As has been the norm lately, the morning started out chilly and we hiked in our alpaca hoodies for a while. Happily, it warmed up quite nicely as the day progressed and it turned into another beautiful day.
We mostly walked in the trees, which was fine with me - the shade along with the nice breeze kept me from sweating. The trees prevented us from seeing many epic views, but the views we did have were nice enough. All in all, it was a fine day to be hiking. Towards the end of the day the wind picked up and the energy in the air felt like a storm was brewing, but one didn’t develop (thankfully).
The only thing of slight concern is that we smelled smoke all day, brought to us by the wind. We don’t know exactly where the fire is but we do know there are a few out there - hopefully the fire we smell isn’t anywhere too close. It is a little hazy from the smoke but I’m not too worried - we’ll see what’s happening when we get to town tomorrow.
Speaking of town, we WERE going to have to hike a full day tomorrow to get to the road. However, a wonderful, unknown hiker with a marker alerted us to a shortcut we weren’t aware of. We were just about to make the final climb of the day when we saw a sign with “CDT shortcut” written on it. Save us 4 miles? Yes, please. While I do lament the views I probably missed by going up the mountain, it will be nice to get to the road a little earlier than we thought we would tomorrow afternoon. The shortcut was an extremely pleasant walk, too. No complaints.
thank you, mysterious hiker, for writing CDT shortcut on this sign
Along the trail:
Camp:
