6/15-16

I walked through the town of Creede and up through the historic mining district on a dirt road. There was a lot of road, a lot of elevation gain, a storm forming for tomorrow and I figured on a low mileage day, a campsite was listed on the far side of San Luis Peak for about 15 miles. It was a brutal day for me. There was no juice in my legs, my stomach hurt and I had no appetite. I climbed slowly from 8:30 to 3, had a brief respite, then climbed some more, getting to nearly 13,000′ more than once, stopping frequently and wondering if my problem was the altitude, the zero days, or what. But I was acclimated to altitude by now and in excellent trail shape.

Even though I intended to camp earlier than most thru hikers, I could see another tent in the not-so-flat little campsite near a creek. I just couldn’t go any further, so I asked the hiker, new to me, if he would mind sharing. Bark Eater was fine with it and we chatted a bit as I set up camp. I forced down my dinner. Two or three CDT alternates have kind of led to a bit of a traffic jam on this stretch. Because of the San Juan National Forest closure, there were hikers on the official longer CDT San Juan route already, there were hikers on the shorter Creede Route and there are hikers rerouted off both of those from Woof Creek Pass. Not to mention hikers rerouted from further behind from Cumbres Pass. Anyway a bunch of unknown hikers walked past as the evening wore on and 3 others crowded in with us in 2 more tents. Dark fell and all was quiet.

I woke the next morning and packed with the others. They headed out. I followed, unable to eat breakfast. I puked up my protein powder enriched morning coffee. My legs were weak. Not good. It was a beautiful gentle downhill as rain started spitting off and on. On my map, a trailhead was listed in a few miles. Here’s what I thought: “I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to call Search and Rescue. If I’m at a road access trailhead and I get sicker I can figure out how to call the Forest Service or someone with a truck. I’ll just pitch my tent and see if I feel better with a little rest first before I decide.” I satellite texted Dan telling him my situation and asking for input.

I got there, a wonderful clean vault toilet and a single car in the tiny dirt parking lot. I felt pretty puny and put on some layers against the cool and damp and leaned against my pack to think about things. A couple hikers went by. 20 minutes later a guy walked in from a slightly different direction. “Is that your car?” I asked. “Yes.” “Can you give me a ride to whatever town you’re going to?” “Yes.” I am so very lucky. So very lucky that Chris, hiking Colorado peaks on vacation from teaching Chemistry at a Kansas college, didn’t hesitate to help. He didn’t hesitate when I said I was not feeling well. He didn’t hesitate when I asked him to pull over and I got out and puked some more. It was an hour and a half to Gunnison where he was going. I’ll never be able to hitch back to that obscure trailhead. But I am so lucky to lay in a hotel bed for 18 hours, feverish but comfortable inside instead of in a tent in a rainstorm. Some people have the impression we spend 100% of our time camping, but it’s not true. For every 100 or so miles, you have to go to a town and resupply with more food. And I think towns are where you get your dose of germs too.

6/9-12 70 miles

The dumbest things get stuck in your brain when you’re walking 12 hours a day. How do you say wolf? People here say “woof” dropping any indication that there’s an L in the word. Since I never notice how we say it up north, we probably don’t say “woof.” I avoid saying this section’s destination out loud because I think it makes me look weird that I giggle every time someone says “Woof Creek Pass.”

Laura gave me a ride back to Cumbres Pass, since she was going to hike out to meet Dave as he hiked in. I only hiked 16 miles the first day, 12 of them uphill and in the wind around 10,000′. For once the Guthook app called out a tent site by a lake, so when I got there I camped and left room for all the other hikers I just knew would be arriving after a later start. Nope, just me and the mosquitoes trying to get in around my binder clipped bug screen.

On the morning of Day 2, Ripples and Clouds, a Brit couple I’d met in Cuba, passed me. I should have got a photo! They’re quicker but take longer breaks so we played tag. We figured out we had the same goal in mind, a listed tent site after a couple big climbs and drops, about 21 miles for me. It was a tiny flat spot and when I got there, they had scrunched their tent to one side so I could camp too, almost touching. Between the wind and the nearby stream, there was enough white noise to neutralize the squeakiness of my sleeping pad as I tossed and turned all night. And since the zipper is broken on my tent, no worries about that noise when I had to get up in the middle of the night.

