Canada to Mexico, posted as it happened.

One Little Gear Change. . Okay, a lot of changes, but this was one change for two people. . Tweaking the gear before a trip is a constant. Yesterday, @sasquatch716 said, "You know your obsession with weight is a psychosis?" Maybe he's right. . I've saved 5oz! Praise Jesus! . I didn't expect to be able to fit everything for the CDT into the diminutive Kumo (36L) from @gossamergear, but I did. . I thought my recently overstuffed sleeping bag, and a food bag with enough food for 8 days would make it impossible. . But here I am taking credit for the Aiden inspired change. She switched first. I am the copycat. . She begged me to email Gossamer Gear to see if I could switch from the camo to the gray color Kumo. For some reason she doesn't want to match her dad. But they've discontinued the camo, so.... sorry about your luck, Twinzie. . For you this could be fortuitous. If they still have the camo, they are selling it CHEAP. There's a link to their sight in our bio.

Tender and tense, this encounter of other. . . . 📷 Georgie

Elements . We walked on the edge of a storm the other day. . June did great until we had looped around to the start, but took a hard right for another lap. The kids were a few hundred yards behind and had to follow. She called me on the phone, and angrily demanded that we take a rest. When she caught me she tossed her backpack and yelled, "I am not going on this hike! I'm not!" . I gave her a hug when she sat down beside me. Her feet hurt. She may have also been hurt that I turned a deaf ear to her concern for her cousins who had come to walk with us. "I said they could wait at the gate for us." . "It's just that my feet hurt dad," she said when we started walking again, "and I know they are going to hurt worse for a long time on the trail until they get strong. I don't like knowing that I'll have to go through that again." . A few hours later she said, "I know I'll be okay." . The CDT is bigger in every way: colder, more exposed, more extreme weather patterns and more... . We are going to have to be prepared to protect ourselves from the wind, sun, and rain. A good hat helps. . We found @henschelhats at our local outdoor retailer, @andythornal after seeing them on my dad's head for years. When I read "lifetime warranty" that was all I needed. Thru Hikers tend to demand a lifetime of wear from product in a few short months. . It turned out that when our friend Dustin of @sunglowphoto came out with his camera he snapped some fantastic pictures that were of good use for Henschel Hats. As a result, we have had our pick of their catalogue for this trip. . Among the hats we tried, June found this gem. It's a comfortable lightweight cap, then you snap in the sun shade to protect your ears and neck, then you snap in the face screen to shield from the wind. . I'm copying her and using this same style. . Georgie's also wearing a cap like this, but hers has a hole in the back for a pony tail. She likes that better. The others seem to have settled for a full brim hat called the Camper. It's my runner up, but I like to be like June.

Again? You're leaving us again? . We broke the news to the goats today. They're going to need a minute.

I love June. . It's Henry's birth month, but it's her name. . I once wrote her a poem and stared it "January born June." . She'll say, "Dad, I just thought of something," and slip her hand in mine. . When it's 90+ out I don't much want to hold her hand, but I do. I hold on as long as she will. Watching June skip away in a mock horse gallop, Monica asked me if it wasn't a bit hot to have been holding June's hand. . "Way too hot," I said, "I'm also not sure she won't be too old for that sort of thing soon." . I'm going to try to enjoy it while it lasts. Even if it isn't all that enjoyable. . I love my June.

Packing Resupply. . We have been dehydrating meals for a month or more. We are 44 meals, and one Costco run away from shutting the lid on the last box of food for the trail (at least through Denver) . Monica said, "I'll do another thruhike if we don't have to eat crap food again." . Our friend, @dahnhikes said, "If you are going to make it on this trail, you might want to think more about nutrition." . So I set to work finding the good ready made food, while Monica learned to dehydrate backpacking food. . She found @backcountry_foodie and subscribed to her site (you can find a link in our bio). We bought a dehydrator and borrowed another (thanks @yesfitceo). So the lunch staple + trail shake is 1100 calories a day of good food. . For snacks I found @eatiqbar, @huppybar, @eatbobos and loaded us up. . For the staples I found @sansmealbar and @eatnuttzo. . 3 things. Both are head and shoulders above in their niche. Both got excited about our trip and offered to send product. And Both are heavily involved with fantastic philanthropy connected to the proceeds of sales. Check them out. You'll feel good eating their stuff, and good about where your money goes. . But, here's how they helped us. With @sansbar we have gone from 800 calories of pop tarts per day (Do I have to go into why that's unhealthy?), to 780 calories of Sans Bars per day. None of the bad stuff, only the good stuff. Net nutritional gain is scary. . With @eatnuttzo we have moved our way into a nut and seed butter in with none of the bad stuff. Read their story and vision. Link in Bio. Just cool. . When the kids saw all that good food they wined. They are kids . A handful of candy and Snickers is our concession. . Monica is tired. I'm tired. Walking might be a relief.

Whose your Plus 1? . It's always better backpacking with friends, or at least that's what the kids say. . We were talking about getting ready for the trip the other day, and my cousin @luchrysta 's son @ethan_caswell8 mumbled under his breath, "I would love to go." . Now, we are 7. At least for the first six weeks.

"It will be fun to live outside again." . Today is the day we drive away. . The whole is greater the sum of these parts. . FOMO 80% Anxious 70% Giddy 75% . And on and on, brimming over with each. . We are shooting for a 2:30 pm departure, so we can get out by 5. There's not enough time in the meantime.

And then... . We met Ed. We met Ed because he was sitting under a shade tree across the street from "mechanic near me". Ed said, "That thing right there threw a rod." . We drove 35 miles per hour for about 22 minutes to another mechanic, and got confirmation. . If you had to stop for a few minutes or who knows how long (working out options), you probably wouldn't pick Chapman, Kansas. It's got a charm about it though. . I can't remember a great family adventure that didn't include mechanical trouble. .

If it works, there is a danger we might forget just how impossible it felt at this moment. . We have started at the privy at Warm Springs Nature Preserve on the Anaconda route. . We have 18 miles of road walk today before we get to the trail. . It's a funny way to start, but the East side of Glacier doesn't open till July 1st at the earliest. We have 300 miles to walk Northbound before we get there. Then after GNP we can flip back down and head South.

Day one was all up from Anaconda on a road walk past some beautiful farm and range land. It was an 18 mile reminder that it's really really hard to reacclimate to this all day walking thing. Ethan lost his knife. He only had it for ten years, so no big deal. June is having to work the hardest. She is the leader and the pace setter for 2 weeks. she's pushing herself so that we can meet Grandmommy (her favorite human, at the end if the section). She doesn't want to disappoint the others. I try to tell her to relax, but I'm more tempted to push the pace than I thought I'd be.

While I was tempted to post a picture of one the hundreds of blowdowns we scrambled around, crawled under, or hopped over that tore packs,scratched skin and slowed us to a pace of 4 miles in 3.5 hours. I'm not sure it defined the day. This view, June said, was worth it. I couldn't believe she had said it, because I was walking with her through "I can'ts and I'm dying's. Monica's feet hurt. Goergie ended the day in tears with sore feet. This is the "What the hell have I done" part of the hike. The afternoon groans of thunder and storm that rolled in didn't help. But "never quit on a bad day" isn't a colloqualism in this subculture for no reason. I love these kids. That much I know.

Day 3 started late with a big sleep in. It had rained the night before, so we didn't want to poke the bear. Monica's feet felt great. June was slower than slow on the climbs. I mean look at that face. It's weird. Having completed a long trail to think about all these things. I wonder if any of us would or could do it alone. June is capable of so much more than she knows. It takes someone else though to keep her moving. I, for my part, thrive on the time and the people, so would I do it? I walked with Georgie for two hours. Her feet were better. She said, "Dad, it's really not so much the pain level, as much as it is knowing that it's going to keep happening for awhile." Monica's feet felt better. June wanted to make the miles, but starting the day late left the miles for late, so she spotted some "flat" at the base of some switchbacks, so our fearless leader called it a day. I had to put rocks under our rent at our tent at our feet so Monica and I wouldn't slide into oblivion.

Georgie felt better. We got an early start in hopes of making the remaining 17 Mike's to town. It's amazing the difference a day without blowdowns can make. Well, most of the day. June wanted to be going by 5am, but it was 5:30 before we started walking. Just after noon we had finished. It's amazing what a little of the right kind of motivation can do.

Up high again. . My brother, who saved us with the car fiasco surprised us in Helena, and walked out a few miles with us with four of his kids. My mom, who walked with us too, came to appreciate the value of June's trekking poles. . The high exposed walks are beautiful, but a hint of what the next few days filled with rain are going to be like for us. No views, and probably no fun. . But on we go.

It rained from 2pm the day before. we crashed into a stand of pines cold and damp after a day Henry called his 2nd most miserable day on trail (that's saying something).We hoped the natural shelter would help us to stay mostly dry. Most of us did. The next day the cold rain continued, so when the trail went up toward the eidge, we consulted the map and walked around on a dirt road that ran below the ridge. The CDT this section has beautiful exposed ridge walks that would be great on a clear day. On dayslike today, dear CDTC, the Granite Butte overlook and tower does not entice. We were pleased with our "can we please not walk the ridge" alternate around to Stemple Pass. The success of the alternate led me to an unsuccessful search for another, but, by happy accident, led to the discovery that if we made 12 miles after lunch we could meet Grandpa at Flesher Pass and stay the night with he and Grandmommy at a VRBO near Lincoln. Warm fire and meal motivated, June, our cheif logistics officer, cranked out 12 miles in under 5 hours, saving us from wet tents and damp down.

Grandpa picked us up at Flesher Pass and Grandmommy had a nice warm meal waiting. We slept warm and dry. We woke up late and lolligagged a bit, waiting for the sun, but it never came. so we combined necessaries for the day into fewer packs, and hopped into the car to slack pack from Flesher to Rogers Pass. Just 14 miles or thereabouts. we were all smiles for awhile. Aiden stopped to admire a boulder, and said, "Henry, let's climb this.* *We don't have time," I said. "I have a feeling this will get miserable before the day is out." At first the wind willing up the exposed traverses was fun. Aiden and Silas (my nephew who walked with us for the day, leaned back into the 60 mph winds to see if it would hold them up. Farther along the wind carried rain and sleet and it was less fun. We pointed out umbrellas on a 90 degree angle into the wind to stay dry. (I will never go backpacking without an umbrella again. And I don't know which one you'll by, but I can tell you Gossamer Gear's holds up in heavy winds.) It was a thin silver line between us and misery. When we made it to the top, sheltered by a stretch of pine. The sleet turned to snow. We were excited to have finished the worst of it. in the pines we passed out second CDT hiker for the day. He was putting on a second layer of wind pants while telling us there would be four miles more of the wind between us and the pass. The girls had gone ahead. Henry, Ethan and I hurried into the gale to catch up, but when I stopped to tie my shoes behind a scraggly pine, they jogged on. Somewhere in the catching up my numb fingers and sleet slashed legs warmed and my heart lifted, and I started singing and praying. What power on display! When I caught Georgie, she wasn't experiencing it quite the same. I told her she would make it. "I know, just let me be miserable till it's over." Grandpa was at the bottom waiting at 4pm.

No one said it would be easy, but no one said it'd be this hard. The first three weeks are awful. When you decide to take your family on a thruhike. You'll want to quit for 60% of the first 14-21 days. The potential for injury is high, and knowing the difference between pain and PAIN is a complex equation. The worst is the feet. We are better at it this time. The injury prone among us walk with calf sleeves (@os1st), because they are preventative for a host of possible ailments. We spot hotspots quickly and throw some skin lube (@skinstrong) on them. Monica has become an expert in various taping methods for arch pain, tendon pains, and plantar fasciitis. We use a rigid athletic tape like Lukotape and Rock Tape for the KT style tape (because it actually sticks).

September '19 When I was busily trying to win Monica to the idea of a CDT attempt with the kids we came to the Bob Marshall Wilderness. She was saying no for a host of reasons. After a four day loop with our friends the Browns. she said,"We've got to bring the kids back here." Here we are. And what's cooler? We head into the Bob today with the hope of meeting the Browns at Benchmark Trailhead on the 4th... which, in the world of scheduled posts, is your today.

What a difference a day makes. We woke in warm beds to bacon and eggs from my dad, and pushed it to the limits on the VRBO checkout time. He dropped us at Roger's Pass around noon without rain. Up top the wind was howling again, but with the sun peaking through it made it fun. We leaned into the wind as far as we could without falling over. We only had 58 miles to make in 4 days so we called it early after 8 miles at the top of Lewis and Clark Pass. Ethan (@ethan_caswell8) said, "This is more like what I pictured it would be like."

"Let's take an early lunch at the Lake that is 10 miles out." Seemed like a great idea till we got to know those ten miles. Walking right along the divide. I mean, without wavering from the spine. Straight up and down in heavy crosswinds. It was beautiful. With sun and cloud fighting for primacy we could finally see across the scenery below. It was as breathtaking as the climbs. Lunch was late, so in the afternoon we settled for 8 miles, knowing that tomorrow we have to ford the Dearborn River. It's reportedly pretty full and who wants to go waste deep through a river at 6am. We may as well leave those few miles for the morning, and show up warmed up from walking. Tonight we are all nursing niggles. All that up and down is tough on knees, ankles and feet.

We talked Ethan into wearing a knee sleeve after we taped it up. Henry is trading Georgie for calories now. He is ravenously hungry. She is a sucker for snickers. He is swapping 260 calories of whatever is in snickers for 390 calories of a Sans Meal Bar. It may be a meal replacement bar out there. In here, we are calling it barely a snack. We made it to the Deerborn early, and looked upstream for a better crossing. There was a wide shallow stretch that just required 100 yards of battling through brush. After everyone was safely across we waited for Henry,and waited. I got worried. He never takes long to dig a hole, and catch up. So I receossed the Dearborn and backtracked the trail at a jog calling his name. After a mile, I found him laying on his backpack. "Yeah, I went that way to, but then I realized I missed the junction so I came back to here, went to the water, you weren't there, so I came back here. I figured you'd eventually figure out you'd gone the wrong way and come back." A nice couple happened to be camping nearby. They'd met Henry. I looked at there map, it looked like we could backtrack to the CDT from the opposite side of the Dearborn where we'd mistakenly crossed it. When Henry and I rejoined the others we tried our first shortcut. It worked. The day was beautiful. Toward the end if the day with tired feet up on a traverse and no official campsite in sight we dropped off trail to a river bottom that looked okay. When we got there it turned out to be only about 6 inches above the flooded river. "You think we will be okay?" Monica asked. "As long as it doesn't rain." At 9pm, when the rain started I crawled out of the tent and stuck a stick in the ground at the high water mark. Crawled into the tent and set an alarm for 10pm. When I checked it hadn't risen and the rain had stopped.

The Browns! Henry and Porter practiced their quick draw with their bear spray. The Browns ignited a love for backpacking in us when they invited us to go with them long ago. We hauled in a propane tank and a folding table and the kitchen sink. We loved it. The Browns were our first goal on the PCT, they met us a few hundred miles down trail. They played down markers, picture challenges, all along the way down the trail. When I pitched Monica on the CDT, I did it poorly. The Browns were among a group of friends that coached us through. We hiked in the Bob in September with them, and it's where we turned the corner toward doing this thing. They met us again this time. Benchmark Campground. right on time. We needed a break from the grind of growing into the hike. We walked 15 miles in across big meadows and rolling hills on easy terrain, and camped just before the trail starts to climb toward the Chinese Wall. The adults began a conversation about depression and anxiety, that annoyed the kids. We continued the conversation ar intervals, half in earnest and half to enjoy annoying the kids. Friends make it better.

Our second day with the Browns we walked to the feature that drew them back to the Bob. The Chinese Wall is an immense wall of /-edit-not granite/ limestone that stretches for miles, towering over the trail. There were river crossings, and snow patches to navigate. By the end of the day, Jamie declared the 13.3 miles that our trail app, Guthooks, to be incorrect by a good bit. His Fit Bit and his Inreach both claimed 15 or better. It wasn't easy. I'll give him that. Will brown learned what a "talisman" was after refusing to cede his turn in a spelling game for what must have been hours. He then explained an alternate game. His difficulty explaining the game was, in the end, far more entertaining than the actual game. Henry and Aiden found a boulder to climb during lunch. We stumbled into camp, ate quickly under some pressure from some pesky mosquitoes, and set up camp a little way apart from the Browns, so as not to wake them early. Henry and I are in bear bag detail, and have been leaning in favor of a 2 rope, 2 tree method. we had to lean in hard against 4 days of food (x5) to get them in place. In the end we won out. The other 2 in our party are not fasting. They are using Ursacks, a "bear proof" kevlar weave bag. It can just be tied to a tree. It is a great lift to see the Browns. We haven't turned the corner quite yet. Hiker hunger has set in, trail legs are coming, but we are not quite at the "this is what we do now," aha moment.

For many reasons, the Spotted Bear alternate was recommended by every Southbound hiker we passed. "It's all burn and blowdowns the other way." "Spotted Bear is beautiful." "You will have wet feet the whole time, though." We left the campsite early and spent the morning guessing what time the Browns would roll out. Dropping down into Spotted bear was great. all the undergrowth changed. Berry bushes everywhere. All kinds. Early on Henry and Ethan tried to keep there feet dry. I told Ethan a log was slick and to watch out, so he let Henry test it out. Late in the afternoon we climbed the aptly named, Switchback Pass. June is no longer the leader. Her two weeks in command have run out. She did great getting us to the Browns on time, but now we are picking up the pace. We keep swapping out the head of the line between Monica and Aiden. Aiden is suffering an Achilles complaint. we are trying to baby it and let her walk it well, but the snow and mud aren't helping. The pace is faster than June would like. Anything faster than 1.25 mph uphill is too much in her mind. When I said, "You can do it, kid. Keep at it." She didn't interpret as encouragement and raged. But we made it over the hill and to the lake where we'd hoped to camp. The rain and wind whipped up some discomfort for us, so we found a stand of trees to hide in. Henry ripped the side of his rain fly wide open on a branch/overzealous tug, so we swapped that side around to the leeward. Many were crying. I lost count. And a few went to bed without dinner rather than come back out into the cold. In the end we slept well to a symphony of tree and wind.

