Day 77 – 7/8/13 – 23 mi (1314.1)

It was a pretty uneventful day. We moved into less dense mosquito territory, got rained on for a few minutes leaving lunch, took a nice alternate route through a valley, and saw some sheep.

The beetle kill in some areas we went through today is the worst we’ve seen yet. And then there were burn zones on top of that yet. Just before camp, we all were in the forest to hear a tree fall. There was no wind to speak of. This made us all a little nervous for camping in the middle of a beetle kill forest. Our normal criteria for a campsite are: flat, sheltered, near water, no bugs, dry, nice view. Pick two. Tonight’s top priority was away from dead trees that might fall over and kill us while we’re asleep. We also got fairly flat, near water and not too many bugs. That’s 3.5/7, making this one of the best campsites we’ve had on the CDT.

On a positive note, my regimen of taping the entire soles of my feet and supergluing the cracks seems to have worked. The bad skin is molting off nicely!