Day: 032
Date: Friday, 07 June 2024
Start: San Pedro Peaks
Finish: Youngsville
Daily Kilometres: 40.6
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 953.3
Weather: Mild to warm, partly cloudy, with occasional thunder and a few spits of rain.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts/muesli
Lunch: Snacks/Trail mix
Dinner: Noodles & tuna/Rice & chicken
Aches: Dave - very tired and the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported
Highlight: The assistance provided at the National Forests Ranger Station near where a closure of the CDT started because of a wildfire. The CDT was rerouted along two highways, a 50km roadwalk, to get around the fire. To help CDT hikers, the rangers were allowing hikers to camp at the ranger station, about 3km into the road walk, and were providing water, snacks, toilets and wifi. There was even a daily shuttle for those who did not want to do the road walk. We arrived at the ranger station about noon and the chatty duty ranger took good care of us, even getting a couple of cold Dr Pepper’s from the staff vending machine (which we paid for).
Lowlight: Unfortunately, the ranger support (see above) didn't extend to water along the road walk. We had to leave carrying 3 litres each to see us through to mid-morning tomorrow, making the road walk a bit of a grind.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
As Julie pointed out, today was really the reverse of yesterday. We started out in beautiful alpine scenery, with the odd patch of snow, and descended steadily through forest until we reached a road, along which we had to walk for many kilometres through country gradually turning into desert. We started out at 10500’ and finished at 8400’.
Of course, there were some differences too. We met a few other CDT hikers, including one who had passed us at great speed very early in our hike, but who had then sustained an injury and had six days off to recover. He was planning to hike 60km today so must feel OK.
Also, on our long road walk we had majestic mountains and bluffs on both sides of the road and we also passed through some small communities that seemed on hard times. At walking pace, you really get to see these remote places and get a better understanding, at least to a small extent, what their lives are like.
After about 18km of road walking, and at about 5:45pm, we found a place to set up camp on the roadside verge where we will be less obvious, though still visible, from the road. Hopefully, we will have a quiet night.
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