August 20
Mileage: 26
2,010.5 miles hiked

The CDT punishes cowboy campers. Condensation comes in, soaks my bag, and then the cold descends, turning the dew to frost and freezing my shoes solid. I toss and turn for much of the night, cold. I curl my legs up and tense my whole body and when I wake I’m aching and sore. Dawn! I made it through! I sit up in my sleeping bag and boil water for tea as the sky lightens. Hot tea OMG!!

Today there are huckleberries and small wild raspberries and we circle lake Granby on shittastic trail and then climb up, up, up back above ten thousand feet. At one point there is a campground with a small store and the boys buy soda and slim jims and I eat salami sandwiches and we dry our sleeping bags in the sun. My stomach sort of hurts for the rest of the day- it’s one of those days. I have little energy and I climb in my lowest gear. We’re all sort of worn out for some reason- because of the altitude here in Colorado? The steep and dissapearing nature of the trail? Could be. Camp is in a flat pine forest with good bare spots for our tarps, the sound of a rushing stream nearby. I make my hot noodles and crash.

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