Last night was very weird, I thought I was sick/feverish for sure. I fell asleep to the roaring creek we were beside. It sounded like opera singers belting out arias. That was the first clue I wasn’t doing well. I was also abnormally cold. I woke up throughout the night sweating and cold. In the morning, Chance said he had felt the same and it was just really cold ground, freezing us from the bottom.
The hike itself was really easy downhill all the way… We dropped into new terrain, very sandy and dry. It reminded me of the PCT a lot, we just flew through the miles. We passed a trail crew and a bunch of horse packers. Eventually, we reached Benchmark Ranch our resupply point after the end of the Bob. Our first road in 115 miles.
The ranch itself was a hot 2 miles of road off trail, and was totally deserted. We picked up our food, which we absolutely didn’t need – we had packed 8 days of food and only used 5. So now I have 6 days of food for a 2.5 day stretch to Lincoln.
The story behind the extra food is that there is a group ahead of us on the CDT, and they are blogging as they hike. We’ve been relying on their reports of trail conditions up until now, but they haven’t turned out to match what we’ve found in the wilderness. It’s probably a combination of factors that have made the difference: we are more risk taking, younger by 20+ years, and they are 10 days ahead (which affects stream and snow levels). Point is, I will be reading their journals for entertainment value in the future, not trail beta.
Daily Summary
Date: July 9, 2011
Day 15
Daily Distance: 19.7 miles
Trip Distance: 230.8 miles