Tag: CDT

Start: Gold Pan Cabins 

Stop: Elwood Pass 12.4 

Today’s Miles: 27

Total CDT miles: 701.9

We knocked out some miles today! Sadly, they were still all dirt road walking, but we knew that would be the case if we took this route over the redline, and honestly.. not dealing with snow right now is A OK with me! I’m obviously still traumatized from Northern California on the PCT. Ha.

We were up and out of the cabin by 7, a bit late for us, but we were sleeping too good to get up. Our clothes mostly dried overnight from our handwashing and hanging to dry.. my socks were still somewhat damp, as I knew they would be.. which is always annoying. Wet socks suck. 

The miles went by fast, and the views were actually pretty nice. The road wound through the mountainside with a river to our left the majority of the time. We hit some construction midday, where they’re building a new bridge.. we crossed on the old one without issue, the construction guys waving us through. Because of the construction, there weren’t many cars, so we didn’t get dusted like yesterday. 

At one of the intersections of dirt roads, we saw a sign for a man that went missing recently. Apparently he was coming out to scope out the campsites for his Boy Scout troop and was never seen again. Sad stuff. After seeing the sign, I couldn’t help but look down the cliff sides for the rest of the day, like I’d magically be the one to spot him after everyone else has been looking way harder for way longer. 

Eventually, Pebbles and I found a spot to camp, which looks like a legitimate campsite. There’s a pull off from the road, a fire ring, and a nice little side trail to the river beside us. While we were setting up our stuff (cowboy camping) a camper pulled in, saw us, and then pulled right back out again. I’m glad we snagged this place before anyone else did! 

Tomorrow, we have to get to South Fork before the post office closes so Pebbles can get his shoes, and then I think instead of going up to the Creed Cutoff on the blue line, we’re going to roadwalk into Del Norte and sleep there. Apparently people have been bailing from the redline to the creed cutoff because of the snow-real slushy and deep postholing, but then having to bail from the creed cutoff too, for the same reason. Soooo.. we’ll skip all that and be safe and dry on the road. 

Ok, that’s it! Goodnight yall! 

Start: Red Bear Welcome Center

Stop: Gold Pan Cabins

Today’s Miles: 22.4

Total CDT miles: 674.9

Shockingly, I slept great.. especially to be cowboy camping by a road. We woke early to frost all over everything though.. and neither Pebbles or I slept with our filters. Whoops. I don’t think they froze though.. hopefully. Pebbles had asked me last night if I thought we should sleep with them.. I looked at my weather app, saw a low of 42, and said “nope!” I don’t think he was too thrilled with my decision this morning. Between this and the lightening fiasco the other day-I’m not too sure that man trusts a single thing I say or do! Haha

Pebbles was naturally up faster than me. I thought he had already left by the time I came out of the porta potty at the welcome center, so I started walking only jump out of my skin when he suddenly passed me! He was in the other porta potty and I had no clue. I’m really doing great, here folks. 

Overall, the day was pretty boring. I mean, the river went along the dirt road we were walking on, so the views were nice.. but we were constantly being dusted all day by people in their 4x4s. We did pass some cows in pastures and a tiny town, but at 10am when we walked through, nothing was open. Yall know I would have definitely bought something to eat or drink if it was available, my personal mission to single handedly support local economies and all. 

For it to have frosted overnight, it sure got hot quick. Pebbles and I went from being in our puffy jackets to sweating buckets entirely too fast. The temperature change gave me whiplash. We popped up our umbrellas for a big chunk of the day.. just walking on a dirt road, trying to avoid the vehicles flying by. 

Around 4pm, my stomach decided I needed a serious bathroom break. The problem? There was nowhere to go! To the left was open grassy land with a gorgeous river running through it, to my right was a huge rock wall. We ended up getting to a small town with just a few houses and a restaurant in it. I barreled into the restaurant (and general store) and practically mowed down another customer while trying to get myself to the bathroom!

Since I felt a little guilty for the time I took there, I talked Pebbles into staying at the restaurant for another burger. It wasn’t as good as yesterday, but it hit the spot! After we ate, we tried to decide if we should keep hiking a bit longer, and start the climb along the road, or if we should find this place called the “Gold Pan Cabins” and get a cabin and a shower for the night. My only issue for not wanting to keep walking was the fact that I didn’t think we’d find a decent spot to camp along the road-I mean-I couldn’t even find somewhere to poop! 

