Day: 130
Date: Friday, 13 September 2024
Start: Marysville
Finish: Canyon Creek
Daily Kilometres: 41.0
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 3801.3
Weather: Cold and overcast most of the day with a strong cold wind.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Microwaved fruit pies & pop tarts/Muesli
Lunch: Snacks/Trail mix
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Nothing in particular.
Lowlight: In the early afternoon, one of several dogs on a farm that came out to bark at us, jumped the fence, struck up an instant rapport with Julie, and followed us for the next 10km of our road walk. No amount of threats and yelling would make it turn back and it had several close calls with passing cars. Eventually, a driver who must live locally, stopped and got the dog into his car.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We delayed getting up until 6am and started hiking at 7am, with the intention of arriving at a country store we could see on Google, close to our planned route, at 9am when it opened. We didn't know what food would be available there, but figured they would have something different to our usual on-trail fare.
The two-hour walk to the store was quite pleasant, following a traffic-free dirt road mostly downhill through attractive partly-forested grazing land. Towards the end of this walk we reached the valley floor where there were farms and also a compound with multiple small dwellings and RVs and various flags flying, including the Confederate flag.
The store turned out to be very small, so we bought a few things then sat on the rocking chair on their porch while we had our breakfast. It was a very cold morning with a cold wind blowing, but at least the porch offered a little protection. The store also had a trash can and pit toilet, both bonuses for thru-hikers.
From the store, we had a 26km road walk along Hwy 279 up to Flesher Pass (6150’). The road initially passed through farmland, irrigated by huge sprinkler systems, then climbed through a picturesque ravine carved by Canyon Creek before reaching a narrow valley with more farms and cabins. After a lunch stop we passed a farm where there were dogs and one of them decided to join us on our hike for 10km (see above).
Eventually, we reached Flesher Pass around 4:30pm where we rejoined the official CDT, north of the wildfire closure, which we had skirted.
It was nice to get back onto single-track trail, even if it did climb steeply away from the pass. Our last 5km for the day was quite hilly with good views, enhanced by the emergence of the setting sun, illuminating the clouds, and a bright moon rising on the east.
Around 7:50pm, we found a protected tent site on a cold windy ridge and set up camp. It was good to get in our cosy tent and sleeping bags.
No comments:
Post a Comment