Day 3 was challenging. I think I got to 13,000′ a couple times and never below 11,500′. Every uphill that is more than about 4% grade (treadmill stuff) at this elevation is killer. The air is so dry and so thin that my legs are just oxygen starved. I huff and puff while my heart rate ratchets up, breathing so loudly that chipmunks and birds pour off the trail as I approach. This is a very low snow year but the skinny little slanted tread traverses on extremely sloping mountain sides are sketchy, whether just gravelly or snowy. I have micro spikes which are fine for snow but not so much for gravel. Ripples and Clouds did use their ice axes on one terrifying pitch, the consequences of a slip and fall down 500′ made us all extra cautious. We found ourselves once again with the same goal, Bonito Pass just past a stream should maybe be flat enough to camp. We camped far enough part in the woods to have privacy. I turned off airplane mode and found I had a cell signal which led me to the FB CDT 18 page and the news that the San Juan National Forest was being closed for the safety of everyone due to fire and the extreme potential of more fires. We would get to Woof Creek Pass the next day, and I had to hitch to Pagosa Springs to get boxes. My plan had been to then hike the 45 miles on trail to Creede, then to Monarch Pass.

Day 4, I shared the news. Ripples and Clouds didn’t have a box in Pagosa, although they’d originally intended to hitch in for a night. Instead, they decided to hike the 12.7 to the Pass then continue hiking the highway to South Fork, etc. Maybe I’ll see them again, I really like them!

Even though it was less than 13 miles to the highway, it took me a long time to get there, 1:30. Definitely time for a day off.

I stuck out my thumb and got a ride to Pagosa Springs, checked in a motel and got my replacement tent and shoes at the PO. Jesus was there picking up his box. I just love that sentence. I had dinner and a beer at Riff Raff Brewing which uses spring-fed geothermal heating for its beers. How cool is that?

Decisions, decisions. The new alternate (cause the entire San Juan National Forest is closed and the trail cuts in and out of it) for the CDT is pretty straightforward. From Woof Creek Pass take the highway to South Fork, turn left and take another highway to Creede, a total of about 45 road miles. From Creede it’s about 10 miles on a county road to rejoin the CDT.

I woke up and got a ride to South Fork, a highway town with shuttered businesses, For Sale signs and at least 3 realty companies. The Wolf Creek Ski Lodge was clean, comfy and affordable. OK, OK, I’m going to have to come back and actually hike this section because once again I stuck out my thumb and got a ride to Creede. This is an interesting place with a bunch of mining history and famous figures from “The West” including Soapy Smith who finally got his due in Skagway, Alaska. I toured the mining museum and walked through town. The postal service has lost my box, the first time in 6 years of long hikes. Tracking shows it bouncing from Seattle to Denver to Seattle to Denver possibly for all eternity. So I went shopping, yum Idahoan Potatoes till Monarch Pass. And weather is coming in, I hope it rains and clears the air and helps the firefighters control all the fires. Meanwhile, another comfy bed indoors at the Snowshoe Inn where John Wayne used to stay. Plus Johnny Depp filmed The Lone Ranger here.

Ghost Ranch to Chama 6/4-6/8 95 miles

“Aaackkk, get outta here!” I roared, surprising me as much as the bear with the volume my damaged voice produced. I’d just put up my tent the first night after a 20 mile hike from Ghost Ranch. I was laying on the hard ground inside with my head on my stuff sacked sleeping bag listening to the birds while waiting for the back pain to subside for a few minutes. Footsteps. There weren’t any hikers behind me all day. Wait, they’re coming from the wrong direction. I looked through the screen. Bear! Just strolling down the trail sniffing the air. I scared the snot out of him, small latte colored guy, graceful until I yelled and his head shot up and he skedaddled uphill as fast as he could go. Few better sights than the backside of a bear gallumphing away. I repacked my pack and skedaddled myself up the trail another hour just in case he decided to come back and give me a scolding. For a 22.2 mile day.