Aiden led all day with her sore Achilles. She picked her way carefully down the snow and mud and managed not to tweak it too badly. Once we were down the pass the walking was smooth, and after a couple of nervous river crossings on log jams we sat for lunch at a ranger station. Having woken late, we walked late. At 6:45 we stopped in the mosquitoes and ate a hurried dinner so that we could hang bear bags right away after a few more evening miles. Henry picked a spot to camp in a glade in a few years fresh burn. Though we couldn't feel it in the air, in the morning we would be covered in frost.

"It wasn't even that tough a crossing, but I didn't want to get my pants wet up to my knee again. The log was big, so I don't know what happened. I just lost my balance." "Do you want to change?" "No, I just want to keep my dry clothes dry. I'll walk myself dry. Can we just go now, please?" Later she said she was trying to think of something to be thankful for, and just then, the sun came out and stayed out for about 20 minutes.

We were warned about the blowdowns for 8 of the first 10 miles coming out of Marias Pass, so June found an alternate we'd heard of from Earl and Walking Home. It's trail 101 and follows along and through Two Medicine River. We started walking at 6:30 and by 8 we had completed our 10th and last cold wet foot crossing. To make it to the border we are going to have to walk up the west side of the park. Blackfeet Nation has extended a travel ban for the entirety of the 2020 season. Glacier National Park is not, as of today, planning to issue any backcountry permits on the east side of the park. We finished the section by walking 6 miles of the 43 miles we will have to walk on Highway 2 along the Flathead River around to West Glacier. From there we will road walk inside the park through Polebridge through to the border. "They even have a monument!" Sani told us excitedly, when he told us how to do it.

After a much needed day off courtesy of Dad and his friend Ted Lepsky, we hit the road, literally, for the long road walk around Glacier to the west side. Blackfeet Nation had declared themselves closed for all of 2020, so all through the Bob Marshall Wilderness we queried southbounders in passing. "Is there a way through?" "Road walk,maybe, but you don't want to miss Glacier." "I started the road walk, but it was pretty sketchy." "Yeah man. It's a soft hundred miles, and there's a monument. Here's what you do..." We will take door number three. Road walks get bigger miles, but they are harder on the bones. After the 6 miles we'd plodded on from Marias Pass we'd need better than 90 in 4 days to get to have my dad flip us back down to Anaconda to where we'd started. After a bear sighting, and 25 miles along a tight shouldered 70mph mountain highway, we dropped, bone weary, into a gravel parking lot of a river access and called it a night.

The road walk bore witness to the power of the car. It's something you are less likely to consider until you are walking within feet of a couple of tons of metal flying past. Thankfully, cell coverage was bad, and the roads are tricky, so most drivers are paying careful attention. Early in the day, Monica saw a big boulder against a cliff wall we were hugging on a shoulderless inside turn. She couldn't place the bad smell. When she neared the boulder she realized it's a dead and bloated deer without much of it's hind end in tact. There were highlights on the day, though. After we entered the park and overshot our turn onto Camus Road, we stood, mouths agape on the shore of Lake MacDonald, looking across to the profile of the peaks that make this place famous. Later, we were surprised on a climb up Camus Road by my dad and his friend Ted who had driven 3 hours from Missoula to deliver pizza. And then, in the weary hour, the weepy hour, to be reinvigorated by, not one, but 3 grizzy sightings. We stumbled outside the boundary of GNP and found a flat spot, road weary after a 26 mile day. Outer North Fork Road would be less crowded and mostly dirt. Far easier on the joints. Hurry tomorrow.

"I've got lunch," read his text. Cryptic is my dad's middle name, but I knew what he meant. Usually, I'd keep that kind of thing to myself and let it be a surprise, but we needed a win. This walk was beautiful though,and a vast improvement over the previous day's. we had a great view of the profile of the peaks of glacier,and were treated to some of the strangest real estate in all of the country. Beautiful expensive private homes that have no electricity, bordering ancient homestead log cabins. They back up to National Forrest and the fact that the confusion between public and private is real is testified to in the thousands of "Private Property" signs we pass. The "Tourists, Go Home" sign, thankfully stood alone. In the afternoon while my dad was cruising the roads looking for a camp spot for us, we passed a sign for the Pacific Northwest Trail where the Bennett's (@kidsoutwild) had only just passed through. Someday we will cross paths. The trail is long, but only a few feet wide. A couple was checking their mailbox and we asked them where we might camp. They are part timers up here, looking forward to retiring from jobs in Connecticut and living out the winters here too. Most of the main road is plowed within a few days of the big storms. "You never have to wait up here for more than a week." We camped near a North Fork river access. A young girl asked us about the CDT. Her dad had asked what we were up to. She is 13. It is her dream to hike it. She will. She's done all but 4 peaks in Glacier and her family has a 1600 acre Bison Ranch on the res. They were on a raft trip. She's the real deal. My dad had a matress and blanket in his truck. Another 25 mile day left us just 11 miles from the border.

Touched. A loon greeted the sun with us along our early walk. A big brown bear stood in the middle of the road to greet an oblivious Ethan, 100 yards to the front of us, who only slowed his walk to our impassioned screams. The bear paused a long moment, curious, then lost interest and exited stage left. It's a start. A long start, but we made it. This trail is a doozie. Watch that first step. Or first four hundred miles of first steps. We touched by ten o'clock and were walking south from that great privy that services teavelers between the Montana State Hospital and the Start Adult Correctional Facility on the way into Anaconda. Just a bit more road walk before we climb toward the Idaho Border before swinging our way down toward Wyoming.

Dad dropped us at the privy the day before, so we walked 7 miles into town, stayed the night and walked to a laundromat the next morning on the way out of town. We stopped to resupply at Robin's house where we'd dropped a box on June 23rd, the day before we started the walk North from the privy. There were a few years over losing him, and the enormity of the task. Still and all, it was great to be starting south toward Mexico. Many of the locals waved and asked what we were up to. It was hard to turn down an offer for a ride past the road walk, but if we make it we want to have connected the footsteps. It was too late in the day to be pushing the 13 miles to the first campsite past the road walk. We took one "detour" that led us past a house where a friendly aging dog lived. He followed us for awhile. "He'll come back when he's decided he's gone too far." We made camp just before dark.

We were happy to be back on trail after 6 days of road walking, so when we came to a lake we stopped and sat. When we saw trout, we pulled out the tenkara rods. Henry caught a big fish! It wasn't a big mile day. Monica's feet hurt so we stopped early. But we turned the corner from the Anaconda Alternate and back onto the CDT proper.

5 passes in a day. A mile of elevation. This was a hard day, but a great day. Monica's feet didn't hurt. We sat and ate late, up high after the last climb. The sun was leaving slowly. We've discovered that June does better climbing when she's left to do it alone. This was the fifth climb. It was about 1.9 miles up. Nearly halfway up it crossed a flat meadow and then climbed about a dozen switchbacks. When I reached the top I checked in with the other kids, then sat to eat where I could watch for June to cross the flat. Monica joined me. 20 minutes later I still hadn't seen her so I got nervous. "Do you think I should go back down?" "How long should I wait? I don't want it to get dark." "Maybe she made it past there already?" Monica suggested. "She'd have made it up by now." I yelled her name, three times, and waited. I yelled again. "I'm right here, Dad," she said laughing. She pulled herself up the last bit of scree and sat down. "Wow, that took forever. I mean, I was going slow, but still." 2 more miles to camp, but it was all downhill from there.

There's a lot to take in here. The views are spectacular. The kids are getting stronger. We are all getting stronger. Some, more impatient. Some wanting to slow down. This place is beautiful. We don't want to push too hard, but we are now capable of bigger days. We have started to listen to and discuss some History and Bible. It takes some adjustment. We are learning. You know what Gandalf said, "This quest stands on the edge of a knife. Stray but a little, and it will fail." But you also know what Lloyd Christmas said, "I read ya. So your telling me there's a chance then.

Walking to town is a fast day. Usually the terrain complies. After all, the roads are cut at the low passes, so it's usually downhill out of the section. We were doubly inspired. Doug, the father of the 13 year old Lauren (future CDT Thruhiker), had invited us to stay with him in their home near Darby. You'll remember Lauren from the river access up on the West Glacier road walk. At 6:15am when we started walking,I thought 7:30 or 8pm might be a reasonable goal. By 5:30pm we were laying on our Tyvek in the gravel parking lot. "June, you know, it's gonna be harder to convince me you can't walk fast." "Well, you know Dad. It's all about the motivation."

We were scrambling around in Doug's beautiful house up on the hill above Hamilton. Filling water bottles in the kitchen where he had served us bacon and eggs that morning. He had an appointment at 1:30 and needed to drop us at the trail by noon to make it on time. "You guys are welcome to stay another day... stay a week if you want," he said. "Oh, I want, I want," I thought, looking beyond the hot tub (that I'd used the night before) out at the view of the hills across the big Montana valley. The light on the contours of the hills here is amazing. I won't tell you about it. You'll have to see it for yourself. "Thank you for the offer, but we have miles to go before we sleep," I said. The wisewords of Tock (PCT '18) rang in my head: "I'll tell you this son, you can spend money in town but you cain't spend time." We sat in the parking lot for a couple hours and ate a slow lunch, then walked out 10 miles. On the way up Monica got the better of a truly nasty deer fly. She delighted to vanquish her evil foe. We slept on narrow slivers of flat up against some trees just past a junction a quarter mile from a Nez Perce camp. It is just 6 miles from Big Hole Pass. We were unsure if this was the same camp where they were attacked from above or of it was closer to Big Hole Pass, but it was strange to be sleeping so close. June thinks some of the CDT trails that go straight up are stupid.

We got out fairly early, and dropped into a valley where Guthooks promised we'd see "old cabin". It was a fair amount of down hill so it made a good lunch target. Monica loves lunch. This is how I know. Every lunch she says, "I love lunch. It's my favorite part of the day." This was a good one. Georgie picked a lot of berries, we had coffee and took our sweet time. By the end of the day we'd made better than 22 miles.

What the Hail! Yeah, it rained on our tent the night before and it showed a bit of overcast early, but we didn't see that coming. Poor Ethan lost his filter attached to his bottle down a fast moving stream. Searches were fruitless. Later that day, when I was filling his bottle I left my umbrella at the stream. When it started sprinkling a few minutes later I reached for my umbrella and remembered my forgetting. After telling June to go on, I ran the 1/2 mile back to the store in light rain, saw it picked it up, turned, and not two seconds later was pelted with a downpour of hail. I started running, hoping to catch June. By the time I did, the hail had stopped and she was tucked into a tight circle of pines by a forrest road with the others. After a half an hour a train of ATV's came through. "Damn, did you all get caught in that hail?" "Why yes we did." Near the bottom of another pass we heard the rumble of more thunder and the rain began again, so we spied out our first "good" option to camp, and through up the tents. Georgie folded under the pressure, sat under her umbrella and cried. We stopped 4 miles short of our 24 mile goal, and an hour after we'd pitched our tents the sun came out again, but we were done for the night.

In the morning we finished the pass we'd crashed beneath. From there the morning was mostly downhill and cruising, but tainted by the dread of an afternoon climb of 11 miles. The anticipation of the climb dropped a cloud of over June's morning,most especially. Even though she walked strong through to lunch she didn't enjoy a minute of it. On the PCT we had a big climb out of Belden. I was nervous for her, so I tried to prepare her the night before. I told her she could pick the music and we'd play it on the speakers. She chose a Disney playlist. It wouldn't have been my choice, but she made it up 6,000 feet in 6 miles. This climb wasn't as bad as Belden, but we are early in the trip. I've been trying to push down impatience with the rate of speed of her climbing. Turns out I'm not the paragon of patience I think I am. In the event when shed climbed the hardest remaining strech. I asked, "How'd you push it up that last nasty bit?" She said, "I was just yelling at myself." "Encouraging or mean?" "A little of both... Oh, and I listened to my Disney soundtrack." 24 miles left us with 46 to go to town.

There were views. So many views. Overwhelming. Instead, this is the picture you get. Here's why. It is hard to get the balance right. To schedule this out. To gauge town stops and resupply, how fast we will increase miles, how soon we will need this and that and whatnot. I sat down with Monica a week back to set target dates to meet friends just before Yellowstone. We agreed on a date. She felt pressured, and moreso once the date was set. Fixing points on the calendar increase the need to be efficient, hit targets, etc. So when I wake people at 4:45 and hope to be out by six thirty after a 1/4 mile walk down the spring to load up for a 20 mile water carry, but we don't get out till 7:15.... yeah, I get irritable. Then the trail climbs straight up for the first couple miles to walk a ledge with outrageous glacial cut valleys below. When a mountain goat pops out and runs right past us. When the morning sun makes the mountain lakes shimmer far below. Yep, that's right, all I can think is, "1.5 miles per hour. This sucks." When we say we are leaving lunch at 2, because the morning has only produced 10 miles, I seethe in anger. Because, you know what, when we are walking in the dark, they'll blame me, but it'll be their own fault! It's no wonder that a mid afternoon cheery voiced question from me, "What are your thoughts about rest in Leadore?" is met with defensive and angry response from Monica. It took a few hours of "discussion" to recover. It's nice to have a partner to interpret me back to me. And I'm glad for her motherly hand that comforts and protects.

When Lewis and Clark topped Lemhi Pass they thought they had crossed the westernmost mountain range, but from that point you can see five mountain ranges. It is more than a little intimidating to think of what that moment must have been like. We break down when we run out of our favorite flavor Sans Bar. We climbed up from Lemhi Pass the night before, and left a little over 23 miles to go to make it to resupply and a well defined plan for rest. All day the views took our breath away. The kids walked fast with light packs. We are eating more than we expected, so there are creative combinations of food and high level negotiations for caloric upgrades happening. Town represents a food binge, so we hoofed it. I guessed 7:30, and thought 6:30 might be possible, but at 6:10 when Sam I Am of the Leadore Inn pulled into the gravel parking lot off of the lonely gravel road that goes over Bannock Pass, we had been sitting under the partial shade of a drift fence for over half an hour. "The problem with this, June, is that now I know what you are capable of." "Balance Vince. Balance!"

How are your feet? After having a lot of painful walking on the PCT in 2018, the question I get most is about my feet. Having been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis after our first thru-hike, I taped, I rested, I only did yoga. It got much better. Maybe all better. When I started to walk more to train for the CDT, I knew I needed to head off any pain at the pass, so to speak. I made sure I had supportive shoes that would offer stability (I'm so busy looking at the beauty around me, I tend to trip, fall, or twist my ankles a lot. It's a joke in our family.). Brooks Cascadia have been great so far. Along with Curex insoles. I decided to carry a pair of cork (light, light, light) balls to massage my Achilles, calves, IT Bands, etc. I love these! At the end of the day, I can release lots of tightness with these mostly rolling with my own bodyweight. Foam roller-esque. If it's a hard day, I'll use them at lunch, too. Vince showed me a method of taping that seems to really help that isn't particularly a plantar fasciitis way to tape. It was for posterior tibial tendonitis (pain on the inside ankle starting from the foot). Since I was getting pain there, too, I tried it. It has, so far, seemed to really help. Another help: my trekking poles. When I don't use them on climbs and descents, I get really sore feet and inner ankles. It's not the young person's way to hike (at least in our group), but I AM over 40! Time to accept it. Tylenol, morning and night, a anti-inflamatory diet (less hiker food junk), and soaks in icy water as often as possible round out the strategies. As of now, 600+ miles in, the feet are holding up! It was a big concern in whether we could attempt this hike, so it's been a big deal. My anxiety can run away with me whenever I feel any twinges of pain, but managing this by really asking myself what the pain level is, at that instant, has made a big difference. It's usually less than a 3 out of 10. If it doesn't get worse, I try to use what I have to address it and stay out of the "what if it's the beginning of the end" thinking.

Rest. We decided that it would be best to do everything we had to do as soon as we got to town, so we could just rest the next day until we felt ready to head back to trail. The evening was a flurry. Sam met us at Bannock Pass. We had called ahead. He charges $20, per load, to drive you down to town where he is the proprietor of the Leadore Inn. Leadore is a small strip of buildings on a high desert floor with 125 people and no traffic light. The pass where he picked us up is cut by the only remaining unpaved highway in Idaho. It'd be a tough place for a hitch. Each of these places we are walking through are someone's backyard. Someone's childhood playground. Sam's parents grew up in Leadore. He did some metal detecting at a long forgotten stage stop his dad knew of and found several relics of a time forgotten. Among them, an old pocketwatch and a continental penny. He pointed out a stand of rocks where he had attempted to chip out an old butterfly fossil as a kid. During World War 2 they tore up the railroad tracks that passed through Leadore for scrap metal. The rail had run through Leadore out to a town that mined copper. When the copper dried up, it became a ghost town overnight. "What brought you back to Leadore?" It was a nice place to rest.

