Rawlins to Steamboat Springs (Huston Park Wilderness and Zirkel Mountain Wilderness)

This section had some serious ups and downs, but it ended on a good note, so stick with me.

A great trail town has certain qualities: a walkable downtown, a quaint charm (perhaps having to do with some historical significance, interesting architecture, or natural beauty), affordable and centrally located hotels,  good food … Rawlins has none of these things.
I was glad to leave Rawlins and decided that I would treat myself and skip the first 60 miles of the coming section (a road walk with limited water and not particularly stunning views).

I hiked out of Rawlins onto the highway at 11am and stuck out my thumb. My longest hitch to this point, at chief Joseph pass, took me 1 1/2 hours, so I was pretty sure I could get a ride to the trailhead in a reasonable amount of time, but no cars stopped for me outside Rawlins.

After walking to milepost 7, my feet were sore from the asphalt so I sat down and read the remaining section of Desert Solitaire, waveing at cars as they passed. Some people waved back, some people avoided my eyes (as if afraid to acknowledge the serial killer with the heavy pack on the side of the road), at least one person flipped me off.

I finished my book at 4pm and began to get concerned. I didn’t have enough water to stay out another day and the water sources nearby were alkaline and undrinkable. I pulled my pack back on and hiked another few miles.

At 7:30pm I gave up and pitched my tent behind some low bushes by the road where I hoped to go unnoticed.

Fortunately I got a hitch early the next morning by two kind people working at a construction site up the road and within a mile of hiking I was out of the desert and back in a national forest with trees (yay!) and clear running streams (the first I’d seen in a week!).

I stopped to fill my water bottles and noticed that I’d lost my compass somewhere along the way. I finished filtering and pulled my pack back on. It broke.

My pack’s internal frame snapped, placing the majority of the weight on my shoulders rather than my hips. It would be another 5 days before I arrived in my next town. It would be another 2 days (at the end of a 3 mile hike down the wrong trail on a rainy day) before I discovered that the shorn metal inside my pack was shredding my ziplocks of food, creating an unappetizing mulch of trail mix, powdered milk, and soup mix at the bottom of my pack.

On some days, the CDT is a hard trail to love.

***

Highlights of this section included:

1) Crossing the Wyoming/Colorado border

2) Finding excellent shelter at a drive-in campsite moments before a massive hail and thunderstorm

3) A gorgeous day of trekking through alpine meadows in the Zirkel Mountain Wilderness

4) Arriving safe in Steamboat Springs, my halfway mark for the trail, and catching up to a group of 7 other hikers who would give me a place to stay that night and company on the trail ahead