A CatASStrophe

August 7, 2024

Mile 87.1-106.7

Slept in some this morning and it felt good. It was chilly when we woke but I gathered the courage to strip off my layers before starting and we quickly warmed up when we started hiking. You know what they say... be bold, start cold.

We finished our big climb- my god it seems like we're always climbing. At the top we perched on a fallen log and ate some snacks while a gray jay hopped around at our feet and fluttered around our heads looking for a handout. The trail was full of mountain bikers today and I could only wear one headphone so I could hear them coming and leap out of the way before I was demolished.

I paused to pee at a switchback heading down the mountain when a mountain biker came barreling around the corner, saw my bare ass and crashed right in front of us, almost rolling down the mountain. Henry offered him a hand to help him up but he ignored him, jumped off and took off again. How embarrASSing for both of us LOL. Quite a few hikers we ran into today are going into Breckenridge and we decided... what the hell, we will too! We're going to go in at a later road crossing though, tomorrow at Copper Mountain Resort. We passed the 100 mile marker and right before it saw two huge mule deer bucks.

It rained for a little while and I was thankful for my umbrella. Descended the mountain down to the highway to Breck and took a small break at a river at the bottom where I soaked my poor sore feet and retaped all of my blisters before setting off on another long climb. My nose started bleeding almost as soon as I started off so I bent forward and let it drip into the dirt. It was never ending and I ended up hiking 2 miles like that. Both of us felt exhausted and we plopped down on another fallen tree for a break and I called Mom to chat on the phone for awhile.

We pushed as far as we could before dark and ended up here at the Jeep Road. We've already seen a Jeep crawl up here and not gonna lie, camping near places normal people can easily access is not my favorite. Never know what rowdy crowd you might end up with. I had just pushed the last stake into the ground when it started raining. We hurriedly tossed our gear inside and crawled in among the mess to eat our dinner of ramen.

Once our beds were set up Henry fell asleep immediately while I scrolled for an hour with poor service trying to find us a place to stay tomorrow that didn't have a $200 cleaning fee. Picking somewhere to stay in town is truly an art form. Taking into account the location, wanting to be close to a grocery store and restaurants, cost, laundry facilities. Finally decided our best bet is at the Fireside Inn, booked us a room and finally curled into a ball to fall asleep.