Day Ten, 27 June, 26 Miles
At Mile 175, Poptart 38/1000
Nothing quite like a waist deep ford first up. Cold. Good tread again, it is still very wet around though. The trail lead straight into a lake or stream more than once, usually with no obvious exit point leaving we wading around in the near freezing water wondering where next. Cold. My feet are loving this wet thing too, no blisters yet. Hit snow and things got interesting. Not sure how many came this way, I suspect most took the official CDT route. There were a couple of tracks, maybe two or three days old that were difficult to follow so I just went where the trail should be and usually found it when it made brief snow-free appearances. The approach up to Switchback pass was slow going and I ended up a bit below where I needed to be as the pass was a little hard to spot. Found trail tread just below the pass proper and peed in celebration. More of a meander than switchbacks down and fresh trail too. Saw another small, brown Black Bear near the unoccupied Guard (ranger) Station on the appropriately named Spotted Bear River. Just swaggering down the trail towards me then turned at the intersection opposite to where I was headed. Saw me and didn't remotely care, just shrugged and went on its way. Exactly the sort of bear encounter you want. Headed upriver towards Spottted Bear Pass to rejoin the CDT the trail became a little over grown. Spied a semi-established campsite a couple miles before the pass and made it mine. Cowboying was tempting, no mosquitoes or clouds but at the bottom of a river valley you can't see that storm brewing...
No comments:
Post a Comment