When we climbed out of Leadore late the afternoon before, we knew there wouldn't be many options to pitch a tent. We said, "First available campsite, and we will just crash there." Some northbound hikers must have had a similar notion in the reverse. They had found the only flat spot on the ridge line. It was tucked into some trees just over a barbed wire fence. We grabbed the next flat spot a few hundred feet away. it was windy, but it worked. The morning started poorly. I didn't see the argument begin, but it was a "don't feel like waking up, don't want to walk" kind of thing. These are most common after a big day or at the beginning of a tough section. It was'nt supposed to rain till the afternoon, but it came early. We walked up high quickly and very nearly cleared the highest pass of the day before the rain came. We were only cold for the half hour it took to clear the pass. After that, it settled into a drizzle. We didn't stop all morning because there was no shelter. Henry spotted a flattish spot in a stand of trees not far from the trail around the time the rain stopped. It didn't rain all through lunch. From the spine of the range we could see the sky in all directions, 360°. All afternoon we watch showers blowing across the range, all around us. We walked in a strange weather bubble all afternoon and set up dry.

When I say trail, I suspect you think of the same thing that I do. Some kind of identifiable footpath right? I've been using the word wrong for a long time I think. The CDT is not the most trafficked of trails. It's beautiful, remote, and filled with option and alternate. So it doesn't always result in a well trodden path. This trail is a series of strategically placed poles or cairns (rock piles). It is a game of connect the dots. You walk to the fixed point and start scanning around for the next. Consequently, you scramble straight up grassy slopes, traverse steep grades,and dive down toward valleys, hoping you get it right. Henry, supremely confident, led the leaders on more than one rabbit trail (elk/deer trail) that dissipated or cliffed out. It gave June and I time to course correct before making the same mistake. Here's to you, Henry!

Any day that ends at Deadman's Lake with a chance at a couple of cutthroat trout is a good day. It set up for a good day too. After an early climb from the lake we had something of a wide open cruising kind of day. Beautiful views with a chance to look across the distance we had come. Henry did raise his eyebrows tellingly when we passed the road that crossed under the power line that he thought would have gained a little extra ground in a nice road walk. "But what about those cutthroat Henry?"

Roller Coaster! Roller Coaster! Wow. When we got to town we discovered that the section is referred to as the Roller Coaster. We woke with 24 miles to make it to town. Knowing that the last 8 miles would be road walk we thought it'd be an easy day. On the map it looked flat enough. We lost the trail early and cut up a valley over from where we needed to be. Saw a giant herd of elk that walked just ahead of us up a ridge for a long while. Think of our scramble up the ridge as the slow ticking of the coaster to the top. If you climb straight up and down, over and over and over within a few hundred feet, the contours map might not reveal the roller coaster effect. At noon we had made 8 exposed and hard miles to water. An off trail spring. Henry was sitting and waiting for Monica to return with his water bladder. She intended it for his lunch, he just figured he'd use it for the coming 8 mile water carry. I lit into him. Words like "serving" "selfish" "seriously" and other s-words rolled off my tongue. "The fast and strong have a responsibility to the ones that struggle." Tearfully, he said, "I just didn't even think about anyone else."

At the end of the last trail I had a bit of an unsettled feeling. I felt a little excluded from the walk and think crew. My phone was the navigation, and I carried the Garmin, so I was always careful with power consumption and couldn't disappear into story or music in my earbuds. I walked in the back with the slow and the hurting. I was consumed with prep and plan and resupply. Essentially, I felt "on call" most of the time. June and I spent a lot of time together. Somehow, I didn't feel like she and I did all the work we needed to do. I have been looking forward to this walk for us. I was frustrated with her pace yesterday. Running calculations in my head about the extra miles we'd make if she'd do what she is physically capable of. It's a head thing that slows her. The balance is hard to strike. Calling your child to their potential, and communicating the forever kind of love that says "you cannot escape my love." "You are upset because I'm disappointed in you?" I asked her. "Yes, and she cried." She had been yelling at everyone. I couldn't figure it out. "Oh June, come here, kid. Sit with me for awhile and let's look at this view." The trail isn't finished with the two of us. And I'm only telling the hard parts of June's experience. When she gets giddy and proud of herself it's intoxicating. When she says what she loves about the trip, she says, "I love the views." Of course she'll add, "But I hate the climbing." Can you have the one without the other? The trail isn't done with us yet.

A rest day. Mostly. After a big dinner from Jan's Cafe the night before, I walked to the convenience store and bought bacon, eggs, cheese, salt and 12 jalapeno sausages to make back in our room. Mike and Connie's place, Mountain View Motel and campground is a throwback to the roadside motel. He reminds me of my cousin, Breck. He is laid back, amenable and smiles and laughs a lot. We took him a few eggs and some bacon. All that was left of the 3 dozen I had purchased. With a little time to kill we took a drive and ended up in Dell, and a small (pop. 35) town nearby. We looked for some isobutane gas in the corner store without luck. Across the railroad tracks though, I saw an authentically old red brick schoolhouse complete with a bell tower. Best of all was a sign that blinked "open" below a sign that said "Yesterday's Calf-e." I wandered over and asked the owners if we might kill a few hours and charge devices at their place. He outdid my ask and directed us to the saloon next door that they wouldn't be opening till later that evening. They kept popping in to tell us bits of their life history intermingled with the history of Dell. We had coffee, and french toast, and coconut cream pie, and bacon, and tuna melts, and various others. All of it tasted great and was very reasonable. In the afternoon, back in Lima we e hopped into the back of Mike's truck. "What is the most you've had in here, Mike?" "13." "Eh?" Mike shuttled us 22 miles back to the trail, and Luchrysta left her car in his parking lot for $1 a day. The second we hopped out of his car, it started raining. So we raced down under the bridge to repack our bags. Luchrysta pulled out a poor excuse for an umbrella to our amusement. It did little against the rain. Ethan started feeling ill on the way up the hill. I wasn't feeling well either, and we cut the walk short at 6 miles and called it a night. At 11:30pm I was out of the tent, leaning against a tree waiting to see what might come up when I heard Monica call from the tent. She though I might be sleepwalking. I wish.

Well, I am a Thruhiker. I wasn't before. Or so I have have heard. There is a saying, "You aren't a thruhiker till you've crapped your pants." The day was a blurr for me. I felt weak on the climbs. June said, "Yeah, something is wrong with dad, even I beat him up the hill." One incredible highlight though. Walking behind June up a particularly grueling climb I overheard her coaching herself on. "C'mon you can do it June. You can do it." Then, after she and I walked into camp much later than the others, and they asked what had taken so long, she admitted that she'd had a meltdown, and laughed.

You belong, among the wildflowers... and on your phone. Wildflowers is an understatement. This stretch was full of them. Reds, yellows, purples, whites - Monica said she felt like she was in the middle of a bouquet at one point. And she knows all the names of them. The next day added new colors, oranges and pinks. Georgie drags her fingers through them as she walks and always has an eye for a great picture.

My friend Scott Brickhouse makes everything more fun. In 2014 I told him my family was going to Nicaragua to do a soccer camp, he said, "We are coming!" He's been coming ever since. When they joined us on the PCT he brought DeQuan then too. On the second day DeQuan stumbled into lunch, fell flat on his face and didn't budge. His name has become a verb. "I DeQuaned it." @greend23 He came again. That's some courage right there. We hiked right up to the Yellowstone border for a Brickhouse/Strawbridge cowboy camp under the stars and on to Old Faithful the next day. Twelve is a big group of thru-hikers. DeQuan did not DeQuan it this time. He fought off blisters, soreness and a slip on a log crossing, and never quit smiling. Scott’s sons Trey and Tyler powered through a couple of 20 mile days - only a locked-up leg and a little dehydration for Tyler.

Luchrysta dropped us off near Old Faithful just in time for us to see the geyser erupt. For the kids it was the second time, because they'd seen it the night before. I had missed it, catching a hitch down the hill to Luchrysta's rented vehicle with it's new and fully functional tire. We found some shade at the least busy of the general (souvenir) stores to divide the food from the grocery store into our individual food bags. We were directed to the main store for isobutane gas. We walked to the post office to mail gifts June had purchased a couple hundred miles back. Then I walked to the Backcountry Permit office to obtain permits, only to find it closed. Without coverage or internet connection I couldn't riddle my way to a solution, so we walked out into 47 more miles of National Park, permitless. After an afternoon relaxing by a stream we walked out looking for a campsite. Our preference would be to camp at a designated campsite, so we approached an inhabited campsite to inquire if they knew any nearby. The conversation with the man who would soon, and proudly, declare himself to be a commercial guide was rather heated on his side. He was "bowed up" you might say. "Oh, I get the whole thru-hike thing, I've walked all of Montana. You should have had these permits months in advance." He didn't laugh when I said I didn't know where we'd be 3 days from now. "I'm just trying to help you out, man," he said as I walked away. When we scaled a hill out of sight of the trail to set up our tents in silence, I sent Jamie Brown a text from the Garmin. "Can you see if you can get us a permit for tomorrow night somewhere near Heart's Lake?"

Not far from our campsite of undisclosed location we began to walk through another geyser basin. It was much like the "on the beaten path" ones in the park, but in the early morning light it felt other worldly. We had it to ourselves. From there we walked through a bog adjacent to the massive Shoshone Lake. 4 miles later we dropped out on the other end of the lake to see a sailboard disappear around a point. How they got there, we don't know. By lunch we'd made 15 miles of the 29 we'd need to make it to the far side of Heart's Lake. Two park rangers asked for our permit. Jamie had come through once again, and I read off the permit number and location. I even had a twinge of gratitude for the beligerant hall monitor from the previous day recognizing his inadvertent contribution to the drastic measures we took to obtain a permit. It is my opinion, for the record, that when someone says, "I'm just trying to help you out, man," it is rarely the truth. Reportedly, one of the rangers had been curious about where we'd camped the night before. He had been satisfied, thankfully, by Henry's answer, "Over there near the bog somewhere."

The Snake River is an impressive watershed, aptly named. It winds its way gradually out of Yellowstone National Park. It was a joy leaving Yellowstone National Park. The National Parks can be a hassle on these long trails. Have I mentioned that yet? Bring on National Forest Land, and the Forest Service folks. We called it a day after 20 miles, because we were drained from the day before.

After a short climb we had a day full of cruising along a big flat valley. The lazy river that ran through it was full of big trout. We couldn't get them to eat anything when we tried them. At lunch Henry and I talked to some fisherman that had been catching them. On our way out of lunch the fisherman said, "If you want instant gratification, try some of that pocket water where the trees start." When we finished fishing the pocket water feeling well and truly gratified.

I love the big wide valleys. Spin a 360 and look up at the crags. Stare into the distance at the stretched out line of our crew, cruising at their own pace, lost in their own thoughts. Brook's Lake Lodge is perched up at the far end of one and offers the best view in the valley. You can look from the lodge across the lake at big craggy walls of rock. It's just a look though, we hadn't come to stay. They hold packages for cdt hikers and have a few picnic tables set up and some outlets for a quick charge for the next go. Our boxes would be there for us. We hoped! We decided to start the day with an off trail jaunt to a waterfall that dropped into something of a slot canyon. We thought we'd find a way across, but there was only a jump, or a death defying log crossing. After all, it was only a mile off trail. We decided it wasn't worth the risk. We made the lodge by 3:30 pm. After a couple hours at Brook's Lake Lodge, we followed an alternate that was the old CDT, now nearly imperceptible. This route means a bit of a forest road walk tomorrow, but it will be quicker to trail.

Food on the trail. Oh, food on the trail. It soothes your growling stomach in the morning, it fuels your aching legs over the pass and when all other sensations may be bad (cold, wet, sticky, smelly), it delivers a positive. Food is bigger on the trail, and we planned for it for months. So, when we got to Mack's Inn recently and found we had no resupply box (all we knew was it was "in transit"), we had to scramble. We bought for 2 of the 6 missing days from a convenience store, hoping that we could find a grocery store in West Yellowstone before our friends left town. Even so, we mostly got junk. Every other section, we've eaten daily meal bars from Sans, a company that is both devoted to bars with quality ingredients and doing good in the world (check them out). Even though eating the same thing over and over again can get old, when we were without them, I missed my Sans Bars and the good energy they provided. Most widely available bars are lacking in good fats and protein, and rely heavily on sugary carbs. Without the sans, I got hungry faster and had to carry more bulk. Our boxes from home were waiting for us at Brooks Lake Lodge. It's awfully good not to go without our Sans.

We saw a moose. A big bull moose. Staring at us from not over 150 feet away. Road walks are delivering the goods when it comes to animal sightings. Late in the day, June spotted another alternate on the Ley map, that said "easy xcntry shortcut". We were reminded of some things we already knew. Monica HATES being offtrail. Henry, Aiden and I LOVE the adventure of bushwacking. Georgie and June like it well enough, but only if it's really easy AND saves miles. Irreconcilable differences? I bet Monica wins the majority of these decisions going forward.

The difference in scenery has been mind-blowing. We left geysers and walked into big open river valleys, and then all of a sudden found ourselves in high dry desert again. That didn't last long, because we were once again in alpine conditions as we climbed. When we first began our thru-hike of the PCT we said of the big mile people (mostly out if insecurity), "That's just going too fast, we like to take it all in." When our legs strengthened and we started walking farther, we changed our tune. A slower walking pace is a great way to take it in, but there is something about cruising over a few passes and climbs and looking back on a day that starts in range land bottoms and ends in alpine heights. Especially when, on the way there, you manage to catch a cutthroat trout.

Walking up into the Wind River Range along the Green River. It's a glacial green and it's cold. It didn't stop Aiden jumping in before 10am. We were told the Wind River Range would be the best of the CDT, and extremely busy. When you drop into the valley and catch a glimpse of Square Top in front of you you get a hint of what's to come. We walked up into alpine. Missed a shortcut through the Titcomb basin and walked instead up and through Vista Pass, but we ended up with a trail more or less to ourselves. We walked 26 miles and slept at 10,800 feet surrounded by granite and glacial lakes.

We only had 8 trail miles to go before the cutoff to Pinedale. Then another 11 to go to the busy trailhead where we would hope to catch a ride to town. After we climbed out of our granite surround we walked through a series of deep blue lakes with morning mosquitoes being taken by rising trout. It was beautiful. Henry and I stopped to catch a few fish. The girls had the shovel. A bashful Henry didn't recognize his need till too late and became a thruhiker. (If you don't know what that means, you missed an earlier post.) All day I kept saying, "I have got to come back here, when I've got more time." We got a ride down with a “Dads and Teenagers” group of 12. They had spent 4 days camping and catching fish. "You mean, fun camping," Henry said when I told him about it. The Winds have delivered, and we haven't seen the half of them yet.

We are saying goodbye to a couple of tents. The Big Agnes Fly Creek UL tent is good for exactly 1 and 1/3 thru-hikes. The kids fit inside on the PCT. They don't now. The tents are now more Tenatious Tape and Aquaseal than original tent. The zippers don't bite and hold. It's not design failure. Thru-hikes are hard on equipment. We pick up new tents for them in Pinedale. This time it'll be the palacial Gossamer Gear tent called "The 2". Only this 2 can fit three on the cold nights. Or when we come to a campsite that won't accommodate 3 tents. Monica and I have been using this tent from the start of the CDT. The considerations you'll need to make when you look at this crazy lightweight tent is that it's a trekking pole setup, it's single wall (know how to deal with condensation) and it's a huge footprint for a 2 person tent.

We didn't get out of town as quickly as planned. There was a lot more Post Office business than we anticipated with Darn Tough socks x3 to send off for the warranty exchange. They've developed some holes, and the local gear store doesn't honor the thruhiker in-store exchange. The good news was that we lucked into town on a night with live music in the park. Country and Bluegrass sort of sounds. On the walk across town to the road that leads to the trailhead, we had to stop in for some coffee and wifi. There is no AT&T service in Pinedale. Monica and I weren't sad about the stop for coffee. The grocery store was just before the turn toward the trailhead, so we stopped for some Mio drink flavoring and ice cream sandwiches. The kids weren't sad about that. A couple driving a motor home stopped when they saw our "hikers to trail" sign, and invited us aboard. They are driving around the country looking for a place to root down, because California is too expensive. "That's why we left San Francisco," Monica said. Our only goal for the day was to be back on the CDT. From the Elkhardt (or as June calls it, the Elk Elk) we would have to walk 10 or 11 miles. Monica, June and I came around one bend to find the other three stopped and talking to a ranger with a big dog. We joined in the conversation. At some point Georgie reached to pet the dog as she had before and it snarled and lunged. She pulled back and put on that "I'm okay / I'm not at all okay" face for the duration of the conversation. It wasn't till we turned the corner that she showed us her finger where the dog had bit her. "Did you not say anything because you didn't want to get the dog in trouble?" She nodded. If we were home it might merit stitches. But it's a butterfly bandage and Neosporin for now, locked into a bird finger position, so we keep feigning offense. We are keeping an eye on it.

We set a new record. Just 7.3 miles before 11:30 am, but who is counting? It was a tough morning for no explicable reason. I told the others to go on without me to lunch, and I lay on a big, cool slab of granite and fell asleep. June woke me up. Sat down and cried, "I don't know what's wrong with me today. I'm just giving up." After a good cry, she walked a fast 3 miles to lunch, and kept a good pace all afternoon. Henry and I stopped at every fishy stream, or should I say "barrel". It was like that, shooting fish in a barrel. We caught Golden Trout, and various other species. We think one of them was a Red Salmon, but we'll need to confirm in town. In the end it was a 22 mile day, and tomorrow we get to walk the Cirque of the Towers. Everyone has said it is "can't miss" kind of stuff. We finished just before sunset and the kids found a rock that still had a small patch of sun hitting it where they ate their food and laughed. When she'd gotten settled in her tent for the night, June called, "Hey dad, I've got my snacks out for tomorrow." She is going to try for a better morning.

