Unexpected trail magic in the Basin

Day 78

Date: 18.07.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 1'583.2

Miles hiked: 32.2 miles / 51.5 km

Elevation: 1'919 feet ascent (585 m Aufstieg) / 2'867 feet descent (Abstieg 874 m)

Camping at: 7'205 feet / 2'197 m

We woke up with a beautiful sunrise. That's so nice when cowboycamping, I can just open my eyes and watch the sunrise. The sky was full of stars at night and I could even see the milkyway.

I slept very well tonight and feel recovered. We managed to get up early and start hiking just around 6am. Both of us felt much better today (yesterday we were both so tired in the morning and it took us a while to wake up).

We hiked on dirt roads all day. In the morning, they were more like dirt trails and they meandered along the Basin, with mellow ups and downs, passing some very curios and cute cows. About 8 miles in, at the first water source for today, we took a break in the shade under a bridge, taking our shoes and socks off to air out our feet. The water at that creek was flowing nicely, clear and coldish. What a treat! Feels awesome.

We follow along that river till lunch, where we stopp under another bridge again, hiding from the sun. The water quality dropped immensely though. It's more like a mud creek now (well, the creek is called muddy creek!). A ton of swallows have made their nests under the bridge and there are for sure 30 crayfishs in the shallow water. While eating lunch, we can watch them fighting! If I had salt here and a big enough pot I probably would catch them for dinner😋🤣

While breaking the weather has changed. Big clouds are covering the sky, it's windy and it looks like it could even rain. That's our luck, it's much easier to hike if it ain't that hot and we need less water. This is our last water for today and probably till Rawlings, which is 33 miles to go still! Well, there are some dirty ponds in between but other hikers warned us not to drink from them. Even after filtering the water, they still got sick. In a emergency, we can hike off trail a little and get to a spring the next day. We both carry 5 liters of water, the maximum load I can carry. My backpack is super heavy! And the road has changed now to a big, very well maintained red dirt road. It's nice at first, but it gets very boring. One can see the road for miles and miles and it feels like we are stepping on the spot. And the road is super hard to walk on, my feet start to burn. The weather however is still great. Very cloudy, I can even see some lightning's in the distance and from time to time I feel some sprinkles of rain drops on me, which dry off within the next couple of minutes again. While taking a short break on top of Bridger Pass we stop for a break in a ditch, save from the wind. We haven't seen any hiker yet today, but a few pronghorn antelopes. And out of the blue I hear a car noise. I get up bare feet and run to the road, just in time. The car stops. It's a day hiker and I ask for some water. I didn't drink much, but if he had some left, we make it to town tomorrow for sure. But he is out of water too. Well then, we have still enough water, I still have 4 liters, it's late already so in the next hour or two we will camp anyways. It would just have been nice to have plenty of water and to make a hot chocolate even tonight. We hike on and suddenly I can see that same car coming back. Still way ahead of us. And really, this guy went to town, bought water and drove back to give it to us. How amazing is that? I didn't realize at first he only came back to give us the water. He said he lives in a cabin in the area and I thought he is driving home. But once we cameled up (drink as much water as I can), and then refilled out bottles, he turned and drove the same way back. Damn it, we could have asked if he takes our backpacks 5 miles in and drops them at the street, so we could have hiked the last couple of miles of the day without carrying this heavy packs! Anyway, we have plenty of water now. That was such a nice gesture of this guy, I still can hardly believe what he did!

It's late already by the time we stop for camping in a flatish ditch down the dirt road. I am super tired. Hiking along this boring dirt road was mentally hard! And not to take to offered shuttle of this guy in the car even more! But I am glad we made it. We set our cowboy camping again, cooked dinner and a hot chocolate😁 and are ready for bed! Tomorrow we will arrive in Rawlings, and I am already dreaming of eating good thai food we heard of 😁

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