CDT Day 57 – Moccasin Basin

Date: 8/17/20

Daily Miles: 12

Total Miles: 1011

We had a nice and relaxing morning in our motel room. We had microwave burritos and breakfast sandwiches from the convenience store and sorted out our food for the coming stretch. We had decided to give ourselves a half day off, so we stayed in the room almost until checkout time.

When we left, we just crossed the road to hitch and a car pulled over for us within a minute. The guy who gave us a ride repairs helicopters that are involved in fighting forest fires and in search and rescue operations. He said that the fire season had been slow so far this year, but that the search and rescue calls had been very high.

As he was dropping us off at the trail, he also mentioned that we should be very cautious of grizzly bears, because the area we were heading into is the area where problem bears are relocated to. Definitely not reassuring to hear as we headed off into the woods.

Hearing about the bears made us hyper vigilant today. We didn’t listen to any music or podcasts. We ate our meals near water sources so we could rinse off any packaging that would have strong odors. When at our campsite, we stored our packs and pads away from our hammocks, we eliminated any smells from soap or toothpaste near our hammocks and we hung all food, TP and scented items. Hopefully we won’t have any issues through this area.

Yesterday before arriving at Brooks Lake Lodge, we got on an alternate trail. It is actually the old CDT…the trail has been rerouted and is new this year. We took the old trail since it went right by the lodge. We are still on the old trail and will reconnect with the actual CDT in another four miles or so.

Today’s walking was all on old logging roads. The route didn’t seem to get us to our end spot very efficiently, but at least the walking was easy and the uphill was very gradual. Since we were carrying 5 1/2 days of food and two liters of water, our packs felt quite heavy.

We ended up stopping around 5:30pm, because we were walking through a burned forest and finally saw a stand of live trees. According to our map, it looked like we were heading to a treeless stretch. So, we decided to stop for the day and just relax at camp for the evening.