Day 82 - back in the mountains with clear blue skies (35.0 miles)

July 30, 2021

Miles: 35.0 miles

Steps: 80,745

Didn’t sleep all that great as I wasn’t able to use my air mattress, gotta get that fixed when I get to town. So started a little later than I wanted.

Looking at the profile map it appeared I had a lot of climbing today, I could see 6 peaks, passes, I would be going over. However I didn’t look close enough to see I would be putting in over 9,000 ft of climbing.

Had to start with a climb right off the bat and wasn’t a lot of fun but did get a nice view from the top.

The rest of the day would be going up and down these peaks, there was no real flat parts. It was nice that most of the uphills were on nice maintained trails so was able to keep up a nice pace.

The weather ended up being nice all day. Never got too warm and had cloud cover. Not to mention the skies seemed a lot clearer. I could see lots of blue in the sky so I guess that’s a good sign the smoke is clearing up, for now.

I passed by a lot of clear lakes. Would have been nice to jump into them but I had too many miles to put in for the day.

With 7 miles to go for the day I turned off the CDT and onto the Anaconda alternate. This trail would cut some miles off plus would take me straight into town, no hitching.

With about 2 miles to go I stopped to eat dinner at the last pass of the day just as it was getting dark.

Those last 2 miles were pretty rough in the dark. The trail was not very well maintained in the area so had to be careful of not tripping over a rock or root or step in a hole. I had already fallen twice today when it was completely light out so this was going to be tricky.

Got to the campsite around 10pm. I woke up another camper who didn’t seemed thrilled I had shown up. He asked why I was at his campsite. That was my cue to leave even though there was plenty of places for me to camp as well.

I walked just a little farther up trail and found a nice soft spot to camp.

I tried to hang my bear bag but couldn’t find any rocks to throw the rope over the branch. I finally thought to use my shoe as a weight. I kept thinking I would somehow get my shoe stuck up in the tree and would be in trouble. However, the shoe worked and got my food hung up and back to my tent to sleep.

Just 20 miles into town and I get 36 hours off trail to rest.