5 miles from the turn into a wonderland. "You doing the Cirque?" We'd heard it from so many people. How can you ignnore it? I was prepared for crowds based on what we'd seen on the first part of the Winds, but there weren't as many people. The crowd we did see was a different crowd too. It was almost all climbers. "Wait, you are climbing those walls?" "Yes, you can climb them all." "Are they bolted?" "No." I couldn't ask more without sounding stupid, which I don't normally mind, but I was amazed. It's a wonderland, it's a playground, it's mind-blowing shapes and spires. It's straight up and down three gruelling passes. It's one of the hardest hardest 20 mile day we can remember. But worth it.

Down. We walked down and out of the Cirque alternate. Fast walking along a drainage. And out to the trail. We climbed up one more pass and then flushed back out into the sage and the brown. The sky is hazy with smoke from distant fires. We are unsure if it is blowing in from California or up from Colorado. There are fires ahead of us now. A couple of them are a threat to divert us or force a skip, but there is time. There will be time. Time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. So this time walking toward fires, we aren't worrying or investing in the speculation. We will know when we know. It's at least ten days before we need to know anything. And a lot can happen in ten days. It's a town day tomorrow, and Atlantic City, WY is rumored to have a fantastic burger.

If you followed along for our last hike, you'll know that we marked the mileage with pictures of our feet every hundred miles. That was then. That was the PCT. The Pacific Crest Trail is a complete trail, 100% official route, top to bottom or bottom to top if you do it backwards. The CDT is not complete, officially. It's a connect your footsteps from Canada to Mexico. They'll tie it all together soon enough I'm sure, but in the meantime, you can use Guthooks Guides, the Jonathan Ley maps through the Avenza app, or paper maps. The trail is, at times well marked and at times a crapshoot. The Ley maps paint the main trail in red and alternates in purple. Guthooks paints the main trail in red and alternates in blue, or pink. The red lines of the two don't always match up. Our friend Dahn walked the Guthooks redline last year in it's entirety. Worse. When he got off track, he couldn't just cut cross country back to trail and continue on. He had to scramble his way back to trail and backtrack to connect the dots. I can't tell you how many times we've said, "Poor Dahn!" All that to say, we don't take mileage pictures, because we don't know how many miles we've gone. We are just headed south, one foot after the other, to Mexico. This is a picture of our feet with the Brickhouses, DeQuan, Luchrysta and Ethan somewhere just before Yellowstone. I'm not quite sure how many miles in.

"Dulcinea, I see heaven when I see thee Dulcinea." I sleep less out here, but so much better. I often wake at 3 ready to go, but it is not a good idea to wake Monica and suggest that early a start. I sleep again and try to find my way back into my dreams, which out here are exponentially more vivid. All these books I've been listening to have been bumping into each other in my dreams, a conflated mess. Three of the books have made off-handed remarks about Don Quixote, always with a hint of a "pshaw" toward his chasing of windmills. Last night I was trapped in a swirling mix of a Tolstoyan dinner party, and a complaint against the gods from CS Lewis' "Till We Have Faces" with a dash of Eliot's "Prufrock" thrown in. I found myself eager to participate in a conversation, but afraid. There was a skeptical fog in the room. One snarky comment decried a well intended action as "chasing windmills,” and the conversation turned to Don Quixote. I, having only seen the musical, held back. It may not surprise you that I'm a little partial to The Man of La Mancha. I wanted to defend him, but didn't know how. Not only didn't I know how, but I began to feel my sentiment turn. "Maybe they are right? Maybe he was just delusional after all." Just then, through the door walked my Uncle Ted, in all the right attire, yet so very slovenly at the same time. He wore no belt of course. He was singing, loudly as was his custom: "To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe, to bear the unbeatable sorrow, to run where the brave dare not go..." About half the room sniggered. He broke off and said, "You people don't get it. There's more going on than windmills here. The kingdom of God is at hand. He created this world with words, and we are to be busy recreating this world with our words. Then he belted into song again, "Dulcinea, Dulcinea, I see heaven when I see thee Dulcinea." "Don't you get it?" He continued. "Don Quixote de la Mancha sees the world as it is. She is not Aldonza the whore. That is not WHO she is. She is the Imago Deo. She has dignity as an image bearer of God himself.' The room became silent. The room, now, less a parlor and... cont in comment

Atlantic City, Pop. About 57 Aiden picked up the town guide and brochure on the way out of the Miner's Grub Stake before we walked toward Pickaxe Rd that leads over the rise and out of Atlantic City. We passed a building on one lot with a sign that said "23". Aiden read from the brochure the information corresponding to the number. "The Chief Hotel: Butch Cassidy paid for one night with a $20 gold piece." The Butch Cassidy. A friendly couple saw me just off the road and stopped their Polaris to give me some of the history of the town. "You oughta be careful poking around those claims. There's been some claim jumping around here and people don't take that lightly." I stepped away from the boarded up shaft and slid down the scree to continue our chat.

In the desert we have started stretching out into a long string, with miles between us front to back. I stop at the top of a rise to look back long enough to verify that the dot in the distance is still moving. This morning we were walking around a hill, cut by ravines that provided some cover from the wild horse herd we'd seen from a mile away. Henry stopped before he rounded the last turn and said, "We should let June go first." We waited.

This desert has has a different face each day. Sage and slate on the first day. On the second it was sandy rolling hills and now this. This is a bit extra terrestrial. Strangley colored rocks and sharp horizontal red cuts of rock dive into the landscape. Yet all of it, so very desert like. We rise early with a view to reaching water in the cool of the day. Push till our feet are sore. Rest in the shade of our umbrellas for 15 minutes and push on again. 16 miles before lunch. It's blistering hot so we hang out our tents for some makeshift shade. We are walking later, because the light fades slowly, and the rocks glow. June and I set out for the last 5 miles about 15 minutes behind the others following our last break. It's good to watch your step though. We nearly stepped on a horse, recently dead. The carcass was splayed open. Ten minutes later, picking my way through the sage, I heard a rattle inches from my foot and jumped. We pulled out our flashights. How did they do it, those who have come before? The people who scratched out a living on this land in bare and mocassined feet. In leather bound boots with spurs jangling. How did they live in a place like this? How can anything live in a place like this?

Water. "When is the next water?" Always about 16 miles it seems. "Camel up. Carry 2. Steady sipping." Translation: Drink as near 2 litres as you can at the water source. Fill 2 litres to get you through to the next water. Don't gulp it, but don't neglect it. Mormon Spring --> Weasel Spring --> Cow Crap Creek --> Cow Crap Spring --> Water Cache --> Bull Spring --> Electric Well... In a passing conversation with a couple of northbound hikers we say, with implied inquiry, "In the comments someone said there was a dead cow in the water at the Fish Pond Spring." "No, it was fine." After Lunch: Springs are often marked by corrugated pipe driven down to keep the animal fouled water separated from the good spring water. Sometimes rodents find their way in, but not out. "Monica, when you go to draw from that spring use the bigger cylinder. The small one has mice floating in it." We've had it easy though. The afternoons have been overcast. The wind has been at our back. It's mostly flat and good for cruising to the next water. Marty Robbins and Zane Grey thoughts roll lazily through my brain. Yesterday, we walked our longest day ever, 32.2 Miles. Three thirty mile days in a row. Leaving only 12 or so miles to go till we reach Rawlins and resupply. "We heard it isn't bad on the other side," we comment to a northbounder nearer Rawlins. "You'll have a cache 16 or so miles out. After that it's another 16 to the first natural source you can use. The rest is alkaline, so I wouldn't risk it. After that you should be okay."

Rawlins Outlaws football rules! "Now, '75, that was a great year." I've never been in a town with more high school spirit. Every shop window had paraphernalia. The sidewalks are painted red with high school spirit. But they have more than high school spirit. They have hospitality. Monica wondered if they'd held a town meeting where divided up the schedule, and handed out assignments for overwhelming the thruhikers and thrubikers (yeah, there is a cdt for bikers too). No joke. Rides were offered. A random car stopped and handed us frozen popcycles. The ice cream/donut shop gave us a huge box of all of their leftover donuts at the end of the night. On the road walk out of town we walked by a cooler that said, "let anyone who thirsts come unto me and drink." We had the thirst. The cooler had water. Farther along, and thirsty again, three trucks swung over across the road and held out COLD water bottles to us. Monica and Aiden both and separately said, "I want to do that for people when I get home." We also piled our way into our first hiker bubble. Hurricane , a New Zealander and a hiking machine, and his friend the professor on sabbatical named Dream. Puzzler was there too. We haven't seen him since we came upon him sliding on a second pair of rain pants on an exposed ridge walk in the sleet and high wind. He told Aiden he had that when he had seen us, he thought, "Oh no, I'm going to have to figure out how to help this youth group off the mountain." We also ran into The Kiltsman and Crash after having last seen them in The Bob. Most everyone on the trail has an interesting story, but you should hear about Crash. A few years ago, miles from finishing a cross country bike ride, he was hit by a truck, and never expected to walk again. When they put him under for the surgery he fully expected to wake up with his leg amputated. After a full year of convalescing in a bed, he went straight to the AT, well before he could walk without discomfort. He's now halfway through the CDT, and hopes to hike the PCT next year with the Kiltsman.

A man pulled up in a company truck to tell us he'd just restocked a cooler with water. "Y'all take what you need. There's plenty in there." WY Highway 71 has recently been paved. They are beginning a wind farm project. "Just wait," he said, "in a few years these hills will be covered with windmills." We finished the road walk we'd started the day before, sat down, and made a plan to meet The Kiltsman and Crash at the first good spot we found just after the next water 4.6 miles away. It would be getting dark soon.

We made it to WY Hwy 70, the road down to Encampment, before 4pm. If the comments on a CDT hitch, and they say "tough hitch", believe them. Its best to make it to the highway just after work or before work, those seem to be the sweet spots on the less trafficked highways. I'm not sure WY Hwy 70 has a sweet spot, though. At 7pm a disheartened Monica asked, "Should we just set up our tents here?" We had been there since 4pm, and hadn't seen more than a dozen cars. In the last thirty minutes it had become clear that rush hour was over. It was getting cold. An off the grid couple nearing their 80's pulled up. The wife asked, "You are hikers?" I nodded. "Do you have hiker credentials? I mean, you don't have chainsaws or guns or anything, right?" "We have room for three of you," her husband leaned over her from the drivers seet and said. Monica, Henry and June put on their masks and hopped in. Georgie,Aiden and I watched the car disappear down the Encampment side of Battle Pass and turned to look down the long, winding, and empty road down the other side of the pass. I added another shirt layer and put my rain jacket back over it and shivered. "The next one will pick us up for sure."

Lazy Acres was worth the tough hitch. We washed the desert out of our clothes and showered. A double everything burger for everyone as the kitchen was closing at the restaurant across the street hit the spot. In the morning Monica and I talked with the camp hosts. True Rawlins Outlaws for a lifetime. We got to learn a lot about the place. They offered to shuttle us back to trail free of charge. (Get them on your list @guthooksguides) Crash and The Kiltsman made it to the highway after dark and couldn't catch a hitch down to Encampment, so they stayed the night at Battle Pass. They have verizon, so they called Lazy Acres. Their packages rode with us to the trailhead. While we were all reconfiguring at the privy for a start, we saw a hiker coming up the road from the trail. It was Puzzler. He'd started at 3am, and had caught us just as we were headed out. "I'd like to make the border," he said. It was still 20 miles to Colorado. I didn't think we would have that kind of day in us with an 11:30am start, but we set out a merry company of 9. We left lunch earlier than our 3 compatriots only to make it halfway across the top of the ridge before the storm caught us. "We've got to get down off the ridge," Monica said. It was hard to hear her between the hail on my umbrella, the wind in my ear, and the thunder rattling my bones. We raced a mile before we started to descend. I think Crash, The Kiltsman and Puzzler must have waited out the storm on the other side. After an early off-trail descent, we traversed a half mile or so through a hillside of boulders to regain the trail. We found some good shelter a couple miles from the border and set up for the night.

"If God doesn't live in Colorado, I'll bet that's where he spends most of his time." We made it to Colorado! Montana/Idaho and Wyoming are behind us. Into the Rockies we go. Into a cold snap too. It's supposed to rain and hail this week. If this afternoon is any indication, I believe it. But we can smell family from here, so that is pulling us through toward Denver. When the weather warmed in Montana, we sent a lot of extras down trail. Layers, beanie, gloves, groundpads, etc. The most common phrase of the day, "I probably shouldn't have sent ______ to Denver."

"It's going to be a tough one tomorrow, so eat heavy in the morning," I whispered to the kids. These single walled tents make it easy to talk to each other at night. Last night, though, I was careful to be quiet. In the valley we had walked into near dusk we had seen a ranger cabin down to the right with several trucks outside. Beyond it there was a campground, but we were headed the other direction, uphill to the left. On the CDT it's not always apparent where you are permitted to camp. As we walked up the gravel road, I heard some laughter coming from a group campground. I thought they might know something about camping in the area. They offered a beer, and I chatted briefly with a guy from Valdosta, GA. "Yeah man, just up the road about 1/4 mile there's dispersed camping. You can't miss it." He was right. The sign said, "End Restricted Camping Beyond This Sign". On the left side, close to the road there was a 5th wheel in a pullout. They had trailers and trucks and side by sides strewn about. A boy of about 8 was playing near a fire ring. As soon as we passed the sign we took a hard right into the meadow about 50 yards from the road and began to set up. "I don't think I like this place," Monica said. Maybe it was the gunshots we heard behind us as we'd walked up the road. One round wouldn't have be strange, but the 1 round had been followed by a dozen. “That group SEEMED nice," I said, "but maybe it was a Jonestown kind of thing.” "Get back here you $+-!" the lady in the 5th wheel screamed. "How many times I gotta tell you not to sh&+t your pants!" The boy cried. A man yelled at the woman. She screamed back at him even louder. Monica looked at me wide eyes, "We just have to go!" I looked past her to see the woman wildly gesticulating. It took me a second to realize it was intended for us. "What you gotta set up here for? Can't you see there's 50 miles of F&#$$ng wilderness. Why don't you just pack up your S&$:#, and get outta here." I was frustrated with Monica for agreeing to comply before I had a chance to counter offer.

"Colorado Rocky Mountain high, I've seen it raining fire from the sky." The sunrise tried for hours to push it's way through the fog. After the fog a second layer of sunblock in the form of clouds raced by for a few hours. Occasional gaps with momentary warm sun gave us hope. I had on everything I had to wear. June outsmarted me again and converted her sleeping bag liner into a scarf. In five days my brother will pick us up near Lake Granby and we will be reunited with our cold weather gear. In the meantime, if the sun isn't out we have to stay walking.

I'm not sure what Wyoming did to offend AT&T. I can only tell you that they have no relationship. This affects me little when we are out there, but in town my cell phone dependency becomes apparent. I have text confirmation security measures on credit cards and banking operations. I prefer to call people to work on logistics and planning for down trail stuff rather than email or text. For about 400 miles now I haven't had a signal. Up high in Colorado it looks like I'll have it. Even on trail. I turned off airplane mode on a ridge walk because I saw two valleys spreading for miles below. "Surely someone down there has AT&T." Among the several hundred notifications was one from a friend from our PCT hike named Salty. Salty was the one that taught us that Waptus was a curse word. He had walked 15 "bonus" miles to Lake Waptus. What the Waptus! "I just finished the Colorado Trail, and want to meet you with some trail magic in the Great Divide Basin." "We'd love to see you, but we are near Steamboat." "See you there." Salty and Jean met us with her amazing van named, Yakushi Varner Vanbulance VanGoose. She has built it out for van life with great skill and care. They facilitated every moment of our Steamboat resupply. We went to dinner and ran errands. In the morning after breakfast we were delivered back to trail in style. We even got a shout over the Ambulance's still functional PA system 1/2 mile down the trail.

It's bow hunting season. These are things I don't even know to have on my calendar. A generator from a nearby hunter woke me at 4:30am, so we were walking by 6am. We dropped off the bank to fill water at the first non-cattle fouled stream we had seen for 15 miles. It's not fun to fill in the early cold. We heard a truck slide to a stop on the road above. "Do I see thruhikers?" A man in a puffy jacket smiled as he peered down at us from the road. He was a section hiker. He had pieced together the Pacific Crest Trail over 20 years. Now, after a knee replacement he was working on the CDT. "Oh yeah, I did Gray's Peak. You got that one coming. It was hard. I just loaded up heavy and kept it to ten miles a day. You kids don't know what a great thing it is you're getting to do. Someday you will, I promise."

Oof! Ugh! Wow. My brother Stephen lives in Denver. We all want to make it on time to get to go to church with him on Sunday morning. He can pick us up Saturday night. We could stop 13 miles early in Grand Lake. It wouldn't be hard to make 40 miles in the remaining 2 days, but if we can make the other side Lake Granby it'd mean we'd only have to pack out 4.5 days of food instead of 6. But it's 53 miles. We had been shooting for 3 26's this section. When we set out the morning before, we quit walking an hour after dark with 24 miles. "Maybe we can make it up today," I thought, before I looked at the terrain. Parkview Peak was excruciating. Straight up hill. After an early 3 miles of climbing, we looked up to see an emergency shelter atop the peak. It looked like a gnat. And there is no worn trail with gentle switchbacks. It's just a cross country grind for a mile up the slope. Henry summited in a 1/2 hour at 11am. I walked with June and we tried to simulate switchbacks one labored half step at a time. We reached the top 5 minutes after 12. We had picked a lunch spot at the next water source. It had seemed reasonable. June and I didn't make it till 3pm, parched and weary, after one major collapse on the trail in a puddle of despair, cry-thirty. At 9:30 pm, she and I finished our second night in the dark. The others had two of the tents set up and waiting. 22 gruelling miles. 30 to go.

