CDT Day 2: May 7, 2025

Start: 78.6

Stop: 65.2

Today’s Miles: 13.4

Total CDT miles: 17.4

The stars were gorgeous overnight, and I woke up to a beautiful sunrise.

There were two hikers that passed our tents before we ever got out of our sleeping bags. They must have gotten up really early to hit town today! 

We started packing, slowly, and then got to hiking just after 8am. It was already hot.

We came across another 2 hikers will walking and then 3 more at the water cache. Everyone is so confused about us hiking southbound right now, all of them have asked if we’re section hikers! Haha. Oh well. We hung out and talked at the water cache awhile, swapping trail names and hiking stories. 

Eventually, Marquis and I carried on southbound while everyone else continued north. There were some gentle hills, nothing terrible. Mostly wide open landscape with shrubs and cacti and little lizards scurrying all over the place. 

We basically just went from safe water source to safe water source-there were tons of cows and cow troughs. Pretty gross looking water and loads of floating algae. We took a mid morning pitstop in the shade of a water tank, did some stretching and resting of our legs. Marquis is worried about his tendonitis coming back that caused him to have to separate from Margot and I on the PCT at Crater Lake in 2023, so he’s making sure to do all of the stretches Blaze Physio (a traveling PT for thruhikers) told him to do back then. And I’m all for breaks, so it works for me!

 We hiked a few more miles and then had lunch under a tree. It was glorious with a breeze. I had some Uncrustables and pretzels, which are pretty filling. We stretched again and kept relaxing the feet.. we’re breaking ourselves in easy and trying to not overdo it.. so all of these breaks feel both incredible and like we’re behind all at the same time. But we already booked our shuttle for a specific day, so there’s really no need to rush anywhere. 

After lunch, we walked to the next water tank and sat in its shade for a while, and chugged lots of water. We then went to the next water source-which was a tire surrounded by cows. We must have maneuvered through 75 cows.. to find there wasn’t a spigot, it was just nasty water-with cows literally standing in it and peeing. Eeeek! We just couldn’t do it. We knew there was another one nearby, so we pressed on to it-which was gross with algae but we got it anyway, we’re really relying on these water filters to do their jobs! We packed out 4 liters each and walked another mile to set up camp. 

It’s only 5:45pm and the sun is still blazing. Since we’re easing into it-theres no need to go farther. I did get my first blister on my left heel-I had no blisters during either marathon and here I am after my first full day of hiking with one. And yall, it’s pretty tender. Oh well, such is life I guess. Our tents are set up and we’re going to hang out, stretch some more, and then eat dinner and watch the sunset.. you know, enjoy the simple things in life. Hope yall do, too! Love yall!