September 13
Mileage: 24.5
2,554.5 miles hiked

I have all sorts of crazy dreams but sleep ok then wake up, eat salami sandwiches while watching the sun rise, start to hike and then promptly sit on a rock to get some things done online that I forgot to get done because suddenly I have service. Turns out that this year on the CDT I’m a spacey, A.D.D. hiker, lots of stopping and starting. I’m also very addicted to my phone. Spark once said

“It’s hard for me to imagine you without your phone.”

This coming from someone who has only ever known me in the woods. In the woods! I cringed to imagine what he would think of me if he saw me in the regular world.

“We all have our vices,” I said. I don’t drink or smoke drugs or gamble or play video games, so…

The tread is nice again today! Not Colorado Trail nice, but very, very good for the CDT. There are lots of cows in this section so far, and I give credit to them. If I learned anything in New Mexico, it’s that cows are excellent trail builders/trail maintainers. What tidy footpaths they make! Not like all the horses in the last section. Do horses erode trails? Is that why the last section was so jacked? I don’t actually know.

There’s some cross country today, but only short stretches. The trail stays between eleven and twelve thousand feet, and the elevation profile is gentle. Green ridges, nice trail maintained by cow friends. Sun and clouds.

In the evening I see a tarptent next to a stream below a ridge- oh my god another human being! It’s a woman named Samari, out here to hike the Colorado section of the CDT. She lives in Lake Chelan, Washington, near Stehekin!! And every year her work gives her six weeks off to hike. I’d planned on hiking for another hour, but it’s too nice to talk to another human and also now it’s suddenly getting really cold. It’s gonna be a cold one tonight! Cold front coming in, said the man who gave me a ride back to the trail from Pagosa Springs. You’re finishing just in time.

I set up my tarp, feeling glad for the company. I was really missing my friends today, and the social aspect of trails in general. I’m also PMSing, and so everything seems super dramatic. I keep imagining myself reaching Cumbres Pass the morning after tomorrow, which is the Colorado/New Mexico border and the end of the trail for me, as that’s where I got off to flip up to Canada after hiking New Mexico in the spring, and wondering if I’ll cry. And then of course I start to cry.

Photos on instagram