Rescued by a Cowboy

Day 95

Date: 04.08.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 1'858.3

Miles hiked: 23.5 miles / 37.6 km

Elevation: 3'428 feet ascent (1'045.5 m Aufstieg) / 3'025 feet descent (Abstieg 922.6 m)

Camping at: 9'426 feet / 2'875 m

We had some elk visitor's last night at our campsite Mouse informed us, but I slept through it. We got up early, but easypeasy😁 and hit the trail by 6.45am! Cheetah and Captain started 5 minutes earlier and I hiked out with Mouse. 1 mile in we encountered the first blowdowns. Some of them were quite bad and we had to walk around them in a big circle or walk over and under them, sometimes taking off our backpacks. And then we got lost! And only realized that we are hiking the wrong direction about 0.5 miles in. Well, return over all the blowdowns and try to find the CDT, a fainted trail hardly visible at first making a sharp turn. All the blowdowns and finding the trail is very time intense and our progress is step by step! We climbed up Gunsight Pass and did the steepest climb of today. It wasn't bad at all, but after nearly 3 zero days my legs are in town modus and first have to get motivated again to hike! It normally takes a day before I can feel my rhythm and strength in my legs again. So it was a little struggle for me getting up there, I have definitely climbed steeper and longer passes and had less issues with the uphill than this morning. I was glad once on top, where we also caught up with Cheetah and Captain. Also on the downhill we had several blowdowns and Captain and me got lost for the second time of the day! What a misery! Eventually we had to return and find a different route around the blowdowns, and by that time Cheetah and Mouse passed us. We met them a couple of miles later at a stream, both being surprised to be there first, respectively last. And suddenly we are back in the desert. Within no time we left the wind river range behind us, and sagebushes, less water and less shade, but the hot sun and loads of cows welcomed us again. The transition goes crazy fast! We stopped for lunch at the last good water source (unless a lake) for 11 miles. I prefer taking water from running sources as rivers and creeks rather than lakes if possible. I fill up my bottles and off we go again. It is very hot now, around 35 degrees Celsius and I am still struggling a little with my performance. I can easily keep up with the group, it's just a little harder. We pass the beautiful and quite big 'Lake of the Woods', where we wanted to go for a swim. But the shore is very flat and muddy and full with water flowers, not very inviting to me. We take a short break in the shade of the trees before we continue. The CDT leaves a dirt road and only thanks to Cheetahs good eyes and our App wed don't miss this turn off, leading into a field, where at the bottom a herd of cows is grazing. We pass them, but these are seriously curios cows, or they smell our salt, the whole herd is following us. This is getting a little creepy here. Out of the blue a Cowboy helps us out on his horse and with his dog, leading the cows back to where they belong. Pretty impressive! I don't know where the Cowboy came from but he did a good job in saving us from the cows and I am glad he was there. 🤠

Shortly later we caught up with Blizzard, who left the cabin at Greens River Lakes yesterday several hours before I did. He lost his phone and had to backtrack 2 miles to get it back yesterday, and only left camp late this morning. Together we hike on, getting some rain sprinkles and cooler temperatures with it, but most of the rain missed us. Sadly we didn't get to see the impressive peaks of the Tetons due to the clouds, which I was hoping for. We stopped a couple of miles later at a spring for dinner (grizzly bear safe, do not cook at the campsite). This is the first time ever on trail I cooked Mac and Cheese, which is the american version of the swiss älplermaggronen I would say, not comparable at all but a nice change of food on trail. Hiking on 1.4 miles we found our campspot for tonight. It is not even 7pm, but I do like being in camp early, even if that goes in hand with getting up earlier. It's 25 miles to the highway from here which leads into Dubois, easily doable in one day. However, we only want to reach town a day later, Dubois is expensive to stay at and therefore we will camp a couple of miles before the highway tomorrow, so a nice and short day hopefully🙂 being early at camp has other advantages next to enough sleep! Captain and Cheetah had some issues with their tent zipper and ordered some special zippers and when I told them about my broken sleepingbag, they offered me a zipper. Captain and I added a zipper onto my sleepingbag and it kinda works. It took us quite a while and many mosquito bites, but - fingers crossed - I hope I can make it to Canada like this! At least my sleepingbag is closed at the moment and I am super glad we had time to try it out tonight. Of course I put all my food and smelly products into my odorproof bag and the Ursack and hang them a couple of feed away on a tree. May a little too close to camp but at least it is away from our tents and I think I didn't forget anything tonight (last night I forgot hand cream an jelly beans, but was too tired to get up again, undo my hanging bag and add them. I did put them in the compactor bag in my backpack though.) But I think my tent and my clothes smell anyways. Most important is not to cook at camp and try to get food away. With my odorproof bag and the ursack my food and smelly products are double safe, but at the moment I feel better to do is extra work. Good night!

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