We stayed. Haha. Pebbles was way less thrilled than I was, but he didn’t complain when he got some dang good cobbler and ice cream out of the deal, thanks to the sweet man that rents the cabins. We ate our dessert and then took showers and hand washed our clothes. We had to hang everything to dry, and the sun wasn’t nearly as strong now that it was evening, so I have a feeling I’ll have damp socks in the morning.

Our cabin has two bunk beds in it, so we both get a bottom bunk. They’re dry cabins and we have to use our quilts, but overall they’re comfortable enough, we’re warm and inside, and not finding a spot off the side of a dirt road.. so I’m happy! Tomorrow we’ll have to get as far as we can on this dang dirt road, and then we’ll get into South Fork where Pebble’s new shoes are the day after. The farther we make it tomorrow, the easier the post office will be. Bleh. 

Alright, that’s all I got! Sweet dreams, yall!

Start: 779.3

Stop: Red Bear Welcome Center

Today’s Miles: 14

Total CDT miles: 652.5

To do 14 miles on a “hero” day is absolutely impressive, if I do say so myself. A hero day is when you go in and out of a town in the same day and don’t stay the night.. it’s a hard thing to do, especially when you’re like me and love a bed.. and a shower.. and yet-we did it AND managed to still hike 14 miles! Success. 

We were up early, packed and at the road by 6:30am. We hitched for about an hour, and the second car that came by ended up stopping for us! There just wasn’t a lot of traffic that early in the morning. We did our food resupply at a grocery store, ate a pizza there, hitched to the post office, got my shoes from an outfitter I had mailed them to (the shoes are solid white-lord help me), and then were about to walk to the end of town to hitch back, when we decided we were still hungry and wanted a meal. 

So, we turned around and found a diner. When we walked in, Ellie of all people was sitting there! We met her in Cuba, New Mexico and absolutely loved her. We sat at her table with her and ate way more than we intended. The food was good, nothing special but everything is technically special when you’ve been eating ramen noodles everyday. 

We caught up with Ellie and yapped a while about the snow and which way to go on trail. We could either take the redline and deal with chest deep post holing, or take the blue line alternate and have hopefully little to no snow at all. We decided to not risk it and take the blue line, Ellie was still undecided on which way she wanted to go.  Eventually, we decided we had to get a move on or we’d never leave.. which I would have been totally fine with! 

We said our goodbyes as Ellie walked to her motel room and then stood on the corner and popped out our thumbs. It was so hot already, the idea of walking sounded awful.. but at least we knew we wouldn’t encounter any snow today. Minutes later, a guy stopped for us and took us back to the pass we got off trail at. We filtered some water and then started our road walk down the blue line.

The only thing motivating me to make this road walk happen in a somewhat timely manner, was the promise of a place to camp for free that sells burgers and has live music. It was like having town legs AFTER the town trip! I was full and my pack was heavy thanks to all the food I just bought at the grocery store, and even still I was hauling ass to get to the Red Bear Welcome Center to get my dang burger! God, hiking is so weird.

It was quite hot and miserable on the road, and I was in new shoes I was breaking in.. but.. we got to the Red Bear place before 6pm, just in time to order our burgers and fries and watch the staff set up for live music! We charged our power banks inside and set up our sleeping pads outside in the grass, far enough away from the patio the band was set to play on. While charging our stuff, the man that drove us into Chama this morning saw us and bought us a beer! So stinking sweet!

Today ended pretty dang cool. After we ate our burgers, we laid in the grass on our sleeping pads and listened to the band playing to the 50 or 60 people that came to hear them. The atmosphere was fun yet relaxing. I’m pretty happy we didn’t stay in Chama, that we got some miles done, and got to experience this small town Friday night right here. Oh! And we’re camping with some bike packers! There’s 3 or 4 of them, and we’ve chatted randomly to almost all of them! 

It’s a little chilly, I guess we are in the mountains for real now. Time to get some shut eye, and it’s definitely an ear plugs required kind of night, since we’re so close to the road. I may even put my headband over my eyes like an eye mask, because it’s bright out here too! 

Cheers to a successful day in every way! Sweet dreams yall!