Date: 7/11/20
Daily Miles: 19
Total Miles: 417
Last night was exactly what we expected and hoped for. It was completely quiet, with no car driving down the road. And it got really cold overnight as we were next to a creek in a valley.
We left camp with all of our extra layers on this morning. We walked for awhile along the creek in the valley so we ended up keeping our layers on for awhile. As we were walking across from a meadow, we saw a moose heading into the trees on the edge of the meadow. That makes four moose sightings in Colorado!
We had to ford the creek several times in the morning. The water was a bit too high to be able to hop across on the rocks, so our feet got soaked and very cold.
Once we got to the end of the valley, the real pattern for today started: climb to a ridge then descend to a valley and repeat. It made for a very beautiful day with great views, but it also made for a very tiring day.
Part of what made today so exhausting was that it was so hot. We were hiking above tree line for a lot of the day and the sun just felt so intense. There was barely any breeze, so we really felt the heat.
Near the top of our final climb today, we ran into another CDT hiker. His trail name is Rhodes and he is section hiking the trail. He had just started yesterday on this current section, heading north. He is hoping to finish his final section in northern Montana this summer…maybe we’ll see him up there. He had begun hiking the CDT 2005.
Even when we were on our final descent into Silverthorne, we just felt like we were being cooked by the heat. We finally made it to the paved roads in town and headed straight to Chipotle for dinner. Our friend, Qball, had told us that there was a Chipotle near trail, so that is what we had been thinking of all day.
Once we were sitting down eating our dinner, we all realized how beat from the heat we were. The idea of walking a short distance to a motel started to sound a lot better than walking a minimum of several miles to the trailhead and hoping for favorable camping conditions right away. What started out as a joke about staying in town soon sounded like a great idea. So, we are now enjoying our motel room for the night.
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