August 2nd, 2024
Mile Marker: 1029.4
Miles Hiked: 22
Last night wasn’t the best night of sleep. I felt like I was in a light sleep, daydream kind of sleep for majority of the night.
Journey and I both slept in late until 7:30 ish and finally decided to do breakfast in bed since it was so chilly out.
We took our time and around 9 AM headed out, our latest trail start. We knew that we only had roughly 20 miles to complete and with the flat terrain, we would fly.
Starting later also meant it wasn’t very cold by the time we started trekking as the sun was up and shining.
3 miles in we had a river crossing that felt more like a lake crossing. Thankfully it wasn’t too deep. Aster, Whatever, and Captain all caught up to us here. Aster let us know about an alternate that would follow the river for the next 6 or so miles instead of taking the CDT through a waterless stretch and without any views.
Journey and I were quickly up for the alternate and I was so happy with our decision almost instantly. The trail skirted the river and we were able to see people out on river kayaking. It also led to stellar views.
We even got to see these cute little marmot gopher things? They look similar to a marmot but are tiny! And so adorable, I wanted to hold one so bad, however note their claws. Watching them grip the rocks and climb about was impressive.
We then found an awesome lunch spot next to a lake and eventually all of us had stopped here to relax including Karma as well.
After lunch both Journey and I were extremely tired. We felt it this morning but after lunch we really were starting to drag. We also started to notice the heat, it was hot today.
The trail had us lost in the trees for a couple hours and then we poked out into a geyser surprise. I’m always shocked these things just appear out of what feels like no where.
The sulfur smell always hits us first to let us know the trail is going to skirt us by. It’s an uneasy feeling to walk over this land sometimes.
Some of them were close enough to trail that we could feel all the heat coming off of it and since it was already hot, we tried to skirt by fast.
We eventually came to a river shortly after the geysers and were told it was a natural hot spring. Since it was already 90 degrees out we just decided to stick our hands in and the water was definitely hot. Maybe 100? It’s a shame we didn’t arrive on a cold morning but nonetheless cool to experience!
Quickly after the river we came upon another large lake and decided to hang out and have dinner. We were hopeful the mosquitos wouldn’t be too bad here with the breeze.
It was a gorgeous area and hard to not think how much better it could be without all the biting bugs.
We also caught sight of these birds maybe a loon? As they would all dive down together underwater and one by one pop up further down and swim together. I could have watched them for a while!
After dinner we had another 4 miles to camp. Which turned out to be a fiasco. Nothing can ever go smoothly on the CDT. We arrived at an intersection and from comments were told the campsite is on the other trail. So Journey and I followed it and didn’t see much camping options. We then found in the comments a new lat/long to use and decided to go back out to the CDT and take the trail down and maybe we would see our campsite 8J3 listed, which we did.
However this is a newer site and not nicely set up like the others. I was beyond frustrated, this is a national park? Shouldn’t they take care of the people in the backcountry?
We decided to set up in the grass and know very well all our stuff will be wet in the morning from condensation. Joy.
We messaged Akela to let her know, but it seems as if the message got out too late and they continued on to 8J4.
So, as the story continues, we are camping alone. 😂
We are in a group of trees so I hope that gives me a little peace of mind and I can sleep unlike last night.
Iz and Oz
Izzy + Ozzy 