September 5th
Segment 23 & 24
We had camped off the CT on the Maggie Gulch Trail to get down away from the relentless wind. It was cold this morning. I filtered some drinking water and set my water bottle aside while packing up camp and picked it up to take a drink and ice crystals had already formed on the spout of my water bottle. I looked at my little thermometer and looked to be about 30!
We bundled up in all of our layers and started hiking, actually climbing in the dark with our head lamps on. Our fingers and toes were painfully numb. It began to get light and we were surrounded by the silhouettes of the mountains. The wind persisted. There were so many, too many cliffs with slick ground and gravel on top and the wind threatening to make you lose your balance. I kept getting that feeling hiking on the steep edges where your legs tingle, your stomach drops and the world feels it’s going to move and tip you and send you tumbling down.
We finally came to the high plateau and traveled safely across the flat and rolling ground.
My knees, my back, and my stomach hurt. I wasn’t sure if I was coming down with something or had some bad water contamination. I felt weak. I was so grateful we were done climbing because I didn’t feel that I had any power to propel myself forward. I think we had been pushing ourselves daily without taking much rest and it was starting to take a toll. I felt miserable. I told Jodie, “we have to zero in Silverton” and she agreed.
We came to the edge of a deep canyon and began a series of switchbacks to Elk Creek, dropping 600 feet in a very short distance. Great! More cliffs and more belly flops! We reached the canyon’s upper floor and continued to descend. Soon we reentered the tree line. I felt a deep sense of relief and safety, a feeling like coming home as we were comforted by the trees. The views and mountain highs are spectacular but it feels overexposed and wore on me in a way I wasn’t aware of until coming down.
We made our way down through the canyon. We walked past an avalanche area that had been cleared, but in 2020 Jodie’s friend Denise had to climb over it! It must have taken hours!
We past the 400 mile marker! It seams surreal!
Finally we came to the beaver pond. We looked for some FB pack goat people who had connected with Jodie and wanted to do a short overnight backpacking trip and slack pack us to highway 550 and take us to Silverton! Wow!!
We looked around and there were no goats yet. So we set up camp right off the trail a little ways from the pond.
We were sitting in our tents shuffling our things around when I heard the tinkling of goat bells,”goats” I hollered and rushed out of my tent to greet them.
We helped them the best we could with the goat circus, then we ate dinner at the lake with Kathryn and Jeremy so the goats could graze. We enjoyed seeing the goats and sat and shared our goat stories with them.
Jodie’s blog bikehikerepeat.com