Posted by 27.2 miles!
Over night I had a bit of fright waking to the sounds of sniffing around my tent. My immediate thought was bear and I started yelling ‘Ya Bear’. I had not seen any bear sign for days and was not too worried about them, sleeping with my food in my tent.
Grabbing my glasses and head torch I jumped out of bed and flew out the tent door to identify the cause of my alarm. It turned out to be a White Tailed Deer. I had forgotten from the PCT that these deer love human salt and will swipe sweaty gear left outside tents and chew them to extract what they can. I recall Camel’s hat being taken on the PCT to be found down the trail mushy with deer saliva. White Tail’s also get this salt from human urine. I like to mark my territory around my camp sites like all animals and this is what the culprit was hanging around for.
Not satisfied with the low mileage over the past several days I wanted to challenge myself, set an extremely hard target and push hard to achieve. The last few days I’ve fallen short to reaching where I wanted to be at the end of each day and was feeling deflated. I put it down to still acclimatising to the high altitudes and was hoping I hadn’t lost my hiking mojo as I age. I wanted big miles but just wasn’t reaching them.
In addition to this, by taking the Red Line and not the Creed Cutoff I’d need to make up four days over the next few months. Most of these will come in Wyoming in the Great Basin.
I like to push myself, extend beyond what I think I’m capable of and give things a go, never afraid to fail. I’m a big believer that challenge, adversity and failure are all growth opportunities.
Late in the day I hit the junction where the CDT meets up with the Colorado Trail or CT and will follow the same path for several hundred miles. I expect the standard of trail will improve along the CT portion of trail as it is a jewel in the crown of Colorado. For miles and miles of the CDT today thick overgrown willows spill across the trail and have to pushed through, sharp branches cutting against exposed skin, resulting in beat up legs.
At the end of the day I reached Stony Peak, achieving a 27 mile day through some of the toughest country on the CDT. Moving over and through 5 different mountain passes above 12,000 feet, each requiring a massive climb up only to immediately drop down onto a new valley floor to repeat the process. Hard work for sure but my focus and attention never left appreciating the beauty of the country I was moving through.
Mick Beckers 