Aug 2nd
Shineberger Creek(2024.2)-Deadman Lake(2052.4)
Campsite Elevation: 7,998ft
28.2mi
It’s already 10:15pm and I need to get to sleep. Rampage and I got lucky and there wasn’t any rain last night, yay! We survived our first night sharing a quilt. In the morning, I found out I was being too nice and that there was a lot more of the quilt I could have used. Fortunately, it wasn’t cold out and we both slept okay. We started hiking at 7am and the terrain was much better than yesterday. Less of the straight up and down and more cross country. It stayed in the low 60s and was breezy all day. The first couple of hours, there were a lot of cows and cow droppings along the trail. Blech!
Throughout the day we met three solo southbounders. One of them was Flyboxer. We saw him in the distance as we were crossing a grassy field cross country. It is so funny to me how we can be pretty much in the middle of nowhere and yet be “on trail.” We yelled hello as we approached from a distance and Flyboxer immediately recognized me. It has been fun to meet all the southbounders and especially fun because so many of them already feel like they know me through the journal or used the tutorial I posted to load the CDT maps and waypoints on to a GPS. It’s just great to feel like such a part of the larger 2013 community of hikers. Flyboxer was very thankful for the GPS tutorial and was carrying a Snickers for me as a thank you. Score!
Rampage and I got to a spring for lunch and Cherry Picker showed up just after us. Turns out that yesterday he took one of his detours and thought he was headed to a creek that may have been a better route than the trail, but ended up well off trail and that’s how he got behind us. He hiked with us the rest of the day and even tolerated listening to our final hour of the audiobook, The Secret Life of Bees. Definitely not what we expected as it ended up being more of a cheesy adolescent book, but we had to finish it. The last 1/3 of the day was a roadwalk, which was a welcomed change and we were able to make good miles.
We got a text from the boys that they would probably make it to camp tonight. We ended up at camp by 7:40pm at Deadman Lake. There were some high school guys there that were camping there that Cherry Picker had met the other night in town. They had known we might be coming through and cooked us burgers, yay! As they were making them, the guys (Bloodbath, Sweet As, Dain, Aquaman) arrived after 9pm. They did an 11mi day yesterday evening after Rampage’s shoes arrived and did a 38mi day today. I got my tent and sleeping bag back and Rampage finally got her new shoes! All this happened in the dark, so sorry for the lack of photos. Before they came, the three of us had dinner and I had a Mountain House that was given to me from Yankee, who I spent most of Washington hiking with and finishing the PCT in 2011. the funny coincidence is that Cherry Picker also overlapped with us some in Washington. We took this picture as a special shout out to Yankee. Thank you Yankee!
The group wants to try for at least 30mi tomorrow to set us up for a half day of hiking into town the next day. I’m not sure I’m up for pushing as hard as they do if the ups and downs are going to be challenging. We’ll see how it goes, but if it’s too much and not enjoyable for me, I may just do less miles and meet them in town a bit later. Okay, off to bed!
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