A 6am start. A one mile climb over the only pass of the day. From the top of the pass. A giant bull moose by a lake. A female moose in the trees nearby. A herd of more than fifty elk. Two male elk clashing horns in a battle in the meadow. Four mountain goats. All downhill to Grand Lake. 17 miles before lunch. A double bacon cheeseburger. Fries. A lake walk from Grand Lake to Lake Granby. Thumping music from the party boats along the Colorado between the lakes. Dehydrated. A final climb. A hug from an excited Uncle Stephen, come to take us to his home in Denver. 30 miles. Now, rest.

"There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." I met Eustace in CS Lewis' "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". He's intolerable. He envies power, blames others for his bad behavior and plays the victim. When the ship's company lands on an unexplored island he wanders off by himself and stumbles on a treasure hoard in a cave. Overcome by lust for wealth and power, he ignores the warnings and slips on an enchanted bracelet. He wakes up a dragon. But really, he's always been a dragon. It's just that now his outward appearance coincides with what is inside. The bracelet grows ever more painful. Being a dragon, isolated, lonely and cut off he reaches a breaking point. He wants out. Aslan, the Christ figure in the story, comes to Eustace. Eustace is trying to tear his dragon flesh away. Aslan asks if he wants to be healed. When Aslan begins to tear away the dragon flesh, it is excruciating, far worse than when Eustace had tried. It has to hurt. It has to cut deep enough to heal. There is a lot of hurt, anger, and even rage that comes up in extreme efforts like this hike we are on, in me, in every one of us. I sat with one of the kids near the end of a long time of talking and listening, I said, "Aslan is cutting you deeply and cutting me deeply. I know you are hating this now, but I don't think this could've happened at home. I don't think we could have been brought to this. This place holds up a mirror. It's the good kind of pain. It's the good kind of hurt." ... "Because pride, it isn't worth it. It makes me lonely, leaves me stranded. When I, I never wanted to be alone." - Jess Ray "You’re not in the driver’s seat; I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. What kind of deal is it to get everything you want but lose yourself? What could you ever trade your soul for?" - Jesus "That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new." - Donne

"You have another brother?" "Yeah, he's in Denver. He's the good one." Withouth envy or malice, Lee, Ben and I, maybe even Dellynne, all describe him as the good brother. He just is. Stephen is one of those that listens to your story and takes it on, wrestles with the challenge, and sends a complicated spread sheet with ideas for solutions. He even freezes the right cells to make it dummy proof. He's been a cheerleader from the start. He and his oldest son, Silas joined us twice on the PCT. But it's not all one sided. Monica and I have only once in our lives tried to set someone up. After meeting Elena Villarreal while living in San Francisco, we said, "Elena, you need to meet Stephen. He's the good one." The only bad thing about them is that whenever we spend time with them, I have to live through a few weeks of of being compared to them, and coming up well short. I took a break from inventory for resupply and found the kids outside helping Uncle Stephen build a brick wall around the fire pit. I asked them why they don't help me when I ask. They looked at me as if to say, "Dad, he's the good one."

We took one look out the window, and the decision was made. We had been watching the forecast predicting a winter storm. The earliest on record. Everyone seemed to be talking about it. Enough that I started to think, "Maybe this isn't just something to talk about." Stephen called from his office, "You guys probably don't want to go out in this. Stay another day." I considered. Did I want another day of waking up early, sneaking down to the boy's room, reaching into the top hammock strung across the room where Tommy sleeps, tapping him softly on the head, watching him pop up and declare, "Oh hey, Uncle Vince! Want me to make you some coffee?" Uhm ya. I'm in.

It's Silas time! For the following three days, he's going to take over the posts here. There is no one on the planet like him. Silas jumps on trail with us at the Arapahoe Campground where Stephen will drop us after a 4:30am departure from Denver. Silas has hiked with us before. He did the border/border hike on the PCT with us in 2018. He walked the first 90 miles with us, to the border and back + a little. Then he and Stephen met us for the final 40 miles to walk to Mexico. He is adventurous, smart, intense and crafty. He makes his own gear. He's into making ultralight hammocks now. He's going to make the kids some for our Appalachian Trail attempt. He's also overwhelmingly and incomparably verbose. You owe it to yourself to watch our YouTube video from a hike through Big Cypress, appropriately named "Silent Silas, Swamp Stomper." I'll put the link in the bio. Over to you Silas...

After getting dropped off at an “Authorized Rangers Only” parking lot, we headed down a forest road towards Monarch Lake Trailhead and Campsite. Our morale and spirits were high until we reached the designated trail which was obliterated by something like a tornado. Trees were everywhere as if a giant toddler had mindlessly tossed his Lincoln Logs in all directions. Diligently, Henry and Uncle Vince lead us through the chaotic wilderness: straddling over trees, climbing trunks up to 10 feet in the air, and plunging through their prickly branches to keep our momentum. When we came to a clearing, we decided upon a detour which unfortunately did not lead us around our antagonistic adversaries and put our lives in jeopardy at every step. Warily, we pushed through them until finally the trail began to clear. Now we could keep a good pace. We stopped for lunch with our spirits lifted. But soon after leaving lunch, we were confronted by many more of our old enemies. It culminated in a horrific climactic square mile of acres and acres of fallen timber. Thanks to Henry and Uncle Vince’s ingenuity to forge a path amidst the maze, we painstakingly continued forward. The hours mounted. Georgie lost her phone. Emotions ran high. Finally in desperation, we decided to venture over to a treeless meadow we spied about 50 feet away, but even that 50 feet of ground took us at least seven minutes as we picked our way over the roots of trees whose flimsy foundation of rock with meager soil had cast them headlong. When we reached the meadow, we were overjoyed to find that the trail went through the meadow and up the mountain away from the trees. We had conquered the land of fallen giants! (Later we learned that what we had deemed difficult and aggravating, the forest service declared “impassable” and denied our fellow hikers entrance!)

The day dawned cold and chilly with deep snow, and a 12,000 foot mountain to climb. It was all rock and no trees. We’d left the trees long ago and they had stolen our enthusiasm. As we climbed the mountain a new enemy met us: Wind. It pelted us with 40 mile an hour blasts whipping up snow two feet higher all along the trail. As we neared the top the wind increased to 60 miles an hour and we were nearly blown over. Henry suffered from hypothermia, but worse was yet to come. Up hill after hill while the wind picked up speed and picked up speed and finally, we crossed the pass and the wind was at 80 miles an hour. As I leaned on my trekking poles, Henry went back to save Georgie who was paralyzed from cold and from misery. As we descended, we came into something like a rock bog but instead of swamp there was clear, clear water with rocks jutting up all over the place. I stepped in many a pond that day, but my Sealskinz waterproof socks did a good job of keeping the water out. Soon we reached a fork in the trail between Diamond Lake Trail and the 4th of July Campground parking lot. We discussed what to do next. The majority vote was to go to the parking lot and get picked and driven to the nearby town of Nederland where we could enjoy a nice lunch and then get driven to my house in Denver (or so we thought). Uncle Vince and I were the lone dissenters, for despite the harsh conditions I thoroughly enjoyed the adventure. So toward the parking lot we walked. We were offered a hitchhiking ride by a nearby hiker and we accepted it. After having a delicious meal in the town of Nederland of burgers and fries we went to the tiny little coffee shop made of old railroad cars. We drank hot chocolate and malts and sat and talked a while. Suddenly, we were surprised by the door getting thrown open by our grandparents who took us to a cozy condo in Winter Park. - Silas

After two days, consisting of a windy-white-out and a scramble through tornado-tossed-trees, today took us by surprise. It offered the most beautiful views that I have ever seen. The many stunning craggy mountains topped with white snow Aiden compared to gingerbread houses topped with sugar icing; we both wished there were gumdrops. We ate lunch behind the craggily peak of Devil's Thumb. We walked Jasper Lake then Devil's Thumb Lake; we enjoyed many other stunning views as we climbed up the little mountains on the mountaintops and descended through wooded grasslands and through grassy woodlands. It was a far cry from the difficult days behind. We descended past old King Lake where there were majestic views. At the former town of Corona we came to an old road which we took instead of following the trail up to the ridge toward James Pass. From this old road we joined a trail which took us up Rogers Pass. On the other side of Rogers pass loomed the ominous thirteener, James Peak. We camped beneath its shadow comparing that night with the night two nights before when we had been lashed by rain under a similarly ominous peak. But this night the winds were mild. The trees and grasslands we saw today were so diverse; even the woodlands didn’t diminish the views, and the mountain lakes sparkled with the clear beauty of snow-water. - Silas

Georgie gets sick above 13,000 feet. We camped at 11,900 having run out of daylight enough to make it over the top of James Peak @ 13,300. The trail on the north face looked sketchy and with all the windblown snow I knew it would be getting icy. Surely it would be icy in the morning, but at least we'd be able to see. It was taking a long time to get over the top, too long. Georgie said, "Dad, my head is starting to hurt. Can I just go?" "Yes, everyone get over the top. I'll walk with June." At the summit we ran into a crowd of day hikers ascending the south face. The valley spread out before us. We'd have one more climb after lunch, but the dread of it paled in comparison with the hope of spending the night in a VRBO with Grandmommy, Grandpa and our friend Mr. Lepski, who had come back again to surprise us for an on trail visit. Only June and I knew he was coming. She loves to be in on the surprise. June and I made up some ground in the downhill. They were waiting for us in Empire at the Ice Cream Shop, but they hadn't been waiting long. Georgie ordered some mint chocolate chip. "No dad," she smiled, "my head doesn't hurt anymore."

"Grandpa always seems to show up at just the right time." -June on my parents arrival to Summit county after a hard section. I told my dad we'd been walking through gold mines all day, and he launched into some Robert Service. .... I wanted the gold, and I sought it; I scrabbled and mucked like a slave. Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it; I hurled my youth into a grave. I wanted the gold, and I got it— Came out with a fortune last fall,— Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it, And somehow the gold isn’t all. No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?) It’s the cussedest land that I know, From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it To the deep, deathlike valleys below. Some say God was tired when He made it; Some say it’s a fine land to shun; Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it For no land on earth—and I’m one. You come to get rich (damned good reason); You feel like an exile at first; You hate it like hell for a season, And then you are worse than the worst. It grips you like some kinds of sinning; It twists you from foe to a friend; It seems it’s been since the beginning; It seems it will be to the end. I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim; I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow In crimson and gold, and grow dim, Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming, And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop; And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming, With the peace o’ the world piled on top....

From the high traverse above Interstate 70 two days before, we could see the trail up Gray's Peak. It looked snowbound and icy. We were pretty beaten up from the week, so I had worked out an alternate that included a nostalgic walk past ski slopes where I had spent a lot of time years before. The walk over Loveland Pass on highway 6 was filled with ample opportunity for dips and drops off the side of the road to cut corners from the road walk. One shortcut didn't quite work out and demanded an attempt at a log crossing that was a bit precarious, but worth it for the dry feet. By lunch we had made 17 miles and were met by a caravan of grandparents, siblings and cousins A few joined us for the last 6 miles that brought us to Breckenridge and another night of homemade food and a bed. It might be hard to go back to trail life after this.

This kid. She's not in many pictures this year, because she is taking them all. She's tougher than she was at 11 on her first thruhike. "I'll be okay," is a common phrase to hear from her lips in circumstances that would have reduced her to a puddle of tears. She's had hives, a dog bite, altitude sickness, ear infection, loss of hair broken off in the ice, something resembling anaphylaxis, and she's lost 2 phones. But she'll be okay. And she's still smiling.

Up and over. Not a long day in terms of miles, but up all morning. Right there. That pass. My mom and dad stood on the sidewalk looking up while I flashed the umbrella from the ridge, hoping the chrome umbrella might catch the light, so they could see us. We couldn't see it in the photo. Before all this hiking, I wouldn't have imagined that we could've gone to that ridge, and down an equal distance on the other side to the Copper Mountain Ski area in the span of a day. By four o'clock we were back in Breckenridge looking up at what we'd done, and waiting patiently while my sister made dinner.

The trees are starting to change colors. The nights are colder. We wouldn't know from experience, because for 5 of the last 6 nights we have managed to make it back to a pickup spot and return to a house full of cousins and parents and even some friends. Today we ran into Puzzler again. He was out in the winter storm when the trees were falling. He pushed as far as he could into the storm and set up under fallen trees in a white out blizzard. His tent filled with blown snow throughout the night, and trees continued to fall all around him. "We are staying in Breckenridge and taking a zero tomorrow. You are welcome to come with us." "I might take you up on that," he said.

We slack packed from Empire to Leadville. Each night we timed our day's end for a pickup spot. It was 25 miles or so to Highway 9 from Empire. From Highway 9 to Copper Mountain was around 15. Then from Copper to Highway 24 was either 18 or 24, depending on where we met them. I wanted 24, because that would put us at trail Mile 1804 and shorten the section to Salida. Additionally, we were planning to have a day off in Breckenridge. My mom had rented a converted hostel through VRBO. It was perfect for the crowd. We lost Ted Lepski to the airport, but replaced him (not that he can ever truly be replaced) with Puzzler, who joined us for a zero day. My sister stayed on with her 4 boys, and her friends from Colorado Springs with their 5 kids. This resupply was conducted between games of tag, hide and go seek, and trips to the hot tub. It was a different kind of restful. When I got a text from Flamingo that he'd reach Copper by 4pm, I thought, "Oh well, the more the merrier."

It can be hard getting back to trail. Especially, when it means leaving the comfort of family who are leaving. In some ways we felt more isolated than before they had come. "It's like ripping off a bandaid." "It's like jumping into cold water." "We are very close to being close to being done guys." None of my offerings had much effect. In many ways, it was the hardest morning we have had. When I say near breaking point. Let that sit and swirl in your imagination, and I won't fill in all the details from our end. (Don't think for a half a second, though, Mom, that we didn't love every minute of our time with you. We are glad you came!) In the afternoon we reached a trailhead junction. On my map I could see a potential low route around to Twin Lakes. It was marked as a trail, albeit a bit circuitous. I was spent from the morning. And the kids love the "create your own adventure" plans, so when Monica said, "I'll follow you guys," we were off and away down the alternate.

The trail I found wasn't really a trail. It is possible that it had been at one time. We had finished our road walk near the end of Turquoise Lake and scrambled down near the end of the damn to walk a dirt road through public land filled with jeep trails and dispersed car camping. At the end of the road, still on the "trail" we saw our first "Private Property, Keep Out" sign. To Monica's credit she didn't even say "I told you so" with her eyes. We snaked our way through neighborhoods and forest roads untill we finally walked out onto Twin Lakes, and for the first time that day I was able to say, "It's beautiful though," with real feeling. All through the morning I had been lying to myself. Grumbly and disgruntled I had been angry at myself for coming this way, angry that I hadn't stayed up high. Hadn't I only done it to accommodate these whiny kids? But I had to put on a happy face because I could see it beginning to turn south, and if I let it get to me, it'd be worse for them. At lunch though, when we had played Aunt Luchrysta's "I bless you Father" game, Aiden said, "For the views." It was like scales dropped from my eyes. So when I stood at Twin Lakes hours later, I was ready to see. "Don't miss it," I scolded myself. "Don't miss any of it." I was watching Monica, when our day ended early on a hard note, asphalt hard. She was looking left at a strangely decorated address sign in front of a house on Lost Canyon Rd, when she took a bad step and fell on the jagged edge of the road, hamburgerizing her knee. We were able to stop the bleeding and head back a mile to Murray Cabins. Thankfully, they had a place to wash up and a first aid kit with butterfly bandages.

We don't like road walks. Monica's knee injury kicked our level of dislike up a notch. On the other hand, we looked at the weather. The next two days call for thunderstorms, and snow up high. The high route through the Collegiates tops two 14ers and stays above the treeline. There is a low route in case of weather. We checked Guthooks. Guthooks is our primary app for following this trail. It utilizes GPS over a downloaded map with waypoints that allow for user comments. Whenever you have service you can download the most recent user comments. Dream left a comment saying he took the low route to avoid the last storm, "Insurmountable wall of blowdowns. If you get through one football field, you go another quarter mile and enter another. Ironically I almost killed myself to to get through." He ended up bailing and walked out to a road lower down. Pay It Forward said, "Take the high route even in bad weather, until they can get this taken care of..." Rather than turn up into the mountains at Twin Lakes we contrived a route on and around Highway 24 toward Salida. It looked like from near Salida we could walk Highway 285 toward a forest road to access the Silver Creek trail back up to the trail. But that would be another days problem. It looked like a few miles, if we could figure a way across the Arkansas River we could walk a dirt road all the way to Buena Vista. After that we would have to walk the Highway to Salida. When we reached the first bridge, we saw a fisherman on the far side of the river across the bridge into the small cluster of homes known as Granite. As I approached him I noticed that the rail line was covered in dirt. "Is this not an active rail line? I asked. "There hasn't been a train on those tracks for years." I looked at my map, the rail line was drawn along the river all the way to Salida. Over 30 miles away. None of it Highway walking. We set off down the old line with outdated electric pole wires dangling or affixed to old ceramic or glass atop crooked crossbeams. It was like walking into the past. Up to the west we saw clouds closing in on high peaks.

