Transitioning back into Mountain terrain

Day 86

Date: 26.07.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 1'733.4

Miles hiked: 11.2 miles / 17.9 km

Elevation: 1'729 feet ascent (527.35 m Aufstieg) / 1'470 feet descent (Abstieg 488.35 m)

Camping at: 8'314 feet / 2'535.7 km

While Channy left early, I slept through it all. I asked for a late check out at 1pm and will just rest all morning in bed and pack up.

I meet up with Vista and her friend at 1.30 pm at the burger place. I am really hungry as the last thing I've eaten was lunch yesterday! Our Motel is right on the other side of town where the restaurants are, about 1.5 miles down the road. It was too far away for me to get out and walk there again for dinner! It's nice to meet Vista's friend and chat for a while. I get a burger for lunch and a carry out burger for dinner tonight.

My backpack is very heavy again loaded with food for 4.5 days (probably more!), and the bear proof Ursack plus the food hanging kit and the bearspray, which we have to carry now soon entering grizzly country till the canadian boarder. That also means we are not allowed to cook anymore at our campsite, but have to stop for dinner about 2 miles before and then hang all our smelly product's (food, sunscreen, toothpaste, wipes, etc). A lot of extra work, which for sure I will not like much!

We are back on trail around 3pm, which is much earlier than I thought. But it's good, then we manage to hike some miles already today! It's very hot though, in the middle of the afternoon. There is no cloud covering the sky neither is there any wind.

Vista and me are hiking on the dirt road and chatting along, as when we check our app for the trail, we see we are 0.6 miles off trail! Oh no, how could that happen?!🤣 Oh well, we can backtrack on another route and reconnect with the trail again.

We are back in the transition zone from the Great Divide Basin desert into the Wind River Range mountains. There is water every couple of miles again which is super nice. Also we hike into pine tree forest and see more rock formations again. We pass through massive blowdowns which luckily have all been cleared last year. And finally we are back on a single path hiking trail. It has been a very long time since we had a hiking trail and no dirt or paved roads.

My feed in my new shoes are doing great. I have much more room and while the old blisters are still healing, but are on a good way, I didn't get any new ones! Also it doesn't hurt anymore with every step I take. I am relieved!

We managed to hike 11 miles this afternoon and arrived at camp shortly after 8pm. We are both tired and it is getting dark already (back in the mountain zone where the light disappears earlier. In the desert we had light till 9.30pm)! We are still more in the desert than in the mountains and finally decided not to hang our food tonight. There are no good hanging trees around and I honestly don't believe any grizzly comes down to that low elevation and into the heat. Also, no one has ever mentioned seeing a grizzly down here. There are cows down here too, I guess the grizzly would rather go and get a cow!🤣 As we carried out burgers, we also decided it is fine to eat them tonight at our campsite. We do not need to cook them, it won't be very smelly. So here we go already, not being very grizzly proof and saying out loud today afternoon that we strictly gonna follow that rule🤣! But as of tomorrow we shall be better! Just in case I take my bear spray next to me in my tent and leave the food and smelly products in my vestibule outside the tent (some of them are in an odor proof and bear proof bag anyways).

I wake up during the night a couple of times because I hear noise. It could be my tyvek in the wind or an animal getting our bags. Once the noise was that loud I get up, check my bag and scream over to Vista if she is ok. She yells back 'yes, I am just not lying comfortably on my air mattress. Sorry for being that loud!'. Christ it was the air mattress making so much noise and not an animal dragging away our food bags🤣🤣🙈. Back to sleep then!

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