Sometime the next day, another 22 miler, I saw a wolf, lush brown and alert, look at me from the trail, and then dash uphill quietly, stealthily. So much less noise than all the hoof noise deer and elk make when they spot me. New Mexico is paradise for wildlife, I’m so happy to be walking through it.

I finished Stephen King’s Dark Tower series today, after reading 6 of 7 books, Book 7 I listened to, all 28 hours of it over the last 2 weeks. Say ya true Stephen, Roland and his Ka-tet should have let you die. Actually a great series, whether you’re a King fan or not. I read Book 1 a million years ago when it first came out. And then my son Glen somehow inspired me to read the lot, it’s taken 6 months of intermittent attention.

This was a new stretch for me with lots of new hikers and weird misdirects on the route. Some awesome hikers were Clean Sweep, Root Beer, Brian, Dixie and Aaron, and there were others whose name I didn’t get including a group of 3 humans and 2 dogs and a couple who hammocked instead of tented. Brian hiked the Colorado Trail (CT) with his wife last year when they moved from Michigan to Farmington, NM. She has a strict work schedule so he’s off to thru hike the CDT, doing big miles happily and quickly. Super nice guy, I don’t know, but really every single person I’ve ever met from Michigan? I adore. All Brian needs is a trail name, he refuses to name himself, so please any hiker up the trail, watch for this dude. He’s a good one.

The third day I did another 22, and I’m generally happy and plan for 20 miles, but finding campsites is tough on this bugger.

My fourth and could have easily been my last day before the trailhead to Chama, I came on Dixie and Aaron at a creek. When I said I was named Catwater because I drank water on the PCT with a dead cat in it, not only did Dixie describe that particular cistern, she asked if I’d had to fish water out of it with a long line. Wow! She hiked and fished water there in 2017. Whoa! They’re doing modest miles currently after taking time off from the CDT for assorted reasons. Wow!

I crossed the barbed wire fence marking the New Mexico/Colorado border and camped the fourth night, with just a few miles left. Rather than paying for a motel, I’ll get to town tomorrow morning, get all the chores done: pick up resupply box, laundry, food shop, etc spend a night in a bed and head back to the trail. The zipper on my bug screen has failed so I’ll get some binder clips in town to jury rig it until I can get the backup I’ve had Dan mail me to the next stop up the trail.

I walked from the trail to the trailhead at 8am. A woman was just parking her Subaru. She stepped out and asked me “Are you Catwater?” I was gobsmacked. Turns out Laura’s husband Dave, who I had a great talk with last year at Pie Town, was just a day behind me and guessed where I was because he reads my blog. Laura was staying in Chama while providing support and resupply for this section. She was out for a day hike but we exchanged phone numbers and got together for dinner later that day.

Meanwhile I stuck out my thumb, got a ride instantly from Rick who stopped the car just before the post office to say hi to a friend who showed him a tiny rescued kitten she had wrapped in a blanket to take home and feed with a syringe. I got my mail, walked to the laundromat, washed clothes, called a motel and was settled in a spacious kitchenette with 3 beds for $70 at Cumbres Inn, with continental breakfast!

I drove from Grants to Albuquerque, an easy posted 75 MPH (!) on some highway. I dropped off the car and Google mapped the 5 mile walk to the Greyhound station. I kind of like walking through other people’s cities, plus I had plenty of time to catch the bus back to Grants.

5/27 20 miles

Starting from the motel at 6400′ I walked through town, up a paved road, then to the trail. I camped at 9300′, the same place where the Ravens and I camped last year for the same reason: too much uphill. Along the way Curt and Ryan blasted by me. Curt started at the border 550 miles ago and his friend Ryan just joined him for a couple of weeks.