"Wait, you walked Brown's Canyon?" I was at a convenience store in Salida buying soft drinks for the kids after the world's fastest hitch for a family of six, when I spotted a local brewery across the street. After selecting a few cans to take back to the room, I asked the bartenders what brought them to the mountains. One of them said climbing. "Oh," I said, "We passed by some really cool stuff yesterday near the railroad tracks." "Oh my," she said, "I bet I saw you. Over by the tunnels?" The other bartender leaned in, "Wait, you walked the tracks through Brown's Canyon?" They looked at each other. "That is so awesome," he said. (Apparently you aren't really supposed to do that.) "Where did you sleep?" "We'll, that was a bit of a stealth situation. We were cowboy camping so we could get gone in a hurry, but then it started raining, so we had to set up tents." Aiden loves seeing traces of the past. Brown's Canyon was like walking through a museum. Old caves. Shelters under boulders. Old electrical wires dangling from ceramic or glass on poles. Long unused rail equipment. Aiden couldn't resist exploring everything. She loves the traces of the past and guessing what must have been. "I bet Indians, and miners and rail workers all used this cave. Look at all that soot from fires."

Salida, Colorado is only a couple hours from Colorado Springs. So my sister drove up to see us as early as she could pile her boys into her car, pick up some donuts and grab a couple of the older girls of the family she'd brought to Breckenridge the week before. We were glad to see all of them. Not least, the donuts. The flurry of a resupply especially a quick one is complicated by a lack of transportation. The laundromat was 0.3 miles away. The Post Office 0.5. It all adds up. Dellynne’s presence and willingness to play taxi turned it into a pit stop and we got to have a great breakfast with the whole crew. Dellynne kept saying, "This is where we came camping when Brad went hunting last year. Up in here somewhere." We pointed her up the hill toward Poncha Springs, then left up Highway 285. "Oh my gosh," she said it was right around this bend to the right." "Well, that's where we left off yesterday," I said. "Does Brad need us to spot any game?" "His tags are all up north this year." "We have seen so many more animals on the CDT."

Sometimes there's a moment in the day that grabs you, and shakes you, awakening wonder. The morning had begun like most. After a long 15 minutes of "June, George, June, George," I finally abandoned hope and crawled in their tent to get them going. The morning was cold, but not too far along I had pushed through some "ughs" and forced a listen to the daily trail school material. It was shaping up to be a grind. And then this glade of Aspen trees. Monica was far ahead of me. She never takes pictures. By the time I reached her at lunch she had a home screen background. Each footfall cracked with leaves. But other than that it was quite, even somber, holy with beauty. It's Fall.

Trail Magic of the highest order. Candy and Jim found us and fed us and slack packed us. Aiden said, "I could've sat there all day." Candy contacted me through Instagram somewhere back in Montana, and said when we were in Colorado she wanted to meet us and give us some trail magic. We arranged to meet somewhere near lunch time, but we were ahead of schedule. So were they. "Henry and Aiden will be there by 10," I texted on the Garmin. By the time June and I got there, Jim had burgers sizzling on the grill for a closer. The table was covered with food for a feast. Monica, said, "Vince, look, there's carrot cake!" "Candy," I said, "How on earth did you know?" At the end of the day I texted, "Let Jim know that his burgers got 16+ miles out of these kids after one o'clock."

Monica doesn't look where she's walking. She can't help but look around. She sees color and shape and marvels. How could you ever want to put a damper on it? Go on Monica, look, take it all in, absorb it, enjoy it. But, for the love of all that's holy. Do I have to walk behind you on these high traverses? It's terrifying.

Creede is a cool little town. At the top end of the drop into Creede I saw a portal into a mine. I turned and walked up the gravel culdesac to read about it. The mine has had several starts and restarts. There is gold and silver ore down in there, but they never seem to time the reopening for enough of a favorable market. The latest exploration happened from 2010-13. That Portal opens at 11,100 feet to tunnels that go down as far as 10,000. As you walk down the gorge, you walk backward in time. At the bottom of most of the information signs it says, "This mine was never profitable." Somewhere in those mountains someone must have found a vein that put profit in their pocket. Down at the bottom there are some ponds that host a well attended hockey tournament in the winter. In the town we picked up boxes and found a BBQ restaurant and bar with only PBR on tap. The walls are lined with buffalo hide, and the ceiling with dollar bills. The food is good and the town counselman behind the bar can tell you stories about the place, even though it's only his 4th winter there.

"What is the likelihood that we can walk the abandoned rail all the way to South Fork City?" "100%," said Wyatt, without hesitation. I looked long enough in response that he said again, "100%" We'd had so much fun through Brown's Canyon along the Arkansas, that when we saw one of the CDT routes paralleled the Rio Grande to South Fork City, we were intrigued. Plus we get to sing, "I'm an old cowhand, from the Rio Grande." The route weaves along beside the river on highway 149. I had no interest in walking 30 miles of highway, but an abandoned rail sounded great. "It runs through some private property, but no one is going to have a problem with it." Crossing a pasture we came to a tressle that straddles Willow Creek before it joins the Rio Grande. These bridges were not the same as the ones through Brown's Canyon. They were rail on ties on girders. Long abandoned, they were rotted and rusted. The gaps between the ties were not enough to fall through, but plenty to see the 30 feet down to the shallow river. The wind blew sideways. Enough to stir nerves and imagination. I recrossed the bridge to hold June's hand each careful step. Out of the corner of my eye, across the field to the highway I could see that a dusty red truck had slowed to watch us. It stopped when we reached the tressle, and moved on when we'd all made it across. A half mile later as the tracks neared a highway crossing the same truck passed us, going our direction this time, then u-turned , and stopped, waiting to intercept us. "What are you all doing out here." Dianne stood, comfortable in her functional ranchers garb, leaning forward a bit toward the toes of her well worn boots. "I was nervous about you being on the tressle, but you seemed to manage alright." She manages the land we'd walked across. As we walked away she said, "Send me a post card when you get down to that border now." I'll

Henry shot up. He's nearly as tall as I am now, 6'4". He's shot up in other ways too. He's not saying, "I've seen better," and complaining about this hike at every step. It was never about his suffering or dislike for hiking on the last one, as much as as a way to punish us for making him come. A needle to work under our skin. But this time he has shown flashes of kindness. He's laid down the pretense that he hates it. He's found ways to be helpful. On rare occasion, he will even let his mom give him a hug. The purest and clearest joy of this trip for me is the time. This is a rare experience of life to get to live and breathe 24 hours a day with our kids who are growing so quickly toward gone. It's the one good of this trip that I almost never lose sight of.

"Dude, I think you've unlocked this thing!" I met my friend Doug, Dougie, Dayglow Doug, Dougie Fresh, while snowboarding one season in Winter Park. He and I have kept in touch through the years. He is intense, and intensely motivated to unlock the mysteries. All of them. He's also got a Jesus at the center of it all sense that seems to bring his focus back around. Otherwise, I'd say the "center cannot hold." But wow he's fun. So when he followed up his declaration that this walking thing has "unlocked it" with, "I'm bringing my son Liam with you guys to Mexico. We are walking with you," I wasn't surprised. "If you can keep up." "Tell me what I need," He said. They met us in Pagosa Springs. We caught a ride over Wolf Creek Pass and started up the alternate from where we'd left off, and headed back to trail, a party of 8.

The first day was tough for Doug and Liam. When we first started the trip we were walking 18 miles a day. But it was light at 5:30am and not dark till after 9pm. Doug and Liam have jumped in at a time when we are trying to do up to 27 miles through mountainous terrain from 6:30am to 7:30pm with no breaks other than a short lunch. It's a big ask. I started early with June. We planned to walk six miles and then wait for everybody. At 6 miles we were filling our water bottles when we saw Aiden and Georgie round a ridge a mile back. When they arrived, Aiden said, "Dad, I think they are going back to take the low route alternate and maybe hitch." I worried about them making it back. Guthooks is easy to use, but I wanted to make sure. "Henry, let's go. We should at least go make sure they are okay." After we topped the ridge a mile back we could see them walking away in the distance. "Looks like we are going to have to run to catch them." I gave back some of Liam's food I had been carrying, and we made a plan to meet in Chama. "Looks like we got 4 bonus miles today, Dad," Henry said.

We'd made 22.5 miles the day before. The town turns are the trick. If you can get in and out, save time, and feel rested it's a big deal. Cumbres pass was 27.9 miles away. That's a long day in the mountains for us, but if we left a few miles for the morning, hitched in, managed a flurry of a resupply (charge batteries, wash clothes, shower, resupply food, etc) it wouldn't feel like much of a rest when we walked out in the afternoon. At lunch we decided to go for it. Doug said he'd had an easy hitch to town from the alternate. "Do you want me to get you a room?" "Is it near the post office?" I asked. "It's a short walk. Maybe ten minutes." He doesn't get it yet, but he will learn. "All right, we can make it." We stood in the dark shining flashlights on ourselves for the three cars that passed us over the course of 45 minutes. I started wandering around the pass looking for a nice camping spot. There were a few railroad owned buildings across the tracks. One was a cosy unused chicken coop behind a building that could sleep six. It was a little narrow and dusty, but it would work if we did 3 sets of 2. I was on the way back to the road to round everyone up when I heard Aiden say, "Dad, this car is turning around."

Rick and Theresa Day and his wife turned their Subaru around in the dark and asked, "Are you the Canadians?" Doug had been trying to stir up a ride at the pizza place down the hill. What he was looking for hadn't been completely clear. But when the Days had driven up the pass they put it together. They took an hour out of their way and drove us back to town, made sure we had food and were all checked in before heading back up the pass. "I spent a year backpacking around Europe, so I know how great a helping hand can be." He's also a @homemadewanderlust fan, so he's got a special place in his heart for hikers. Thanks Dixie! And thank you Rick and Theresa. The next morning we stood for a hitch with Doug and Liam added into our number. A small pickup pulled up immediately. A lady leaned out the passenger window and said, "I think I can fit everyone." In the end she waited at the bottom of the pass while her husband drove us up the mountain. "We love hikers," he said, "because we did the Camino years ago. Every year we do a hundred miles pilgrimage from here with about 350 people to a holy sight." "Is that with the Catholic Church?" "Yes, my family is Mexican, and we have been here forever." We made ten miles from town, and fell on the ground under some pines on our Tyvek. Cowboy Camping has become the norm now that the skies are clear. The only debate is whether or not to bring the filters in under our quilts to keep them from freezing. We joined in the chorus of coyotes for a few minutes. Made a comment on the stars and fell asleep. Three miles from Cumbres Pass we had passed into our final state, New Mexico. There is a certain buzz about getting to say it, but the less arbitrary hurdle to hop is Cuba. I'll explain later.

Everything is different. Less sheer peaks and drops. Less sharp. More roley poley. Less water, that is, less tasty. We have to remember to buy drink flavoring in town. We probably won't remember. Doug and Liam made it to lunch with us, then changed targets for a road crossing. They would shoot to meet us at Ghost Ranch off an alternate in a couple days. Monica turned her phone off of airplane mode and discovered that Georgia O'Keefe's house would be closed for the season. In the grand balance of pros and cons for the trip, a reasonably weighty item on the pro side had been the fact that the trail walked right by Georgia O'keeffe's home. Doug saved the day though with a great perspective. "Do you really care about where she lived, or would you rather see the things that inspired her?"

With the drop in elevation we've gone to cowboy camping exclusively. If you are unfamiliar, it just means that when we reach camp we just spread out our Tyvek ground sheets side by side and sleep under the stars. I wanted to use one of the great pictures that Georgie has been taking at night. A long exposure picture with all of us laid out on the ground. But when I looked through the pictures of the day, I saw this one of June walking through the aspens. How could I not use this one. Besides, there will be time for cowboy camping night shots in the desert, won't there?

All of sudden we are in the desert... well, almost. We drop to 6000 feet into sage and cactus and climb back up to 10,000 through the pine into the aspen again. These are fun transitions. And this is starting to look like the country Monica wanted to see.

"I... love... this!" - Monica

Ghost Ranch is closed this year. They aren't letting anyone on the property. Not officially. New Mexico has tighter restrictions than other states. Year over year they have allowed hikers to shower, charge devices, wash clothes, send packages, and camp. We didn't get the memo. We sent packages, and hoped for a half day rest. While I stood reading a sign about Georgia O'keefe sneaking Ansel Adams into the building that is now the library to play a steinway for an impromptu concert, I could hear us being discussed over the housekeepers too loud walkie talkie. The good news is that I heard them say, "We'll just put them in the grass and let them go through the boxes in the grass." We were nervous they didn't have our boxes. We were also nervous they wouldn't release them. Our fears were partially justifiable. When we received the boxes they were marked "return to sender." Glad they didn't. The rest we wanted, came. Our walk up the alternate back to trail met the Chama River after 6 miles, and we stopped for a late lunch, and stayed for 4 hours. We swam ourselves clean and slept ourselves refreshed.

"What is wrong with you guys? This thruhiking thing is stupid." Doug had changed his tune from the night before, when he said, "I totally get this thruhiking thing." Something about waking up in the dark and cold will change a tune. The days are shorter. We aren't night hiking. So we have to use all the moments of the light we have. Even with the shorter days we are making over 25 miles every day. It feels like we are close now.

All night and into the morning the elk blew, bellowed, and whistled. I texted my brother in law, Brad's Garmin. The San Pedro Wilderness is crawling with them. Brad is out hunting elk in Colorado, so it might not have been a kind thing to text. We walked into a meadow and were so distracted by the herds (yes plural) that were standing at the base of every wash, that we lost track of the trail. We'd walked 3/4's of a mile off trail before we realized. By that time we had spotted a chimney that stood as a reminder of an old cabin, so we had to check it out. The old CDT route was closer to us, so we walked toward Cuba a different way than we had intended.

Before the window closed. The seasons matter here. The southbound hiker knows their windows. The northbounder too. There are drop dead days to be past certain markers, or you'll run the risk of being caught in impassable weather. On the PCT it's South Kennedy Meadows. Get there by the 15th of October. Preferably a little before. For the CDT it is Cuba. Get there by November 12th, no matter what. If you didn't know, we are running these IG posts on a bit of a delay. As of today, October 10th. We have made it through the danger window. Happy to be here, Cuba. See you soon Mexico.

My sister came to see us again. Her husband was out looking for elk, so she brought the four boys to see us again. "I drove along the trail as much as I could on the way here, so the boys could see where you've walked. Some of those roads are scary." Dellynne had reserved 3 rooms at the Cuban Lodge. Flora and her husband are the proprietors. "Prepare yourself, my friend, to meet what may be the most friendly little lady on the planet," one Guthooks comment said. It's not far off. She is ageless, and hilarious. "So are you cuban then?" "Oh honey, I'm Spanish and Heinz 57." She told stories of roasting pine cones over fires with visitors from Navajo and Apache tribes come to town to supply for the winter. "The girls would always want to spend the night in our house, but that would make me so mad. I just wanted to sleep outside with them. My mom would finally let us do one night of each. But there wasn't no getting into trouble in this town, 'cause everyone knew everybody's business." We said goodbye to Dellynne, the boys, and Flora and walked out in the afternoon with Doug and Liam, to follow cairns across the desert.

The Rio de Puerco runs through Cuba and down in the valley to the west of where we would be walking. The trail walks high up along the mesas, so we'd be nowhere near the water. I'm not sure we would want to anyway, because saying the Rio de Puerco "runs" is a bit generous this time of year. It stands in stagnant green pools. A car from the fifties sits in what would be it's streambed. Doug and Liam are walking stronger, but I was nervous. It would have been one thing for them to stretch food for a day or two on either of the last sections, but water doesn't stretch as well. These are long desert carries. "We will stay with you for the first two water stops," I said as we were walking out of town. It had taken us till morning to reach James Spring. The water was foul shallow cloudy pools under a rock. Water is important enough though that this muddy spring had inspired the erection of two stone structures in the distant past. Nothing much was left of them, but I'd guess someone named James had lived there once. There was a nearly imperceptible flow, so we set up a leaf and waited while the water dripped it's way into our bottles. Even after filtering the water it had a strong earthy taste, but with another 14 miles to water, there is no point in being snooty. I developed a technique to choke it down, in case you need it. Take a quick gulp, hold your breath for 10 seconds and exhale quickly.

Many of the water sources in the desert are there because the ranchers have constructed windmill and solar pumps. Some are gravity fed tanks fed from springs. However they do it, we are grateful. It does mean, however, that we are sharing water. June said, "Dad, I just thought of something. If we couldn't find water, we could just follow the cows around." I'd have to be pretty desperate. I've seen some of these cow ponds. After lunch at the second water source, we set up for the next carry. My water bladder was buried in my bag so I took everything out. When I took out my orange sleeping bag, I got rushed by 3 of the cows. Georgie was nervous for me,but not so nervous that she failed to snap a picture.

Walking these mesas has been the highlight of the trip for several of us. Monica loves the desert. She keeps saying, "I love this." Henry said, "This is my favorite thing I've seen." Aiden said, "I want to live here." I passed a dusty white truck way back on a forest road. The driver stopped and said, "Almost there, keep it up." They had talked with Henry. I asked them what they were up to. They have a 160 acre homestead back there. "There's always something to work on back here." I guess there is hope for Aiden.

