CDT - Day 85 - Longest Day Ever
This morning started like any other day on the CDT. Hiker Greg left camp before I did and had about a 20-minute head start. That gave me a chance to enjoy some music and listen to one of my audiobooks.
The first several miles wound through the forest. I stopped at a very muddy creek and managed to find some clean water a few feet upstream beneath a fallen log. It would end up being the last reliable natural water source of the day. Before long, the landscape changed from forest to wide-open sagebrush grasslands.
After hiking through the sagebrush, I found myself walking along a dirt road. A few cars passed by, and one driver stopped to chat and handed me two bottles of water. I gladly accepted them, as the day was warming up and I was going through my water much faster than usual.
At CDT mile 1578.1, the trail transitioned onto a paved road before returning to the sagebrush at mile 1579.6. When I reached that point, I caught up with Hiker Greg, who had been waiting for me. We talked about taking an alternate route because of the lack of water on the Red Line. We agreed to continue along Sage Creek Road instead, bypassing that section of trail.
The comments on FarOut mentioned several water sources along the road, as well as a few water caches. As the day went on, we ended up with far more water than either of us expected. People driving by kept stopping to offer bottled water and fresh fruit. We even missed one of the water caches, and someone offered to drive us back so we could pick it up. At one point, I was carrying more than three liters of water. So much for water scarcity.
We decided to stay on the road all the way to Rawlins and planned to spend the night at Teton Reservoir Campground. When we arrived, we discovered it was closed for construction. Fortunately, the construction crew told us we were welcome to camp as long as we stayed away from their work area. We ended up pitching our tents in a small parking area overlooking the reservoir, about a quarter mile from the construction equipment. It was late by the time we got there, so I skipped dinner, ate a quick snack instead, and crawled straight into my sleeping bag.
Around 11:00 p.m., a monsoon storm rolled in, bringing fierce winds and rain. Several of the stakes on Greg's tent pulled loose, and he nearly lost his rainfly. Thankfully, my tent held up without any issues. The wind howled well into the night, making it nearly impossible to sleep. I finally drifted off sometime around 3:00 a.m.