5/28 22.2 miles

I really enjoyed the trail today until the last 5 miles after I picked up 3L (6.6 lbs) of water. The additional weight killed my neck as I continued up, a steady, not steep, climb. It’s windy and hot, so dry that even breathing through your nose can’t stop the desiccation of throat and lungs. I get a dry cough, gritty eyes and a feverish feeling. So I camped in a soft, flat little spot, hidden from view with my camo-colored Altaplex. Just before camping I went by 2 guys just waking up from naps to hike in the cool of dusk and evening. I hate hiking in the dark, mostly because, duh, I can’t see, even with a headlamp, and then there’s the glowing eyeballs the headlamp picks up next to the trail.

5/29 21.7 miles

Camped in a cattle corral with Ryan and Curt! Nice to have company, however briefly. Also this is the place the Deputy Sheriff rolled up on me last year, lights whirling madly. “Mrs Sterley? You OK?” A little joke with the guys, Ryan says, “How does it feel out walking a 30 year old guy?” He’s suffering from bad blisters and a flare up of runner’s knee. I give him a bunch of ibuprofen since they’re running short.

5/30 20-ish miles, maybe 19

Tremendously beautiful country, pillars of eroded rock, the trail goes up escarpments with views forever. Jack rabbits and greenish lizard things. And the human element, “Pretty good job whacking Ryan in the knee, eh?” I joke with Curt when I catch up to him where he’s been waiting an hour for Ryan.

At the wonderful Trujillo Family water cache, Ryan decides to hitch the nearby highway to Cuba to get a cortisone shot and a rest while Curt hikes on another night. Bummer. A while later, both Enigma and Curt pass me and I camp on one of those escarpments, moonlit all night.

5/31 26 long miles

Today was incredibly beautiful again, I stopped again and again to admire the rocks, the gigantic scale of tumbled boulders rolled and halted in the flatlands below me, the tiny little marble rocks under my feet, the scoured, run-off shaped towers and pillars, and the sandstone fractal mosaic mounds. And adolescent rabbits hopping everywhere.

I really, really believed that when I hit the highway about 4 miles before town, I would be able to hitch a ride. Not only would it be a long day, but I’ve already done this road walk, no need to link footsteps for a thru-hike. There was plenty of traffic but 100 cars later, not a single one slowed or offered water or anything. Exhausted and disappointed in local humanity, I finally made it to the Del Prado Motel. So it’s a puzzle to me. Is there no awareness of CDT hikers here? Compassion for the obviously overheated and struggling? Respect for women who could be your mom or grandma, for elders? Get over it, Catwater, you don’t need no stinking ride.

There is a trail closure from Cuba to Ghost Ranch because of severe fire danger. The CDTC posted an alternate to the 45 mile trail, a 60 mile road walk, I’m not going to do it, but there are no buses out of here and, umm, hitching doesn’t bode well. In an update, the CDTC reported the USFS didn’t want hikers on the highways. CDTC has scrambled and found someone willing to shuttle hikers to Ghost Ranch, woohoo, thank you all!

5/23 105 miles hiked

Step by step, shedding anxiety, I made my way to the trail. I flew from Alaska to Albuquerque. The next morning I flew in a small Pilatus PC-12 to Silver City where I’d arranged for the Comfort Inn’s manager Jeannie to pick me up. She was so cheerful and welcoming, thanks for picking me up! Blue sky, dry and hot, feels awesome after what we laughingly call spring in Anchorage. Jack rabbits bounded across the road to town, as big as coyotes, or at least bigger than our snowshoe hares.

I’ve decided to consciously try and do fewer stupider things per day this hike. Foremost is to drink water, plan water, carry water, never pass up a source of water. I’ve hiked this stretch last year, so I set a goal the first day to camp at the same place I’d previously camped.

5/17 Well that was brutal. Started out so good but I promptly followed a day hiker 1.23 miles up the official CDT instead of staying on the dirt road of the Gila River which I knew to do. Backtracked and I made my 20 miles on this super hot day, and drank 4L–awesome. It is a really awful endless uphill with the ridiculously vertical pitch up to the same place I camped last year. Hot spots, cramping quads, aching back and neck, but strangely I wasn’t crabby, just exhausted, a good exhaustion.

