July 14th, 2024
Mile Marker: 639
Miles Hiked: 21
We woke up this morning and went to an all you can eat breakfast buffet at the Candy shop. We were thrilled as always to see Whatever, Aster, Columbus, and Stove there. They had just made it into town and planned to stay the night there, always just a day behind.
Journey and I will eventually take a zero so we can be lined up and hike together!
We ate as much food as we could and headed back to the motel to pack up and hitch out.
We ended up getting a rather quick hitch out of Darby however, the man was only going to Sula and we would have to hitch again. The man was coming from church, all dressed up in a suit and tie. He talked about where he was from and what he was doing and shared stories of being a missionary in South America on two separate occasions. The first one he said he was there for two years and had a hard time adjusting to America once he got back.
The more he talked about his transition back to America the more I resonated with him. It was very similar to how I felt coming back from Ethiopia, it brought tears to my eyes as I had found someone who felt the exact same way I had.
We thanked him and his stories and we all wished each other well.
Then we spent over an hour waiting in Sula for a hitch. There isn’t much in Sula and it’s right off the highway so people were moving at fast speeds.
We eventually noticed Raspberry getting dropped off in Sula as well. She went a bit further down to stick out her thumb.
Finally we got a couple who pulled over in their truck and were able to take all 3 of us. They were heading to a river to float but worked on the ski mountains and knew all about the CDT and hikers. It was just the type of people we needed to pick us up. They even drove extra to get us back to the exact trail head. So nice!
We then started our day later than usual around 1 PM. We walked on gravel for around 5 miles and then turned onto trail. I could immediately feel the heel blister I have been trying to repair and felt frustrated by it. It’s always something!
After 8 miles in, we decided to eat lunch and look at the blister and see if there was anything we could do.
It had swollen up so we poke it with a needle, drained it, put some A&D cream on it and kept moving. It was very painful at first then it started to feel better which I was very grateful for.
We lost Raspberry pretty quick which I was bummed by, I had wanted to get to know her more but maybe will further on down the trail.
We went through some beautiful forest and had some beautiful ridge line views. It was just us two day and we enjoyed each others company, chatting away about this and that. It felt similar to a PCT day, which we both adored.
We then reached a spring 17 miles in and saw Lumberjack’s tent but figured he was asleep as he didn’t answer our hello to him. We decided to keep going since we saw a part of a deer leg laying by the trail. Not a fan of that so we kept going for another 3 miles.
It’s just us tonight at this campsite which always makes me uneasy in these areas but I know it’ll all be okay.
Overall, a good, easy terrain day.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 