CDT Day 58 – Sheridan Pass

Date: 8/18/20

Daily Miles: 21

Total Miles: 1032

Our pack-up time in the morning has been slower lately because we have been hanging our bear bag. We have been getting up in the dark, which also seems to make things take longer. Today when we were getting our food bags down from the tree, Beardoh got a bad rope burn on his finger. It looked very painful and it was quite painful for awhile this morning.

We had a bit over three miles left of the old CDT trail before we met back up with the current CDT. It has been interesting to see all the CDT signage on the old trail…way more than what we had seen in the previous week or more.

We passed near some cattle grazing and ran into the rancher for the herd. He was tending to a calf that he believed had been attacked by a wolf and who had since gotten an infection. The rancher warned us about the grizzlies in the area…definitely had us hyper vigilant again today.

Today was another scorcher of a day. The mornings are quite chilly, but it heats up early and it gets really hot. There is a lot of walking where we are exposed to the sun. We are always searching out shade for a quick break.

This afternoon, we took a short alternate off the CDT. The Leeds Alternate was recommended to us for the good views of the surrounding mountain ranges. The alternate is actually just an old dirt road, but it is very open and high, so we could see all the neighboring ranges. We also read that there are a lot of antelope in the area, but we just saw a couple from a long distance.

On the alternate, we ran into another northbound CDT hiker, Gaoshan. He started his hike in Chama, NM and is hoping to make it Canada. He mentioned that he is dealing with shin splints right now, so we gave him some suggestions for things that have helped us in the past. Sounded like he was planning for a rest day in the next town, which is good.

We made it to camp just before 7pm. We ate a bit more food, washed up, hung our bear bag and then watched an episode of VEEP. We are going to wake up a little later tomorrow, since we won’t need to do as many miles. It will be nice to wake up in the light.