Day 167 (CT 5)

Day 167 (PNT 5): 11 miles

I planned to hang out in town most of the day and go back out to trail after letting the storms pass. It was supposed to rain all morning and then storm all afternoon. By the time it got to be 1:30 and nothing was happening, I decided to head back out after wasting most of the day. I did a small but expensive resupply and got to drink some bourbon from a fellow vagabond biking around the country before heading back out. It took over an hour to hitch out of town after only taking 5 minutes to hitch in. I got a ride from 2 Belgian guys doing a month long road trip around the west, and Nebraska, which I questioned them on.

After getting back on trail around 3:30, it rained off and on all day, but never stormed. It was kind of a boring day descending down into Elk Creek valley without much visibility. I’ve had a number of people say this was their favorite part of the whole trail so hopefully it’s clearer tomorrow when I’m climbing out.

There was an active train in the valley with is cool for people that don’t want to hike down there. But also I guess a lot of the water is contaminated from old mining activity so I’m avoiding everything until I climb out of the valley tomorrow.

I saw a few llamas at the end of the day that I’m guessing are hauling gear for hunters. I ran into a few last year on the CDT doing so.

Tomorrow should be the last day of possible rain for a while before a stretch of great weather. Hopefully. But so far the forecast has been changing every 5 minutes so I don’t know what to expect. I just want the perfect hiking conditions I had last year in Colorado in September.

I never pass up the opportunity for a hot meal but did this morning. The town was so outrageously expensive I opted to avoid a second meal in town. Silverton was a beautiful postcard town at 9,000 feet, but you certainly pay for it.

Song of the day: Wilshire-Tyler the creator