September 9th
Segment 25 & 26
It was nice to sleep a little later today and get up right before the dawn started to break. We are adjusting our schedule to match daylight hours and avoid extreme colds. It’s also nice to hike without a head lamp on and see our surroundings. So enjoyable this small group of women breaking camp and chattering this morning. Ruthless has a great 15 mile a day plan which we all seem to be on board following. It will get us out in four days and only three more nights!
Ruthless’ hiking wisdom:
Are your goals based on pride or enjoyment? For example when considering a long through hike, is it pride or enjoyment?
Adjust your goals to your ability.
“I love section hiking! It’s more enjoyable and it has less chance of injury.”
The trail has been wonderful the past two days. It doesn’t feel like an old mining trail. We’re following the contour of mountains, up and around.
We’re in and out of live forests and past the dead forests from beetles.
We’re soaking up the last days of summer and fall is seeping in.
We went over Black Hawk pass, one of our last big summits.
We made it to Straight Creek at the end of our day and only saw a single text site. The ravine was steep. We had 15+ miles ahead of us without water. We filtered water into all of our bottles and filled out filter bags and headed down the trail another half mile to a campsite. It’s hard to carry 6-7 liters with a full pack! I put my 3 liter bag in my outside mesh pocket that has a hole in it. The bag was anchored with a carbineer but still migrated down through the hole. Grit was giggling so much it was making my knees weak trying not to laugh so much. She said it looks like I’m birthing a water baby.
We are both so giddy and tired! We are so ready to go home. We’re grateful for our experience and our friendship that helped us get through it. It’s been an amazing journey but we’re tired now.
Jodie’s blog bikehikerepeat.com
You ladies are simply amazing! God definitely gave all of you the gift of fortitude!
I am out camping in my tiny trailer and you inspire me. I get a laugh when I am thinking it is too cold and difficult to get out of my warm bed to let my dog out to pee! Thinking of you out there helps me just pop out of bed.
It most be a great sense of accomplishment already to be able to be so close to such a difficult goal!