CT – Day 10

Daily Miles: 20.5
Total Miles: 201

It seemed like the CT was trying really hard to make us not like it today.  We are convinced that someone from NH helped build the trail around here, because today was just steep up and then steep down and then repeat.

When we got up SweetPea’s hip was still feeling sore.  We decided to stop every hour on the hour so she could stretch, roll her hip and have Beardoh massage it.  So, we lost about 10-15 minutes of every hour to this maintenance.  That meant the miles came really slowly, but it did help SweetPea’s hip.

We also had a few mishaps on the trail, with both of us falling at different times.  Beardoh twisted his ankle on a rock and fell off the trail (luckily his ankle didn’t swell or hurt for too long).  SweetPea stepped on a loose rock in a stream crossing and ended up falling into the stream.  Her skirt was all muddy, but since there was no one around, she just took her skirt off and cleaned it up in the stream.

The trail was so quiet today.  We didn’t see another soul until after lunch.  Then we started to see a few day hikers as we got close to a trailhead.  At the trailhead, we ran into Rick and Dina, a couple from Denver.  Rick is thru-hiking/biking, and Dina is supporting him in their camper, while also day hiking a lot of the trail.  We stopped and talked with them for awhile before starting our final and steepest climb of the day.

We definitely had a few choice words for the trail and the folks who built it as we climbed up.  There was so much elevation gain, and no switchbacks.  It was pretty slow going and we were happy for the dinner break part way up the climb.

Once we got to the top, we figured we could do a few more miles, since it was all downhill from there.  We ended hiking until about 8:15pm.  We were both exhausted and went straight to sleep after washing up.  We are planning to wake up early tomorrow, as we are trying to make it in for lunch at Mount Princeton Hot Springs, and it is about 14 miles from here.