A Horse Named Thunder
- Today I traveled 10.7 miles with 2664 feet of ascent.
- Short mileage day today. I messed up on my planning and thought I’d have 15ish miles into to town today, but it was only 10. So, I didn’t necessarily have to push so many miles yesterday. It did end up letting me have a chance to catch the 11am shuttle into Rangely where I’ll be staying at Camp 43.
- Today I crossed over the Saddleback mountains, whose summit consists of a 3+ mile ridge above the tree line. The forecast last night called for rain most of the day with a higher chance of thunderstorms in the early afternoon. So I really wanted to get through that Ridgeline in the morning.
- Well it turned out the morning had the worst storms of the day so I ended up crossing over the ridge in a downpour during a thunderstorm. If I’m not taking into account the danger of being on the tallest mountain peak for miles during a storm, it was one of the coolest experiences I’ve had. Taking the risks into account, I was spooked up there and wondering if I was the dumbest guy hiking that day. I ended up passing about 8 other through hikers trying to cross the peak as fast possible so that made it a bit more confident, though it probably shouldn’t have.
- I ended up making it to the other treeline soaked and tired but out of danger of being struck by lightning. I then had about 2 hours to get down the mountain to catch my shuttle so I was hopping down the whole thing.
- I encountered my first big trail magic at the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. Phoenix, Bryce and Crawdad had a trunk full of sodas, candy, sandwiches and fruit for us and it was amazing to eat after running through the rain for the past few hours.
- Then I went to Camp 43. It’s run by Ken and Jill, top tier human beings, who built a brandnew barn/garage/tricked out loft in their backyard to house hikers. Ken shuttled us to laundry, the grocery and a spot to eat and I got to spend the day with Strider and Montana Dave.
- It was a top tier day!
Peace!