CDT Part 2 – Day 25 – Badger Station

8/21/21

Daily Miles: 13

2021 CDT Total Miles: 441

Overall CDT Total Miles: 2514

It stayed dry overnight, so our tarps were finally dry when we packed them up this morning. The sky was still grey and overcast.

SweetPea’s foot was still really sore this morning, but we hoped it would be better with some movement. We had some climbing this morning which felt nice to warm us up. The trail was full of thimbleberries, so Beardoh was usually lagging behind as he stopped to eat them all.

We got to our first water source around three and a half miles in. We did laundry in the ice cold water, so our hands were freezing. Just as we finished up, it started raining. It seemed that Mother Nature wanted to distract SweetPea from her foot problem…and what better distraction than being cold and wet. With temperatures in the low 40’s, it felt really cold.

We got to the bottom of a big climb and decided to look at our options. The trail gained about 1,500 feet of elevation and had us in exposed meadows. That didn’t sound very appealing in the cold and rain. We could see from other hikers’ comments that there was a more direct trail which kept us lower. The alternate trail also shaved off about four miles and was a nice tread and grade which was easier walking for SweetPea.

With the cold rain, we didn’t want to stop and take breaks, but we figured it would be good to get some calories in our bodies, so we stopped at a vacant ranger cabin. Unfortunately, it was in an open area and the wind picked up, so it was really cold on the porch of the cabin. Beardoh’s fingers were so cold he couldn’t get his snack wrappers open, so SweetPea had to help him. But we shoved a few bars into our mouths, added our windshirts under our rain jackets and then continued on.

SweetPea’s foot was quite painful by the end of the day. We had already planned where we wanted to camp, so since we saved a few miles this morning, we were able to get to camp really early. We were so happy to be at camp and able to get out of the cold rain. We are really ready for some sunshine.