Day 76

Day 76 (CDT day 1): 13 miles

After some extremely inefficient traveling yesterday I got a late start today after being up for 23 hours straight. We had to run some time consuming errands today and cache some water for me because it is so scarce in this first part of the trail.

Big shoutout to my shuttle driver who went above and beyond to help me get off to a good start. If you’re gonna hike the cdt give Jeff from the bike shop a call.

It was a pretty short day of only 13 miles after getting started at 4:00. Woohoo this is so much different than the AT. I’m definitely enjoying the nicer weather. But there were high winds all day and even Jeff said these were really unusual. There were dust storms which lowered visibility and my throat felt dry later in the day but I’m glad I got a taste of this on the first day to really welcome me to the desert.

What I’m really enjoying more is the hiking. It is really flat and easy waking. There are a lot of big rocks to walk on similar to Pennsylvania but the lack of constant steep up and downs like the AT is a nice change of pace.

The last photo is the massive border wall that seems impregnable. And just for those that don’t know, I started at the Mexican border today and this trip runs to Canada through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. And this trail is a little different, while there is a set trail there are many alternative routes you can choose for different scenes. It’s more of a “make your own adventure.” I even started to make my own adventure less than 3 miles in today when I got off trail and followed a cattle trail for a while. Also the mileages are harder to track so I’ll try but they probably won’t be exact.

Cowboy camping under the starts tonight and excited to have a full day tomorrow and hopefully some calmer winds!

Song of the day: smells like teen spirit-nirvana