Naynay’s last tent night
Yesterday we started off the day with a big climb up to another large 13er. It was a beautiful day and smooth terrain. While it was quite a bit of ascent, it wasn’t particularly crazy.
After the peak, we followed the ridge line quite a ways. Straight down on one side into beautiful icy lakes and mountains sides, with the other a smooth and gradual descent (until that side went straight down as well, be it was more grassy and forestry than the other side).
Eventually, we became parallel with a dirt road that was jame packed with side by sides and cars of all sorts. Seemed folks were enjoying their Sunday out and about, ripping around on bikes and other vehicles, going on hikes and runs.
About 4-5 miles before we decided to camp, we reached a parking lot and met a fellow traveler, Cheshire Cat. He’s hiking the trail, but doing it with his car and dog. The positive side to that is he essentially just slack packs the entire thing and sleeps in his car and can drive around to towns with ease. The down side is he has to hike both north and south in order to get back to his car. So essentially, by the time he is done he will have hiked the CDT both north and south, crazy! He had every fruit you could possibly imagine, and shared a pear and some pineapple with Nathan and I.
Eventually, we continued onwards until we reached a section of blow downs and a small stream where we had planned to camp. Surrounded by downed trees was a bit eery, especially as ones still standing were creaking in the breeze.
Apparently in sept of last year there was a major storm causing 10s of thousands of trees to be blown down. This stretch and a stretch ahead had been labeled “impassable and dangerous” by the forest services. The good news with that label, however, is that they are working diligently to cut through it. The second stretch of blow downs we hit today was completely clear, and the first stretch by our camp we started at this morning was only about .25 miles until the cleared section began. Thank you trail maintainers! You all are epic.
The rest of today was fairly smooth sailing. Mostly descent, shaded forest, nice trail (except the blow down stretches). Even multiple reports of moose! But we didn’t have a chance to see any, sadly.
After the descent ended, we got to a camp ground and there was a little store we bought a few sodas from, and continued on a bit further to a lake. Unfortunately, there’s only forest service camp grounds around here, and a sign on the trail just passed it sayin no camping next two miles. So we decided to walk along the beach and have hid ourselves behind a massive rock. We will set up our tents as the sun sets to hopefully avoid any issues with the campground managers. We are outta site and not bothering anyone, but who knows what kinda day that person might be having!
But here we are, lounging on a lakeside beach, watching the sun set. The smoke from the fire nearby is thick, and the mountains on the far side of the lake are hazy at best. The smoke does tint the sun a beautiful deep orange/red though. So I’m excited to see how the sunset lands on the lake.
Now we get our dinner ready and enjoy Nathan’s last night camping on the trail! We get into town tomorrow and prepare for the journey home.