The adventure of Doug and Liam is quite hilarious. They are on a different schedule, with a different agenda, and it's lead them to some different experiences. We left them the night before to walk another 5 miles. It was Liam's longest day yet. A 20 miler. Doug spotted a camp spot in the middle of some spire formations that would shelter them from the wind. They woke up and walked to the next water source to have lunch. This water source is in the middle of nowhere, nowhere I tell you. The main road that feeds this desolate artery is recommended 4x4. And yet it up drives Tony. His name wasn't really Tony. But Doug calls everyone that picks them up Tony, because the first Tony single handedly restored his hope for humanity. This Tony was out on a 3 day weekend looking for geods, crystals, sharks teeth, obsidian, and who knows what else. The water source was at the base of a 3 mile climb up a mesa and 12 miles from an off trail spring. We reached the spring at 4pm. We were sitting eating tortillas before taking the hike to the spring to fill to capacity for the coming 30+ mile water carry, when we heard Liam through the trees up the hill. "Here they are, Dad." Doug came bouncing out of the trees behind him two affectionate bird fingers high in the air. "Y'all are a bunch of suckers. Thruhiking is for the birds." After Tortillas we gathered up our bottles and bladders to hike down the gorge a half mile to the spring. "Oh yeah, that's right you guys don't have any water. Liam and I will wait here, I guess." We are walking late and early as soon as it's light until it dies, like a bunch of suckers.

Carole Mumm, a trail angel from Grants, left a note at a gravel road to alert southbounders to be on the lookout for a fire reroute. A fire had sprung up near Mount Taylor since we'd left Cuba. We didn't know what to expect, but we couldn't see smoke anywhere on the horizon. Carole had also requested information on a 68 year old northbound hiker named Mary. Mary had a hurt knee and wasn't making big miles through the long water stretches. Carole had gotten word of her through a trail angel from Pie Town, and between the two of them they had cached water for Mary about every ten miles. We had already passed a couple of 1 gallon caches with Mary's name on them. When we finally met her, Mary was a flurry of words and gestures. She is finishing her final sections to complete her triple crown. She was the first woman ever to winter hike Appalachian Trail. She warned us about the fireman, who had thrown her in the back of a locked car and driven her around the fire closure. "I told them they'd better have some water available, because hikers were coming."

Between Grants and Pie Town there is a lot of road walking. The first 40 or so is all pavement, so we wanted to get a jump on it. The pavement winds under the base of bluffs, much of which is contained in the Acoma reservation, and parallels ancient tribal land of the Zuni people. There are volcanic formations not far off the road, and if we had more time we might try to pick our way through a trail that is marked by cairns placed long ago to guide the Zuni through the maze. "People get lost out there," we heard later. I didn't expect the road walk to be so beautiful.

We have worked hard to be sensitive to all the local requirements on this trail. Local ordinances and expectations can be a tricky thing to engage with on a long trail like this, especially now. Walking dusty, remote gravel roads between private property signs hanging from barbed wire fences not ten feet off the road can make you wonder where you might sleep that night. The Guthooks app for the CDT doesn't have a whole lot of information about where to camp. Nearly nightly I can expect Monica's anxious question, "Where are we going to camp tonight?" My answer is almost always the same. "The last time I walked the CDT..." It's often a playful response, but some days there's frustration on the fringes. There had been fences on either side without a break for miles and miles. We had been walking after dark for around 15 minutes. I offered assurances that we'd find a place. It was cold, and everyone's feet hurt. Road walks are murderously unkind to the feet. We recover well at night, but it doesn't mean it's not hard to endure. I saw a truck stop inside a gate on the right just ahead. "Excuse me sir, it looks like the fence moves away from the road about 50 feet," I pointed across from the entrance to his property. "Do you think it'd be alright if we camped there?" "I don't know about that, but you can't stay in here. We are hunting in the morning or maybe I'd let you. You might walk back to that next driveway and ask. They pride themselves on taking in hikers." Continued in comments.

Nita moved to New Mexico with her Was-band (her word). She raised 5 kids in a home that sits 1 block from a transcontinental intersection. Bikepackers travel east to west toward LA on Hwy 60, and backpackers/bikepackers N and S along the CDT. Pie Town is a unique place, when the Post Office moved from out near Lucy's store (now a stone ruin) on a dirt road along the old mail route to the N, they asked this little unincorporated community to come up with 3 options for names. The community said, "Call us Pie Town." The PO said, "That name is beneath the dignity of the Post Office." Their response: "You can take your Post Office and go to hell." In the 80's the town didn't know what to make of the hikers coming through. Residents even threw cans at them to drive them out of town. Nita didn't She took them in, fed them, and housed them. To help future wanderers find her, she hung a toaster on the gate. "Look for the house with the toaster. Following her lead, the town warmed to the hikers and to the "Toaster House." Nita would come home to more and more toasters hung on her gate and down her fence line. The house is now a living museum to the trail. Notes, stickers and postcards cover the walls. "There's food in the pantry, and a hiker box, just make sure you write stories in the journal. Nita loves stories," says Jefferson who stays at the house now. "The restaurant up the hill closes at 5." 20 minutes later we walked up the hill toward the restaurant with Jenny Rough and her husband Ron. Jenny had driven down from Pagosa Springs to interview us for a podcast for "The World and Everything In It." As we sat talking, a woman stood beside our table, listening. She had a calm about her and smiled kindly. At some point, she interjected to correct something I'd gotten wrong about the trail. I said, "Thank you." "I'm Nita," she said. She sat and taught the kids about local lore and geography, and asked questions about our trip. The server approached our table, "Would you mind finishing this conversation outside?" It was 5:30. We left enriched.

When we walked out of the cafe in Pie Town, Nita leaned in and said, "I baked you a pie." I think she didn't want to say so in front of the server. It's 130 miles from Pie Town to our next resupply at Doc Campbell's. This is the longest remaining section. We have opted to take the Gila alternate. It's a "don't miss it" part of the CDT experience. This last big carry coincides with some more long water carries, so our shoulders hurt with the extra weight. We have picked a spot on the map to meet the Nelson's. We met them early in the trip, near the border, took them up on an invitation to stay with them in Hamilton, Montana and invited them to join us for the Gila. We need to make some good miles to keep to our appointed meeting time. I wanted to start at 7:30am, but a desire to finish the amazing pie Nita baked for us, and to have a last breakfast burrito on the way out of town overpowered me. I caved.

We made it to a spigot the night before, hoping to get an early start across a big water carry. They can come out of nowhere, these bad days. It wasn't early enough when we set out. June woke angry. I woke snippy. Not far into the day we climbed a hill 3/4's of a mile past our turn and had to back track, the first of 2 wrong turns of the day. When I announced the school hour, we had a major melt down. It slowed us down even more. We reached the end of a full days water carry in the late afternoon, a solar well that feeds a large tank that a rancher allows hikers to access. The sun was low enough that the pump had stopped, so we leaned way over the side of the tank to draw water from the tank. "There are orange fish in here," Henry said. "Oh, look, white ones too," pointed Georgie. "Oh yeah, Dreams made a comment about that in Guthooks," June said. As we were packing for a final push, I said, "We are going to have to walk later tonight if we are going to be on time for the Nelson's, and we have a big climbing day tomorrow." June lost it. We had our second melt down of the day. A battle of the wills in the grand style of the parent/teenager from time immemorial. A gift from heaven in the form of 2 horses interrupted us. June stood for a long while inviting them to come close. Tomorrow is another day.

"Sorry, we are late. That elevation was a lot more than what I expected," I said. We climbed 3,500 feet and walked 19 miles by 2:45. Well, Henry did. June and I made it to the top a little over an hour later. The Nelson's hadanaged to find a shuttle out of Silver City to the place we'd arranged to meet. The Nelson's are the real deal. Rafting adventures, sailing adventures, route finding across snow covered peaks, and on and on. We hope we can keep up now that they have stepped into our wheelhouse by joining us this late in the trip. Lauren, their 13 year old, was a bit nervous about keeping up. She had nothing to worry about. We had invited them to the Gila, having planned to slow up a bit, and honestly, we need to. We are tired. We walked out a few miles to get a jump on the 107 miles remaining in the section.

Early in the morning we crossed the last of the ranch land on our way into the wilderness. Off in the distance toward the mountains we could see a truck pulling a horse trailer kicking up dust from the gravel road. It turned into the corral where we hoped to find water. While we took turns leaning over the empty trough toward the spigot, the cowboy saddled his horse in front of the corral. "Y'all just make sure you put it back the way you found it." Joby was bringing the cows in to "show them the water" at some new tanks he had just installed. He was doing a few things for the rancher and keeping an eye on the herd. The Mexican Wolf, recently reintroduced to the area, has cost this rancher about 15 head a year. Joby had been down in Mexico dispatching a few preditors plaguing some herds down there. Here, you can't do anything about it, unless you catch them in the act of attacking livestock. To be reimbursed by the government, you have to prove it was a wolf by a DNA test. "These wolves here, just kill for sport. They don't eat any of it." He rides his motorcycle in the off season, and says he will look me up when he's in Florida. "We'll grab a Pepsi," he declares. Joby walks off toward his horse, The horse stamps the dust under a rifle laden saddle. Joby's pistol sways from his hip as he walks. He hesitates before mounting, slaps his hat against his leather chaps, turns back toward us, "You know what, let me bless y'all on your way. Bow with me. Our Lord Heavenly Father, I pray that you would go with these people as they walk through your beautiful land...."

We left the gravel road and entered more of a "there might once have been a trail here" within a blink of an eye. But it felt more like what we had come to see. In 2017 we came to the Gila in March with our friends the Browns and the Gibsons. It was March and the water was at flood stage, so we abandoned the idea of hiking out the middle fork as originally intended. This time I was able to stand and marvel at the collection of spires in the gorge. It feels like a cathedral. The walls are lined with natural caves, once used by the Mogollon people to, in the words of the ranger, "Who knows what? It's all really conjecture." There are 101 architectural sites in the area, and, "that's just the ones we know about." To see now, what we came to see then, is thrilling. I stood at that time looking down the middle fork sad to abandon the quest. I texted Jamie, "Perfect idea you had. We just had the wrong time of year."

Georgie spent the first two hours of the day in tears. Each time we scrambled up the bank from wading across the middle fork of the Gila River, our feet would begin to thaw. As we walked our feet would pass from that painful but tolerable numbness into that sharper pain of recovered feeling. Inevitably, that would be around the time we would drop down the bank to recross the river. Around 9:15 am the sun crested the rim of the canyon and we sat down to warm up. Near the end of a day of over 50 river crossings we came to a series of high caves. One of which was 200 feet up a steep scramble. By the time I looked up, Aiden, Henry, Georgie, and Lauren were crossing the last steep bit of rock into the cave. Doug and his wife were sitting at the base pulling out their stove. "We'll, I guess I better go with them," I thought. When I reached the cave, I sat down by Henry, breathless, and said, "It's crazy to think of the people that sat here, that looked across this valley, built fires here, mixed mortar to wall in grain, and hid from snow and rain here. You can almost feel they are here." What a place this is. What a world. On the way down, Lauren looked up at me after barreling down a section of loose rock, "I love scree-ing," and laughed. "That's what we call it in Glacier."

Dougie Fresh had been texting incomplete thoughts from Doc Campbell's for 2 days. He and Liam hitched to Pie Town ahead of us to avoid the road walk. Then he applied some Dougie magic and hit some highlights and skipped some climbs. "I was thinking... after my long talk with Not So Fast and Chop Chop about their trail experience, which was before my soak in the jacuzzi tub with my new friend Jimbo, which was after Liam and I had long showers and washed our clothes, but before Jimbo taught me the magic of cheddar franks, which was before my newest friend Tony brought the beer and bubbles to the soak, which was long after Liam saw a cougar (and not the older lady kind), which I know your wife has been dying to see (again, not the older lady kind)... if I remember what I was thinking, I'll text again." We woke in a wash. That's a cold way to sleep. It was a little way off the road and beside a cave I'd seen in 2017. I thought it would be fun to sleep in a cowboy cave. This one had some old stacked stone, maybe even Mogollon. I got settled in with all the kids, but when I spotted piles of fresh rat feces we lost everyone but June and Henry. Henry sighed and bellowed for awhile till I asked him what was wrong. "I keep thinking this rock is going to fall on me," and he left. Sometime after midnight I heard rustling in the thorns by my head. "Maybe the Gila Lizards hunt at night." I flicked on my flashlight and saw several long tails on the back ends of some large rats. When we plopped down in the wash, I said, "Well, I guess that was a fail." Karen Nelson offered me solace. "It's after midnight, I think that counts as a night." The next morning, we walked through cliff dwellings before heading down for a quick resupply at Doc Campbell's. Dougie and Liam walked out with us afterword to where we left the road for the final stretch of the Gila. "Not So Fast said it gets gnarly after about 5 miles. The trail just disappears. We have a flight from Silver City tomorrow, or we'd be right there with you. Plus, there's snow coming in. We've done all we came to do." "Watch this, Doug," I said to Doug Nelson. "Watch how fast he catches a hitch." (continued in comments)

Wading the bottom stretch of the Gila wasn't quite as rewarding as the top half. The views weren't as nice. The trail was washed out or overgrown, so it was a bushwack for sure. We also had been told that a winter storm was coming in, so we were feeling a little pressed for time. After 7 hard fought miles through the river in the morning, we climbed up and out, but not before Monica fell again and split open her knee. It was another gusher. Thankfully, Karen is true wilderness savvy (she gave their dog 7 stitches that morning). After I told Doug that my dad had texted to announce his arrival in Silver City, he admitted to me that he'd been feeling a little sleepless the night before about some work related stuff, but had really come to terms with it and was having a great day. I said, "Who knows, maybe my dad will try to find a way back here on one of these forest roads to surprise us." After the first stage of the ascent from the gorge, we began to climb along seasonal creek basin ablaze with fall colors, up toward the the "sheep corral," our last water before the climb over the top. When June and I arrived, everyone was circled around a couple who were standing in front of a truck. I walked up behind Doug and whispered, "What would Dougie Fresh do?" We said goodbye to Doug and our new friends a few minutes later. An hour later I got a Garmin text from my dad. "Looks like we missed you at the sheep corral by about 10 minutes." The sky was darkening. The trail disappeared in the ash of a recent fire, and we guessed our way into the darkness. We needed to get down as low as we could from 8,000 feet before the weather came in. The first of the rain pattered on our tents just as we crawled inside.

It rained intermittently through the night, but by morning it had let up. It was eerily warm. "I though that there was a winter storm coming in," Henry said. I shrugged, "It's time to wake everyone, let's get going,. It's mostly downhill to Silver City." Monica whispered from the other tent with frustration in her voice, "Don't you know how to whisper?" "Town day! Let's go!" I said. Henry and I started to sing, "Good morning, good morning, it's great to stay up late." For nearly 240 miles we haven't had anything other than a quick stop. It was past time for a rest. The temperature dropped steadily through the morning, and we guessed our way along creek basins following cairns. The cairns were fairly consistent, but a few were for other trails and a little confusing. Eventually, we made it to a Jeep track road that we would follow the rest of the way up and down, and up and down and up and down. It was as though they were trying to make me a liar in June's eyes. "This isn't mostly down, Dad!" "I didn't make the roads, kid " By noon we met my dad at mile zero of the Gila alternate where it rejoins the trail. Two of his best friends have joined him to accompany us from here to the end. It's a nearly unspeakable honor that they would come all this way. That they would greet us with pizza was a nice bonus. We had beaten the weather. "It's supposed to drop 40 degrees tonight and snow all day tomorrow," said Ted Lepski, my dad's friend and and self proclaimed "trekker groupie". The Nelson family blew our minds in this section. We loved having them along. After pizza they drove to town to get cleaned up for dinner where we would meet them later after we walked the 7 remaining miles to Silver City. My dad sent his friends along ahead of him and joined us for 4 of the miles. A little rest before a final push. It's so nearly finished.

Way back up the trail in Colorado June said, "Grandpa has the best timing." Once again, my Dad came through at the right moment. He kept us out of the storm. We spent the day lounging in the hotel. During rare breaks between naps I would glance outside at the snow covered city and hills beyond, and think how glad I was to be inside. In contrast to trail life it felt a lot like cheating. Once, only once during the day, I walked outside to take a picture of the kids in front of a snowy backdrop. Now, back to sleep. Thanks Dad.

We met Dahn on the PCT in 2018. He hiked the CDT in 2019. He warned me this trail would be harder psychologically than the PCT. It wasn't easy for him to quantify why that would be. It isn't easy for me to communicate why he was right, but he was. Leading up to this trip he has been mentor, cheerleader and friend. He has been right about almost everything. His resupply spreadsheet, however, hasn't always been right. "What route did you take from Silver City to Lordsburg?" I texted Dahn. He responded, "I just took the red-line." "Guthooks says it's 75 miles or something, but your spreadsheet says 50." "Yeah, I got that wrong. Sorry about that." See, the thing is... I had already told the kids it was 50 miles to Lordsburg from Silver City. Not only that, I had already told them we might be able to stay in a hotel the next two nights before our final push to the border. I had been careful to say might, and maybe. Those words are tricky, and even when offered with delicacy, there are certain contexts in which they will carry a more fixed expectation than you might intend. I knew I'd not gotten the balance right when the words came out of my mouth. So when Dahn broke the news to me, my stomach dropped. "Let's just see what the road is like Monica," I said when I broke the news to her. "Maybe we can just walk the highway. It's around 50 miles, so we would stay on schedule. At least we wouldn't be walking in snow." She was confused. "Why do we even care about a schedule? I am tired of road walks." "So, is that a maybe?" To be stuck in the middle of two "maybe's" is not a good place to be. "You know what," she decided, "I'm for whatever gets us there the fastest."

