Day 95 – 7/26/13 – 23.7 mi (1681.2)
It was a pleasant day of walking and long breaks for LoveNote and me. The others, not so much. In the morning, we followed the Green River through a beautiful valley and past a couple big lakes, spotting 3 moose along the way. There was a campground nearby and lots of day hikers, fishermen and boaters. We stopped for a late morning break at a bridge leading toward the campground and trailhead area. We’d been hoping for trash and privies, but decided it was too far out of the way. Sweetfish of course went anyway to make sure there wasn’t a soda machine. And of course he came back with a ton of food some campers gave him, including glass jars of peanut butter and jelly. We packed conservatively this leg, not sure how long certain parts, like Knapsack Col would take, so we all have plenty of extra food to begin with. But we found room for some more.
We climbed out of the valley and had a late lunch by a stream. We had a 1000′ climb to Gunsight Pass immediately after lunch, and I was the first to leave. I waited at the top for the others. LoveNote showed up 15 minutes later and told me the others had all take a wrong turn. She had been the last to leave lunch and didn’t see the others’ footprints after the trail took a sharp turn just a hundred yards or so after the lunch spot. We waited another 45 minutes and no one showed up, so we left a note and kept walking. We stopped at 6pm for dinner, and finally just after 7pm, Stryder showed up. They’d all missed the turn and gone 2.5 miles the wrong way before figuring it out, and since they went the exact opposite direction the CDT went, they had no choice but to turn around and go back the way they came. The others had all stopped at the lunch spot to regroup, but Stryder kept walking to catch up to us. We walked another couple miles and set up camp. Hopefully the others will catch up sometime tomorrow.
We once again bear bagged tonight, and it went much more smoothly. It actually feels important tonight, too, as we saw very clear and fresh bear tracks since coming down from Gunsight Pass. Oh, did I mention they’re grizzly tracks??
