cows!

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