"Eww, Gross!" (Warning, this is not a pleasant post) Concerning yesterday's post, I owe Dahn an apology. The drop in my stomach may have been entirely unrelated to the mileage error on his spreadsheet. Giardia infection is pretty common in the backcountry. You ingest the microscopic parasite from a contaminated water source and it emerges from a protective shell to reek havoc in your intestine. I hadn't had much of an appetite for about 4 days. I'd continued to force myself to eat, but couldn't really handle much more than 800 calories. That was a big drop from the 5,000 or so I'd been consuming, and I was starting to feel weak. It is more likely than not that I have Giardia. On our 30 mile road walk out of Silver City the day before, I found myself wishing that all I felt was weak. Later that night, Monica woke several times to the sounds coming from the inside of my stomach. I spent the night curled into a ball in between short walks and long visits to the bathroom. It felt like someone had plugged my stomach directly to a shop compressor and was testing to see how much pressure would make it pop. During our 25 mile road walk the 2nd day, I told Monica, "I don't want to slow us down, but I don't think I can keep this up." Georgie overheard me, and said, "Dad, you are going to finish this thing, even if you have to crawl." "I'll be okay Georgie," I smiled because I couldn't laugh. "Do you have the shovel? You know what? Nevermind, I can't wait that long." I darted off behind a berm beside the highway again.

"We were told the trail was poorly marked in this state," I told Nita back in Pie Town, "but that hasn't been our experience." She tilted her head and smiled. I followed her eyes toward the window. The day Monica told me that she loved the CDT, I was shocked. At the time I had a growing dread that this wasn't her kind of trail. Monica grips the right beyond the rule with an admirable intensity. It's like this: She hates my use of 2 letter words in Scrabble. "You should at least have to know the definitions to get to use them." Several times on this trail I would walk to block a from her view a sign that might initiate a reconsideration of a creative alternate route Henry and I had chosen. For her it would be a question of character. To compound the issue, she's not the most surefooted hiker. When there is no footpath, there are more ankle rolls, stubbed toes and battles with prickly desert brush. When Monica says, "Where is the trail?" There is a lot at stake. This is the part of New Mexico we were warned about. If there are markers, they are posts. In this rocky terrain, cairns loosen their grip on the 4x4's that once stood above the sage and cactus to mark the way. We take a bearing, and make our own way. If we happen upon a fallen post we stand it up and restack the stones that hold it. Henry shaves straight lines across each bend drawn on the map, as a result we frequently find ourselves blocked by barbed wire. Sometimes, we climb. Sometimes, we crawl beneath. Near the highway, the walkie talkie crackles. Ted Lepski and my Dad have parked on hwy 113, and are walking toward us. Ted asked. "Does the trail go by a cattle tank? Over." "Not that I see." I climb a rise off trail to the left. They had taken a wrong turn. "Look up the hill on your 10 o'clock. Over." A crackle. He asks. "Where's the trail?" I wave my arms and point. When we come together, Ted says, "We were on a trail with footprints, but it must have become a cow path." "In less than 100 yards we lost the trail," my Dad adds. "Cow paths are tricky. We've been making that mistake all day," I say. "It's easy to lose the path out here, but it's hard to get lost."

We left the hwy to follow a jeep trail. In 15 minutes we'd lost our way. It's easy to get confused on double track. June caught the mistake first and proudly declared, "We are off trail!" By the map I saw that the trail had swung to the right around a spine of hills. Just ahead of us down the road, a private property sign hung at an angle from a makeshift barbed wire gate. "If we go up to the right we can probably go through that pass," I suggested. "We'll leave you to it," my Dad said, "so we don't lose the way back." Just then a double cab truck rumbled up behind us, stuffed with 6 cowboys, sitting with large hats, brim to brim. The trailer behind creaked as they stopped. June counted 4 horses. Ted waved hello. He told the driver we'd nearly finished a trek from Canada. They were intrigued, and asked about the trail. "This your ranch?" I asked. The driver pointed his thumb to the man behind him, "That's 5th generation right there; 140 years." I wanted the family name. "I've read a lot of Zane Grey, Louis L'amour and Cormac McCarthy and haven't heard it." "We keep a low profile," he smiled. "I bet you have stories to tell." Over the pass we approached a rider standing in his stirrups, looking out across a wide valley. "Will it mess you up if we go this way?" I asked. "Sure you can," he spoke in a lilting accent, "but your trail is that way. Where are you going?" "Walking to Mexico. To the boot heel." "I walked from that way 30 years ago." He laughed. He's on a work permit, but is close to having papers. His family has them. "May I pet your horse?" June asks. "I ride at home." "That's all we do around here. Rodeo too." Following his direction through the cactus we hear him slap his rope and call, "Yip, yip!" Across the valley a rider echoes his call. Cows bellow and push up a wash that cuts the valley. "June, You think it's a roundup?" The first of this family arrived just after the Civil War to work hard borderland through waning years of Apache Wars, mining booms and busts, beef prices rise and fall, into an age of heightened and heightening regulations, into an age of ergonomic keyboards and microagressions. They remain.

Trail Completion Eve! No family of 6 has completed a thruhike of the CDT. Strange as this enterprise may seem, I love what we've set out to do. I know my uncle feels the same. He loves to tell me that I am the only one he knows that can be the first to ever accomplish a thing, and still lose people's respect. "What does he even do?" You may read this because you understand the allure, or maybe you love a good train wreck, or both. If you came for the train wreck, stick around. You'd think the night before the finish would triumph in reflection and celebration, right? I don't know where I went wrong. Maybe I felt drained from being sick. Maybe I felt frustrated that we hadn't done what we'd hoped on this penultimate day. I'd had dreams of finishing just after lunch on the final day and racing to celebratory enchiladas in EL Paso at L&J's. But we'd have 21 miles for the next day if we didn't do something. I was impatient. As night approached I pitched options to Monica: 1. We finish whenever we finish the next day. 2. We walk two hours into the night. 3. We wake up extra early. 4. We walk fast the final day. 5. Some combination of 2, 3, and 4. 4 seemed unlikely. Over 5,000 miles of this, and we whine at every step and pick our way through washes at the speed of snail. We reached no formal agreement on the matter, and continued, by default, into a moonlit night so bright that our dark shadows glided along the ground beside us. All seemed fine until the instant Monica twisted her ankle. She re-declared her hatred for night hiking with stinging clarity. Inside 4.5 seconds we were were spreading groundsheets in a hailstorm of argument over merits and origins of our mutual frustrations. The dialogue escalated throughout our last supper. By the time we laid down all the kids had been pulled into the fray. My Garmin beeped with a message from Jamie Brown, "L&J's is closed tomorrow." I didn't think it worth mentioning. The one of us with any sense, begged, "Seriously, you two, it's the last day tomorrow! Can't we just get along?" "You stay out of it Aiden!" Monica and I yelled in unison. In the words of my friend John McCarron: We've lost the plot.

Continental Divide Trail -25,245 pictures by Georgie -2,750 approximate miles walked -800 Sans Meal Bars -885 ounces of NutZo butter -700 miles of trail support by Dad and friends. -520 Bobo's Bars -132 days, start to finish -132 times Monica said "Lunch is my favorite part of the day." -60 miles of abandoned railroad -32.2 mi, longest day -28 mi, longest water carry -28 pairs of shoes -22 nights cowboy camping -12 overnight trail guests -10 times Henry brushed his teeth -7 lost cans of bear spray -5 grizzly bear sightings -5 states -5 hailstorms -4 of us preferred this trail (vs PCT) -3 lost umbrellas -3 lost pairs trekking poles -3 porcupine sightings -3 times Monica split open her knee -2 fire reroutes -2 winter storms -1 dog bite -1 footpath, every step between Canada and Mexico. -0 families this large have completed this trail... Until now.

We woke at 4am that final day, 20.1 miles to go. We snailed our slow way through washes for 6 miles to the last water cache. Monica and Henry pulled cactus spikes out of the soles of their shoes. Eager to finish, we spread wide along the slope, each guessing the route. The cache was low when we arrived. We each only took a liter. "If grandpa brings that water," Henry said, "we could restock this cache too." Beyond the cache, the way was easy. "What's wrong with you?" Monica asked. "I'm annoyed," I said, "Maybe this Giardia is coloring everything for me, but I feel like we're imposters. We can't even tough our way through one last hard morning without whining at every step." It's important that I interject a thought here. It is hard to be honest. It's easy to wrap protective words around myself, untrue words: sarcastic, hyperbolic, deflective, reflexive, or humorous words. My "I'm fine" is less often true than it is spoken. There is a trueness in the Psalmist that I envy. After all, who do we think we are fooling with our, "I'm fine." Unfortunately, this new outfit of true words I am trying to wear fits awkwardly at times. "Yes, you have been whining," I responded. Her shift toward the defensive was understandable. She quickly found, in her recent memory, a ready list of my offenses. That recent list blossomed into a wider meditation on my failures throughout the trip. I gave ground on occasion, but where I thought her incorrect, I stood. We battled until our lunch under a lone tree beside a broken windmill. I fell asleep. One half hour later I woke to laughter. Not Monica's infectious laugh alone. All of theirs. I kept my eyes shut and listened, happy. "Will you walk with me?" Monica asked. Through a stammer and some tears she found her way to words, "I don't know what's been going on, but I do know I am mourning the end. I've had so much joy out here. I love having this much together. I don't want that to end." I kept the silence when she paused. "Don't get me wrong. I'm tired. I'm could use a rest." "Me too," I said, "This one has been hard. Really hard."

Rick Strawbridge loves adventure. That's my Dad. We cleared orange groves of volunteer oaks when I was 12 years old. He would strap limbs to the tractor by chain to drag them to the burn pile. We would line up 4 across, wait till he moved, dive to onto the last bit of branches, grip a clump in our hands, and hold on. We were Indiana Jones. It was not safe. It was living. It's best I don't tell you what I was up to with a chain saw. My brothers played college soccer 800 miles from home, so he put over 250,000 miles on his SUV. He wants to be where the action is hottest, especially when it comes to his kids. Besides, he'll drive forever if he's got CS Lewis on loop. The Covid-19 concern hung about the beginnings of our hike, we wanted to start the trip out of contact with local towns. I cautiously floated an idea to my Dad. "I'm in!" He sent us ahead in his car, and would meet us at an airport along the way. When I called him from Kansas, I inserted a "think" to soften the blow: "I think I blew up your car." "I thought that might happen," he said. Early in his support of the northernmost miles of this trail, he said, "Your mom would love this." She came to Montana, and they came back twice more. "We wouldn't miss it," he replied when I asked if they'd come to the border. But they nearly missed it. Between the border patrol and Siri he got bad information. From hwy 81 past Hatchita all the dirt roads are unmarked. He drove once through a horse corral marked as a road. Down another, he was turned around by dumbfounded cowboys mending a fence, "This road can't be driven." When we approached the monument at 3pm, he was nowhere in sight. Aiden whispered, "What if he doesn't make it, Dad?" "He'll find us," I responded. His third attempt through washed out 4x4 track by the Big Hatchet range, he pushed his way to us. "Vince, you in range? Over," the walkie talkie crackled.

Hats off to the Continental Divide Trail Coalition. There exists on our planet a collection of humans that dream about completing, protecting, promoting, and improving this path that traces it's way across some of the wildest places in this country. This trail is radically unique. The flood of international walkers that flock to it in normal years bears witness. This was not a normal year. Our family made up as much as 10% of all 2020 CDT finishers. The trail was nearly empty, but the workload of the CDTC wasn't any lighter. It won't always be this way. This year is not forever. If not you, your children or your children's children may one day walk this trail. When they do, they will thank you that you plucked a few dollars from your wallet to preserve this great treasure. Follow and support @cdtcoalition

What's Next? Did we mention we are going for the Triple Crown of Hiking? To be recognized for having completed the Triple Crown by the American Long Distance Hikers Association you have to: "...complete all three trails in their entirety (Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail, and Pacific Crest Trail). “Entirety” includes walking from terminus to terminus with complete footsteps." We have now completed the CDT. Our PCT hike lacks some miles yet. In 2018 there was a 7 mile fire closure near Idylwild, CA and a 31 mile fire closure between Ash Camp and Dunsmuir, CA. We hope to finish these this coming June, immediately after... We attempt the Appalachian Trail starting this late February or March. In an age of 160 characters we are honored and amazed that you have taken time to open your phone/tablet/computer to read and comment on our posts. We don't get to interact much while on trail. We either have the coverage or we have the time; nearly never both. If we haven't said so, Thank you! If you want to follow our AT attempt: 1. Patreon: Audio, "Tales from the trail", Georgie blogs, and close as possible to the daily posts (pre-mid-post edit.) 2. FB and IG: Daily posts, these lag from 10-15 days. 3. YouTube: Vlogs will lag, @sabrina.w09 is doing them for us while carrying a full load and generally being awesome, so we take them when we can get them! You can find your way to all of it through the Link in our BIO. #ハイキング

Back to the Start Monica was the first to think about hiking a long trail. She planned to do the AT with a friend, but not till the kids were gone. She said she might even let me come. The possibility of thruhiking as a family never crossed our mind until a hike above Lake Fontana outside of Bryson City, NC. For a day and half we walked uphill to join the Appalachian trail near Clingman's Dome. We battled a few rodents, rainstorms and swollen streams, but each day we grew stronger. Each day we covered more miles. By the time we'd looped back to our car, we had covered 67 miles. I pulled Monica to the side, "These kids can walk." On the way home it struck me. "Let's not wait till they are gone to hike a long trail. Let's take them now." By the time I talked with my Uncle Ted, he had heard something about it. He asked, "What are you telling people that say this is a stupid idea?" "No one has said that to me yet." "Well, you must not be talking to the people I am talking to." I said, "We don't even know if they'll let Aiden out of school, so we still don't know if we can go." By 2pm, nearly every day leading up to that first trip, I became a puddle of goo of lost hope, a slough of despond with a "Holy Hell, what have I done?" With every beginning of another beginning, those familiar feelings re-emerge. This time, though, at least there's a bit nostalgia. This time, we are back to where it began. The Appalachian Trail. And between now and then we have a lot to distract us: - Clean, tweak, mend and dial in the gear. - Plan and prep the food. - Plan and prep school. - Squeeze in the bits of School that didn't work on trail. - Rest, and Write.

Aiden wanted a trail name. She said, "Why don't any of us have trail names?" "Probably because we are grouped as a clump in people's minds, and no one gets to know us as individuals. Do you want me to give you a trail name?" "Well, what would you give me?" "Nondescript." She didn't like the suggestion, but, the name, on reflection, is nearly on point. She almost never complains, or loses her temper, or abandons her post. So you barely notice she's there, 'til she isn't. When she was 12 we sent her to Germany for 8 weeks. Aiden went to help. My sister's husband was deployed, and they were having a second child. Not one week into her absence, I said to Monica, "It turns out we have been taking credit for Aiden's parenting skills. None of this works without her." June's top reason to finish the Triple Crown was that Aiden will be leaving for school. "I want to have as much time with her as I can before she is gone." So, here's to you, my nondescript daughter. Here's to you for the problems you never caused. Here's to you for every good thing you did that went unnoticed. We'll figure it out when you're gone.

June knows this quote: "It’s not a question of whether you will hurt, or of how much you will hurt; it’s a question of what you will do, and how well you will do it, while pain has her wanton way with you." If you asked her, she'd say "Boys in the Boat," and maybe tell you right where in the book you could find it. You could ask her, like I did, "Does that resonate with you?" In spite of her, "I don't know," you would know, like I know, that she knows what that hurt is like. Sometimes when climbing a hill I'd say, "Give me ten big ones," just like in the book. Sometimes it helped. The night before we finished, I lifted June's sleeping bag before she drifted off, and said, "The CDT's been a hard one for us kid. I'm not sure what to make of it yet." She said, "Yeah, but there's been good stuff too, Dad." "What kind of good stuff do you see?" I asked. "I don't know. Good night," she said. One thing we now know, after some blood work, is that June was anemic for much of this trail. This reframes everything, and it's a bitter pill for me to swallow. For her, it is easy. She is prancing around the house, proudly declaring, "I was severely anemic, and you made me walk 3,000 miles." She is swallowing Iron supplements happily, and taking B12. Combined with some changes in diet, she's already feeling much better. Dougie Fresh said, "Holy crap, Vince. That's an interesting data point. Aren't you the jackass?" In the 1936 Olympics, after winning their qualification round to earn an inside lane, the US team was pushed to an unprotected outside lane by the officials. The boys rowed in rough water, and into a headwind in the final race, and they... (I don't want to spoil the ending) June knows the ending. She also knows exactly what it's like to compete from a deficit, and win.

Georgie Strawbridge, 13 year old CDT thru-hiker: I hugged Georgie yesterday, and thanked her for having a bad attitude about her math lesson. "If you didn't give me this kind of moment every once in awhile, I'd forget that you aren't perfect." She is rare. She sees. In the way that she apprehends the visible world, she reminds me of Monica. She sees beauty, light, shape and color. They help me see. She is kind. She is careful. She reminded me that I haven't worked with her on her guitar like I promised I would. She didn't stamp her feet, she didn't yell. She just teared up when I sat down with Henry to show him something on my guitar. I knew what she meant. Before we came home she said, "When I get home I am going to work on drawing and the guitar. Will you help me learn the guitar?" She has been working daily on both. Hunched over either for long hours each day. Nearly every picture in this account has been of her capture. She said, "I feel like I am seeing light differently now." She is ready for what's next. I am excited to see it through her eyes.