Long Distance Hiker

Thru Hiker's Blog and More

  • HOME
  • TRAIL JOURNALS
  • TRAIL PHOTOS
  • RESOURCES
    • Trip Planning & Debrief
    • Fitness, Food & Health
    • Gear
    • Community
    • Recommended Reading
    • Arizona Trail (AZT) – Resupply Plan
    • John Muir Trail Resupply Plan
    • Long Trail (LT) Planning Guide
  • ABOUT US
  • CONTACT
You are here: Home / Continental Divide Trail 2020 / CDT Part 2 – Day 35 – The Double Tap

CDT Part 2 – Day 35 – The Double Tap

September 2, 2021 by SweetPea

9/2/21

Daily Miles: 26

2021 CDT Total Miles: 596

Overall CDT Total Miles: 2669

Our alarms went off at 4:45am this morning, and we sleepily got ourselves out of our warm sleeping bags and out into the freezing cold air. We packed up quickly and headed out at 5:20am. It was pitch black when we started out and we used our headlamps for the first hour of walking.

Shortly after leaving camp, we came to a suspension bridge where we each had to go over one at a time. It was pretty cool to cross the swaying bridge in the dark. And it was cool to watch the other go across, where we just watched the headlamp light of person.

The first five and a half miles today were a backtrack from yesterday. It was good that we had already hiked these miles, since we couldn’t see anything in the dark. We had to backtrack today in order to get to a trail junction that would put us on a east-west trail. We needed to get out to the eastern edge of the national park.

We got to the junction which would take us in the direction to Stoney Indian Pass. The trail was fairly overgrown with thimbleberry plants. The climb to the pass followed a river which provided a lot of noise as we walked. It was very noticeable when we turned a corner and all of a sudden no longer heard the water.

As we got close to the pass, we walked around Stoney Indian Lake which was perfectly still in the early morning. It created the perfect mirror to the pass and surrounding mountains. We were thankful to be hiking there at that time of day to see it in such a pristine state.

We got to the pass and took a break, but tried not to stay too long since we had a time scheduled for finishing the day. MountainMan’s mom and aunt were going to be meeting us at the Chief Mountain border crossing at 6:00pm, which meant we pretty much had to keep a 2 mile per hour pace (including breaks).

The descent from the pass was incredibly pretty…waterfalls, a chain of lakes filling up the valley floor, and several of the park’s highest peaks lining the valley. We were glad that we had a pass to go over today, because the passes have been such a highlight this past week.

When we got down to the valley floor, the walking was fairly flat as we went along the lakes. While the trail was near the lakes, we only got fleeting glimpses of the lakes, until we got to the final lake, Cosley Lake, where we could look back at the length of the lake and see the pass we had just come down. It was a really stunning view.

As we walked away from Cosley Lake, the landscape started to change pretty dramatically. The high, rocky peaks fell away to soft rolling hills. It was pretty surprising to see the quick change. Soon we were into open meadows as we closed in on our final miles.

We had a surprising climb in the final few miles before we finished. It felt like a final kick in the pants, as we were all so exhausted by that point. We stopped just short of the end so Beardoh, MountainMan and SweetPea could put on their crowns. Somehow we timed it perfectly and arrived at the trailhead at exactly 6:00pm.

MountainMan’s mom and aunt were waiting for us at the trailhead with food and drinks. It was a great way to finish the hike. We took finish photos and then started the long drive back to town.

Filed Under: Continental Divide Trail 2020, Continental Divide Trail (CDT) 2020

« CDT Part 2 – Day 34 – Canada
Heading to Slovenia »

Comments

  1. Tao Jones says

    September 6, 2021 at 3:38 pm

    Sincere and hearty congratulations to you both and to MountainMan on completing your Triple Crown quests. Awesome achievement!

    Reply
    • Beardoh says

      September 8, 2021 at 6:12 am

      Thanks for following along and your kind words 🙂

  2. Frank says

    September 6, 2021 at 9:18 pm

    Congratulations on the triple crown! Pretty amazing!

    Reply
    • Beardoh says

      September 8, 2021 at 6:13 am

      Thanks Frank! We hope you are doing well 🙂

  3. Triund Trek says

    February 20, 2022 at 8:47 am

    Very nice article As a travel blogger myself, The Solo Girl Traveler, I admire several travel bloggers for their amazing creativity, talent, and sense of adventure.

    Reply

Questions or thoughts on this article? Please leave them below: Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Join our email list to be updated of our latest posts.

All Slovenia Mountain Trail 2022 Posts

Buffalo Roamer Podcast Image

Buffalo Roamer Podcast Feature

2021 Gear Lists – CDT and John Muir Trail

Don’t Patreon Us, Donate to these guys instead

Special Thanks To:


Top Posts & Pages

  • Thoughts and Advice for Hiking the Slovenia Mountain Trail
    Thoughts and Advice for Hiking the Slovenia Mountain Trail
  • GET Day 28: Continental Divide Trail
    GET Day 28: Continental Divide Trail
  • PCT Resupply & Town Thoughts - Part 1 (Mile 0-454)
    PCT Resupply & Town Thoughts - Part 1 (Mile 0-454)

Thru Hiker Blog

Well over 14,000 miles of our thru hiking blogs, photos of our trips and resources can all be found on this site.  We hope that the pages herein can be of help and inspiration.

Like Us On Facebook

Long Distance Hiker

Click Here for RSS Feed

Follow us on Instagram

Affilate Disclosure

Some of the links within the pages Long Distance Hiker are affiliate links.  We are discontinuing the addition of affiliate links to new pages as of February 2019.

We encourage you to support the trail organizations that make hiking around the world a possibility.

Copyright © 2023 · longdistancehiker.com · Thanks for Visiting ·

Sign Up for our mailing list to get our newsletter with new posts.
This is typically emailed 1-3 times per month.

powered by MailChimp!

 

×