Sunday July, 26th we started our hike. We woke up to pouring rain at our family reunion and gather things quickly as we could to prepare for the day. We ended up leaving Augusta around 10 ish. It took us maybe an hour or so to get to the trailhead. It wasn't too far away. But a lot of the road was dirt road so we didn't cruise too fast. I am thinking maybe by the time we actually got on the trail it was around 11:30 or so? Thankfully when we got to the trail head it wasn't raining any more. It was a little cloudy, (which was so great), and slightly chilly, (also great), but not rainy. If I had been thinking I would have tried to journal down the days events because after a week they all just blur together. But I clearly wasn't thinking and after 7 days of being dehydrated and delirious, my details might be vague. I will try to just remember the days events through the pictures.
We had about an 11-13 mile hike that day. All in all it wasn't bad. The terrain was slightly up hill, but mostly flat. We made several stops along the way, but didn't rest a whole lot. Last time we did this hike, my cousin Krista got bear maced in the face by her then boyfriend, now husband. Sadly, but also thankfully, we didn't have any such events this year. Nothing quite that exciting at all really.
Here we are at the cars. Not even to the trail head. Happy so far. Ready to take on the world.
At the beginning of the trail head. We kept teasing that the sign looked kind of like a CTR sign just with the letters all mixed up. I guess it stands for the continental divide trail. You can follow this trail all the way up in to Canada one direction and down to Mexico the other direction. We only stayed on the CDT for a a portion of our hike.
We were anticipating how we would feel at the end of our journey just in case we didn't make it out ;)
Several years ago there was a pretty bad forest fire that burned through here. We were grateful to have cloud coverage because a lot of what we hiked was through a burn area. It was really sad to see so many dead trees, but it was also really neat, and kind of pretty in some ways. I Snapped this pictures because the pack horses that go through here make their own trail some times, and so here we have four separate trails and up ahead my sibs and cousins are all on their own little path. It was kind of fun to see them standing horizontally instead of being in a vertical stack like we usually hike.
One of our many breaks to wait for others to catch up, or to rest, or to take a potty stop.
We stopped for a lunch at a bridge. It looks like a common place for hikers to stop because there is wood stacked to replace the bridge here quite frequently, and people always use it to sit on. Also there is a great spot to pump water, and enough area for horses to graze if they needed to stop for a rest. We stopped for maybe 40 min, had some lunch, pumped water, and then hit the trail again. At this point I believe we were over half way for the day. Still hiking through burn area though. I am pretty sure we spent most of the day hiking in the burned parts.
Mommy and Nena just chillin at our lunch break.
Paul thought it wise to take a snooze while we waited for others to come and join us.
I thought I would get in on the action and wake him up ;)
Its hard to tell because of the lighting, but there is a strip of trees in between the green ones in front and the mountains that is just dead and burned. I tried to get some landscape pictures of the burn area, but alas I am no photographer.
This one you can see a little more. It is just so crazy how much area a wild fire can take out. It is also crazy to see how long it takes for everything to grow back. There are finally some trees beginning to grow, but it has been 7 or more years since the fire and still the trees aren't much taller than 3 feet.
We found a great place to camp just past the burn area. If you look closely in the pictures you can see that just past our camp sight there is burn area. We were just inside the forest. We had a nice river running past us, and flat space to set up our tents. It was perfect. The only down side was that we had to hike down a short but steep trail to get to our cook spot. But like my dad always says, its better to hike a little ways to eat then to deal with a bear trying to get into your tent.
Tallus trying to put on a smolder face, but failing totally. The girls are doing the dishes probably and getting the bear bags ready for hanging in the trees.
Just a small glimpse of our first campsite. Lots of trees, grass and flat ground. It was perfect. We even had enough space that all of our tents weren't set up right next to each other.
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