Day 45. April 14. Mile 605.0 to 625.6

Day 45. Good Friday, April 14. Mile 605.0 to 625.6. Walked 20.6 miles, 257 ft up, 2845, 150.2 ft/mile. 

Dear Trail Friends,

It's 5:45pm and my tent is all set up. Which is to say, I camped earlier than usual. A 20-mile day that's all downhill and with an utterly gentle grade is way easier than the 15-mile days I was struggling to do in the southern part of the trail. 

I am camped near a metal resupply cabinet where trail angels leave gallon bottles of water for hikers. There are two other hikers here too, Laughs a Lot from Maine and Purple Pants (a seasoned hiker who is bicycling this trail to give his heel injury time to mend) from Kansas City. 

They were the two guys I hoped to camp with last night. Turns out they had camped exactly where I had planned to camp - I just couldn't see their tents from the trail. 

Photos 1 and 2 are about that morning feeling of everything is illuminated. Photo 1 shows sun on a little patch of snow ( I was feeling so glad that the snow adventure-ordeal was over that I could appreciate the beauty of snow ). 

 

Photo 6 is another grove of Aspen. I think they are such lovely graceful trees. Hiking, I see their dead leaves on the ground from last fall. I remember those leaves from when I was hiking the PCT in the fall and those round leaves were brilliant yellow shining in the sun and making music in the wind. I didn't even know they were Aspens until my friend Connie from Monolake who lives surrounded by aspens identified them for me.  

 

Photo 3 is glancing back over my shoulder at the mountain after coming down. The trail there was alongside a dirt road. 

 

Later in the day the terrain changed completely. I was feeling some understanding of how people could get bored walking through this. But when I paused to take its picture I began to see it beautiful. That's one of the many ways that writing this blog and sharing the trail with you is a gift to me. I see it with new eyes when I think of sharing it with you. 

 

It's starting to get colder and I am probably going to crawl into my tent soon. I just asked the guys if I could take a photo of them. That's Laughs a Lot on the right, who has hiked the AT and whose son will be hiking it this year, and Purple Pants on the left who hiked the PCT in 2015. That's my sweet little tent in the background (where Purple Pants was already camped and graciously let me share his campsite when I couldn't find any other spots. )

 

So that's all for now. Oh - I did want to tell you that I used my sun umbrella for a long stretch of time walking on an unshaded road. So all my new gear - down pants, down beanie, sun umbrella - has been a big success. It amazes me that at night I can be so very cold that the new down stuff is a major blessing and the very next day I can be grateful for the sun umbrella giving me a little moving pool of shade that brings down the temperature from the beating sun as much as 10 degrees. In one 24 hour period from freezing to way too hot. 

Thanks for walking with me. See you tomorrow.