5/18 16.1 miles in 10.5 hours. A pleasant start and I saw 3 guys on horses this morning but they’re camped 5-6 miles behind me on the beautiful Gila River. It was a horrid road to steep switchback trail down on loose rock and gravel. The sign said 2 miles to the Gila. Wrong, way more. The river is lovely, much lower this year and I have the hang of crossing and cutting straight inland to find the tread so it went well. My goal, once again, was to repeat last year’s miles. So I did, but I think it took a lot longer.

5/19 To Doc Campbell’s by 1pm, yay! OMG!! Today was the date marked on my calendar for the Girdwood Skatepark raffle for a chair from historic old Chair 1 at Alyeska and…I won! I usually buy raffle tickets as a donation to whatever and never think about it, but wow, I really do love rusty metal objects and I wanted this little piece of history. Doc’s has a bit of WiFi so I got the email telling me I won. I thought it was spam at first. And I met Crash out back of Doc’s, the usual instant recognition of a fellow hiker amongst the tourists and day trippers. He hadn’t seen another hiker since starting the CDT at Crazy Cook. And he is moving fast and light so I expect I’ll just see his name in a hiker register from now on.

Lovely hiking really, a lot more trail than water, cairns were set by the earlier hikers, so with the low water, it was easier than last year. But I’m just starting, toughening up for the San Juan section I haven’t hiked up north. It’s hot and I hurt. Still thinking about taking the quicker High Route for 22 miles but it’s utterly dry. Crash is compromising and taking the Little Bear Canyon route to the Middle Fork of the Gila so I’m looking that up, it would avoid a few miles of river and go down a slot canyon, sounds beautiful.

5/20 Lovely day. Ran into the 3 Horsemen on the paved road leading to the Gila Cliff Dwellings and the Little Bear Canyon route which they too mentioned would be fun. And it was, excellent tread, about 4.4 miles. Then I dropped into the Middle Fork and like last year it was hot, sandy, cobbled, beautiful and exhausting. Somewhere around 16 miles and a nice tent site. I’ve been having good dreams, it’s kind of meditative listening to the birds going through their good night rituals, yelling at the flock to hit the roost and shut up so they can all get some sleep before waking up the stupid hiker in her tent just before daybreak. Little do they know I have earplugs so I can go back to sleep for half an hour in the morning while it’s still cold. But they try their best.

5/21 Well shit, broke a phone. The Lifeproof case failed when I fell in the water slipping on mossy cobbles after hiking 3 hours this morning. I kept going, thinking it’s a long way to the next town that might have Verizon, Grants in another 200 miles. I could backtrack to Silver City, 75 miles, or hike back 30 to Doc’s and hitch. How long can I go without reading a book? I only have them electronically. No phone, no books. I can’t do it if I don’t have to. Spoiled, entitled hiker. I eventually stopped hiking forward and satellite texted Dan to give him the heads up that I was going to backtrack and regroup. It kind of freaks out your loved ones when they see your track stop, vanish or go backward. The Garmin inReach Explorer is the same device I’ve carried since PCT 2015 so I’m a tad nervous that it’s my sole remaining electronic device/GPS/communication system.

Now hiking the wrong way, I stopped to talk to the 3 Horsemen: Peter, originally from Switzerland, Mark from Scotland, and Jolt from Hungary. The horses remained nameless. They have lost their SPOT so they asked me to text a wife and pick up the device if I found it and send it to her. So now I have a good deed to do as I backtrack to get a new phone.

Another gorgeous campsite on the river. Heat rash and cuts all over my legs from having bare legs through the lush veg. Oh well, but I’m in good spirits even with my mini disaster. I’m getting trail fit which is what this section was about anyway.

