September 10th

Segment 26 & 27

We started a 15.3 mile water carry last night and I carried about six liters of water half a mile to camp. Omg! Water is so heavy! It’s 14.7 mi to the next water source so that is where we will camp tonight.

It was warmer last night and it was nice this morning getting up and not freezing. We are truly getting the last few days of summer with storms on the horizon.

We caught up to Ruthless and Laura. They went further ahead than where we had planned to camp and found a beautiful flat spot overlooking a valley. Grit and I were too tired to move forward last night. The campsite we found was well used but on a fairly steep slope. I set my tent up so my feet pushed against a tree that way I wouldn’t slide off my mat sideways but I would have something to push against. It didn’t work quite as planned. I still kept sliding off my mat to either side. My feet were a chorus of noise and they were keeping me awake, even with Benadryl and melatonin. I put some DoTerra deep blue on the souls of my feet and that seemed to help enough to let me ignore them for a while. I’m not sleeping so well these last few nights. I’m waking up a lot, very uncomfortable.

The hiking the past few days has been the best in a long time! I wish I wasn’t so tired and could enjoy it more. I feel really really done with this trip. I just want to get to Durango.

A storm rolled in. We sat on the sunny side of the mountains and watched the rain. We hiked and took lots of rest breaks. The clouds roll by so fast, it didn’t last. 

We arrived at camp after 4 to a very cheery welcome from Ruthless and Bolt. Ruthless said they had been there a while and told us to set up our tents and she would collect some water for us. The stream was tiny and someone had set up a leaf to use as a spout to collect water. Genius!

We had a great dinner together visiting and laughing. Then we parted for an early bedtime. We all agreed to a 0430 start, the morning beguins with switchbacks right out of camp!

~Stoney

Grit’s blog bikehikerepeat.com