Mosquito attack

Day 80

Date: 20.07.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 1'619.4

Miles hiked: 18.4 miles / 29.4 km

Elevation: 1'129 feet ascent (345 m Aufstieg) / 1'345 feet descent (Abstieg 410 m)

Camping at: 6'545 feet / 1'996 m

We slept in and only left the room at 11am. We bought cereals, milk and coffee yesterday and it is a fantastic breakfast we eat on the bench outside the room. Also SwissChris joins us, his room is just next door.

My feet are hurting a lot today and some blisters appeared. As it is an about 5-ish mile roadwalk on the highway out of Rawlings, passing the graveyard!, I decided to keep my Crocs on for the moment. While hiking along the highway, we missed the turnoff for the CDT trailhead, but luckily found another dirt road, following along the highway. Looks like a service road for the snow and wind construction's next to the highway. The CDT would be bushwalking further down in the open area and by hiking straight next to the highway it cuts off 1 or 2 miles, as the CDT reconnects with the highway again later on. A lot of hikers actually hike 10-ish more miles along the highway, but I hate pavement hiking and even more on a busy highway. The hike however was veeeery boring out of Rawlings! I thought it would never end. It was super hot and super windy. While wind is kinda nice, cause it gives a breeze, I also don't like it, cause it's harder to move, specially if the wind is against you. Also, there wasn't any shade at all. And we did a super yummy but also super heavy resupply yesterday and my backpack weighs a ton already without much water! My feet started to hurt more and when we finally reached the next water source after 12 miles, I put on my hiking shoes and took an ibuprofen. It hurts a lot getting your feet in the shoes, but walking is better than in the Crocs. We meet 'Senor Guano' at the water source, the first hiker on trail really since leaving Encampment. I have met him last in Colorado!

This is the last water source for 16 miles and will be the last water for today. Channy carried out Tequila, lime juice and lemon-lime Mio (electrolights) to make some hikertrash Margarita's on trail! While at the water source we therefore enjoy a cold Margarita, how fantastic is that?!🤣

I picked up and filtered 4 liters of water and on we go again. Finally, we leave the highway for the last time and drop down a bushwalk-trail into the Basin again. I planned to hike at least 20 miles today, but as my feet hurted badly and we are suddenly surrounded by many moskitos, we decided to stop and camp already after 18 miles on top of a little hill with less moskitos (it was also more windy). Also, this gives us more time to enjoy the evening, have another margarita, cook dinner and watch the beautiful sunset. It was anyway already 7pm, so we would only have hiked on maximum one more hour. We layed out our cowboy camping setup and were already half asleep by sunset, when the mosquitos started to attack us. I packed out my mosquito headnet and put on my raingear, but I was terribly hot in my sleeping bag like this. Also, I had like 30 moskitos on my headnet. No way I can sleep like this! So we got up again and pitched our tents as fast as possible to escape the mosquito attacks! I must have gotten quite some new bites, even though they should not be able to bite through the rain gear. I am done with today and all I want is to sleep. It's less than 7 hours till my alarm will wake me up again. Good night!

---