Day 50 (ODT 18)

Day 50 (ODT 18): 26 miles

I’ve loved the last few days. The Pueblos kicked my butt, the Trout Creek mountains have been covered in snow, and before that I was cooking in the desert pleading for shade. This trail is something, and the wildest part is still yet to come.

It must’ve gotten pretty chilly last night. My shoes, wet socks, and water bottles were all frozen solid. I felt fine inside my quilt so I didn’t really notice it until the morning. I checked the weather on my garmin and it said it was 24 degrees at 8am with a high of 34 for the day. Idk how accurate that is. I waited for it to warm up before I got moving and started hiking around 10. The sun came out and it felt fine.

But I had to start the day with crossing Trout Creek. It was flowing pretty strong and looked like it should’ve been forded but I didn’t want to do that with as cold as it was. And the water would’ve been chilly snowmelt. I went upstream a little and found a small branch that looked like it may or may not be able to support my weight. I put my wider thinking the side and went for it. I took a couple steps on it with a lot of weight on my trekking poles. As I made the final step across, it shifted and I came very close to putting my feet in the river. I hyperventilated for a bit, counted my blessings, and kept going.

I was glad I camped where I did at 7,000 feet. After going up to 8,000 everything was exposed and there was a lot more snow. I was walking in 3-6 inches most of the time and 3 foot drifts at times. I didn’t even care. I was loving the scenery. If you look in the background of some pictures, you’ll see mountains engulfed in a lot of fresh snow.

After the descent from 8,000 feet, it was a pretty chill day. The snow disappeared on the east side of trout creek mountains and I just cruised the rest of the day.

I’m not sure if they were Pika’s or what but I was seeing a lot of small chipmunk-like animals up high the last couple days. Also it is impossible to sleep in past sunrise. I love the songbirds, but they have a rock concert every morning. It’s nice to wake up to, but sometimes I wanna sleep.