5/21 Good decision. Walking downriver is walking downhill, what a concept. So much quicker! I was anxious to get back to the dead end but paved road to Doc’s, it’s midweek and there won’t be much traffic. I was anxious about getting a ride, it’s just weird and awkward to hitch, and I’m dirty. I thought if nobody wanted me, I’d clean up at Doc’s, make a little cardboard sign and at least have access to water if I needed to camp. Past noon, I’d walked the blacktop for a couple of miles and 1 car, when the second car stopped and took me all the way to Silver City, a good hour away. Ronald driving, wife Kathy, and her mom Ernie in the front so Dakota the handsome hound dog let me share his plush and spacious bed on the back seat. I’m always blown away when non-locals take a chance and pick me up, I try to pay them back by answering all the questions with smiles and positive vibes, it makes the drive go by and it’s fun. Comfort Inn was full but for 1/2 the price and with a super friendly management I got a room at the Copper Manor down the street, aging but clean and everything works. Plus, I found the missing SPOT.

5/22-23 Got a new phone, my choices were limited, so I’m learning a new system and trying to restore apps and content. All my regular books repopulated but only some of the audiobooks. Of course the photos I took after the last backup heading out of Silver City are lost so I’ll use one of last year’s for this post. Found a rental car place that will give me a one-way to Albuquerque for about the same as the flight. I pick it up tomorrow and now can go to Pie Town to get my box of Resupply to send elsewhere and to Grants which has the stuff in a box I was going to carry to Ghost Ranch for the San Juans. Meanwhile I’ve posted on the CDT FB seeing if any hikers in the area need a ride or whatever as long as I have the car. And I’m bringing the SPOT to Pie Town to leave for the 3 Horsemen and the wife approves. Plus the wildfires north of the Gila before Highway 12 have caused the USFS to reroute the CDT with a 34 mile waterless stretch. This is the same part of NM, the Gila National Forest, where the crews were so good to hikers last year during the smaller fires so I know they’ve put out signs and water. Awesome management here but nonetheless glad I don’t have to hike it.

5/24 Walking up the road to get the car, I ran into 2 hikers, Short Cut and Nectar, so I told them my story and Nectar rode with me to Pie Town, about 4 hours, after calling around and getting more info on the fires. Her asthma doesn’t need the smoke from an 8000 acre, 0% contained burn. We took Highway 12 and picked up Noon who had gone on the fire reroute and then walked down Highway 12 to where the 40 mile Pie Town alternate started. Nita’s Toaster House was fun. I brought beer as none is for sale in town. Radar, CDTC shuttle driver from last year, trail angel, Toaster House angel, hiker and many other things was there making sure all hikers were accounted for through the fire area. Enigma was there already, that man moves! And talked with Easy, Patches and Labrador. A smaller crew than last year, so I grabbed a bunk for the night.

5/25 Labrador runs with Achilles International every Monday where he lives in Colorado. What a cool connection, I told him I was fundraising for them for the NYC Marathon and he told me stories of some of the athletes and guides he runs with and we both celebrated the inspiration!

Off to Grants and I drove quickly along the road the Ravens and I plodded last year in the heat. The horses who pestered us were in their field nodding at me as I went by.

My plan has morphed again. I’ll walk out of Grants to Cuba and on to Ghost Ranch. It won’t be so bad. I need the trail time before the San Juans and this way I can drive the car to ABQ and take the bus back on the same day and leave my pack in a motel. I’ll get to revisit the site of my accidental SOS activation amongst other memorable locations between Grants and Cuba. Some long water hauls so I’ll pay attention.

8/18 Trooper set up a shuttle ride for us all, including German Mormon and me, back to Elkhart Trailhead. The driver was the 2nd or 3rd pompous, sexist Wyoming man to say, “Listen to me!” and proceed to drone on with information I neither needed nor asked for. Jerks, too bad they can’t read my face.  I started hiking and never saw German Mormon or Trooper again but I did see lots and lots of people heading out for a few days camping. I met Joey and her service dog Thor, she asked good questions about solo hiking and gear and she is going to do the Colorado Trail next year. Thor was truly well trained, and handsome.  It was a fun interlude but she was fast and I lost track of her. The outstanding thing today was the variety of mammals I saw carrying packs: humans, dogs, horses, mules, llamas (!), and goats (!!). Even with all the people on the access trail, and tents set up along every lake, I managed an isolated little spot just a few miles after turning northish onto the CDT.

