WalkingCarrot

In Lima we met Daniel and Ben, bikers from the San Francisco bay area who are peddling the Great Divide Bicycle Route (GDR) from Calgary to the Mexican border. Compared notes and websites with them over breakfast.

Mike and Connie from the Mountain View Motel continued their wonderful hospitality, dropping us off at the trail right where we got off. First we had them pose in front of their shoe tree – decorated with hiker’s blown out, worn out old shoes.

Northbound CDT hikers from England, Paul and Cookie, arrived last night and rode back to the trail with us. We had a quick info exchange in Mike’s car before heading off in opposite directions from the same point.

We entered the Centennial mountains and after the first 8 or 9 miles of road walking crossed the divide, dropped to a low gap and left the cows behind. We also entered a land of green forest and rolling plateaus rather than the hunchback crest we had been in during the last section of trail.

Sandy is gone but not forgotten; the sudden silence speaks volumes about how much we miss his company. After 8 weeks on the trail, the conversation runs its course and Sandy sparked some new subjects. Now the Carrot and I walk on going back into our own individual inner realms.

Clouds started rolling in during the afternoon, threatening at times, but only delivering a few sprinkles. It’s the start of labor day weekend, complete with car campers and yahoos on OHVs. We see a few, but about the same time we see the last of the cows, we leave the yahoos behind. I guess they graze the same pastures.

The Carrot sees a moose, or at least his big behind before he ran off. We are back where we want to be.

One of the “delights” of late summer hiking is having to “de-burr” the socks several times each day. We started getting bad burrs during the last section, but these have gotten worse. I understand the evolutionary need to spread seed, but I hope we are able to adapt and find a fabric that will repel these nuisances. It’s better than co-evolving in some kind of sympathetic relationship.

We hike past sunset, one of the few good ones we have seen, with magnficent displays of pinkish orange and long rays of light.

The spring, which is our destination, is down to an autumn trickle – at 7 minutes per liter to fill a bottle we end up taking up all of the remaining daylight just to make sure we have water. BUT, water is the one thing we can not do without. Finding it, getting it, carrying it trumps every other need or comfort. Fire has turned the Whitebark forest into skeletons near the spring, leaving us with little in the way of sheltered campsites, but it’s late, dark and the clouds still threaten rain. Besides it’s way past time to move on so we make do with what we have and hunker down, setting up the tent between some fallen logs for the night.

Miles 18.8