Day 57 – 6/18/13 – 26.1 mi (1001.9)

The plan was to get to Twin Lakes tonight before the store holding our resupply packages closed, around 7-8pm. Though ambitious, we felt it was doable. The CDT had other plans.

I was 30 seconds away from putting on my pack and leaving camp this morning when some random dude walked into our camp. It turns out it was Michael, a devoted follower of Wired’s blog. He had come to Cottonwood Pass last night to bring some trail magic, but we passed through before he had arrived. So he hiked the magic in to us!! This is a new kind of trail magic, and now we’re spoiled! We enjoyed some fresh fruit, snacks and sodas as a second breakfast before leaving camp. Thanks Michael!

Finally leaving camp, we successfully took a shortcut across a swamp, then climbed out of the valley and walked several miles contouring around a mountain. We were supposed to turn off and go steeply up over a pass. Ninja and I somehow blew right by the turnoff, never noticing, cruising down the beautifully maintained, level trail. This should’ve been the giveaway that we weren’t on the CDT. About a mile and a half later we figured it out and turned around…an hour setback.

We caught up to LoveNote and Stryder at the top of the pass for lunch, and by then knew that making ~15 more miles by evening was unlikely. We still tried our best for while. About 5pm, Ninja and I found ourselves at the bottom of a 2500′ in 2.5 miles climb (that’s really steep) with booming thunder and raindrops starting to fall. We officially gave up on making Twin Lakes tonight, set up my tent to take a break during the rain, and just laughed at how the terribly day was turning out.

We ended up doing the climb and camping on the other side, stopping about 8pm, which is late for us. Bloodbath and Rampage rolled into camp shortly after, and Rampage went on a hilarious rant about the 31 mile day she’d just gone through. Unfortunately, I can’t share the details because people’s grandmothers are reading.

Not planning on spending tonight on trail, I was pretty much out of food. For dinner, I made a shake with what I had left: whey protein powder, hot chocolate mix, and Bailey’s. I thought this was an awesome dinner. The others disagreed and talked me into accepting a ramen from Stryder.

Last night Sweetfish left the group to hitch into Buena Vista for dinner. We found out tonight he ended up with a friend in Leadville and will be slack packing tomorrow. LoveNote has a friend in Aspen she’d like to meet up with, but has no definite plans. I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow, no one can make up their mind, and it’s driving me insane. All I can do is go to bed.

The Daily Ninjup Report
Today was a disaster all around. No Ninjups!