8/19 The most amazing encounter of the entire trip happened after a few hours of hiking into a flow of people heading towards me, hikers spaced just 10 or 20 minutes apart. I saw a couple hiking from an access trail to a trail junction sign. As I got nearer, I recognized the man! It was the USASA Snowboard and Freeski Nationals Director I work with every spring at Copper Mountain. I think gobsmacked is the word. If I’d been just a few minutes faster, I’d have missed this encounter with one of my other worlds. So amazing to see this truly friendly face. After chatting a bit and catching up, I hiked down past a log jam of people taking off their shoes to ford a river, and then up a bit along a meadow where I dry-camped by a fire ring and old horse poo late enough that no hikers passed me.

8/20 It was great tread today, as it’s been since the Big Sandy trailhead, perfect weather and the Winds are spectacular with rock and lakes. It was beastly filled with people until past the Green River trailhead, seriously annoying massive groups of folks heading at me. I stepped off the trail dozens of times. When one man said, “Thank you sir,” without noticing my feminine legs below the skirt I wear, I snapped, “Ma’am,” as I managed to get back on the trail for a few feet. My bad, but really? You fat, clean, trail-hogging eclipsomaniac. I turned uphill and lost the hordes as I went up and over Gunsight Pass. Between 7 and 9am I saw no people, but by 12:30 I counted over 200! After 12:30 a dozen nice, regular people, and after 6pm a pack of at least 12 CDT SOBOs! Mid afternoon I met old guys Phantom and Kitchen Sink.

“Where you from?” they asked.
” Alaska.”
“I was born in Palmer, Alaska in ’53!” said Kitchen Sink.
“I was born in Oakland, California in ’53!” I said. We laughed.

8/21 Wow. Usually a hiking day doesn’t have a lot of surprises. Today had 4.

1. I saw my very first badger, ever, this morning as I hiked to Union Pass. It hissed at me, the dirty bugger, and then scuttled off into the sage, an enormous animal, wide and flat to the ground in cockroach proportions.

2. Of course, the eclipse wasn’t a surprise, but it was so much more than I expected. I knew there would be bunches of people and vehicles at road-access Union Pass, so when I saw them I stopped and dropped behind a rise so I had the eclipse to myself. I arrived early, about 10 for the 11:37 totality. I put on some layers, ate snacks and read my book. I put on my eclipse glasses and looked at the sun–an orange ball. As I read, I started to get cold and the light got funny. I glassed the sun and the moon was taking a bite out of the orange ball. It took a long time, 20-30″? I didn’t look at the time. Then the totality, the corona, white glowing around the black moon disk. I’ve never seen anything so amazing. It was dark, but not night dark, the horizon lit up 360 degrees on the mountains, like dawn or dusk all around me. As the sun started showing again, I choked up, I caught myself thanking the sun out loud for coming back with tales of Raven bringing light to the world in my heart. Yeah, I guess I’m a pagan. It took a long time for the sun to be free of the moon, and it was cold. I started hiking to warm up, a mile past all the people, cars, RVs and tents.

3. In the afternoon I flushed a fat sage grouse and her fluffy, nearly grown brood of 3.

4. At 4:30, I came to a creek and found 2 cold cans of Modelo! A first on this trail. I saved 1 for the couple of hikers just behind me. That beer tasted so great on this hot afternoon, so great.

8/22. Same ‘ol, same ‘ol, I couldn’t find a campsite when I wanted one, so I kept walking. Tonight’s is way better than last night’s cold and slanty desperation pitch. Tonight I have a fantastic view just 6 miles from where the trail crosses the highway to Dubois. Eclipsomania is over, today I saw 5 hikers, 1 dog, 1 biker, and 2 guys in a truck worried they’d misdirected a red-bearded hiker who had problems with his GPS. Not a hard day, just hot since I’m at lower elevations.

8/23 2 easy hitches and I’m in Dubois, DOO-boyz. I took an extra night on the trail, to make 5, because there were no motel rooms available until today.  I could have stayed at the Episcoplian Church, for a donation, but that’s just weird.