8th June
17 miles
Trout River (786.2) to Creede (803.2)
It was a slow start to the morning. Many days of early starts had worn is down. We set off down the trout river in what we thought would be an easy trail. Unfortunately the trout river was a raging torrent of uncrossable fury.
Instead of crossing the river we stayed up high to scramble round a cliff. That worked. But soon after we sighted an even bigger cliff, we needed to be in the other side. We tried crossing, it was awefully difficult and dangerous. Spontaneous made it across, but he had his feet swept from under him, only luck got him across. I tried but failed. I deemed it too dangerous. I hiked back upstream and found a log to cross. I then had to rockclimb up a cliff.
Reunited we set off downstream. We crossed the river again several times until we exited the mountains into the ranch country. It started to rain. Drizzle at first then steady rain. When we hit the main highway we got lots of stares. I could lip read some of the comments from the drivers. Some swear words are easy to lip read. They all looked so comfortable and dry in their air conditioned cars and RVs.
It was a bit over 13 miles of road walking to the town of Creede. We checked into a hotel and cleaned ourselves up. At dinner we were joined by Muley and Easyrider. They both bailed on the route earlier than us. The stories of their escape and their near misses with disaster had me thankful that we also got off the mountains.
We had our last meal together. Tomorrow Spontaneous leaves. I will be alone. Hiking alone. Over dinner we discuss my plans, I’m undecided. Do I hike back to the mountains from whence I came or do I head out of town north on the alternative route.
Next – Day 53 Creede
Everything you need to know about hiking the CDT:
Complete Guide to Hiking the Continental Divide Trail
CDT Resupply Guide
CDT Gear List
Need to send you my number at some point…definitely happy to be a local Wyoming contact, would love to meet you both
Send it to me through my contact page, I’ll send you back a text
Hi Brad, your blog is awesome! I was wondering how you feel about the differences between PCT and CDT? I want to attempt my first Mexico to Canada thru hike next year and PCT has always been my preference to start with. From your recent posts it would seem PCT – while enormously challenging for sure – might seem the slightly more safer place to start thru hiking ?
Recent weeks have proved to me that the pct is easy in comparison to the CDT. The pct is certainly where you learn the trade, then the CDT is where everything you have ever learned about being outdoors is tested. For that reason I love the CDT. I’ve never been tested in this way ever. I would recommend the pct first. If you enjoy it and make it, and like me you become addicted then have a crack at the CDT. Both Are amazing. Good luck, if you have any questions let me know.
Thats cleaned up??!!! Haha!! Take care solo..
That’s as good as I can be nowadays. Cheers
I must have missed it in a previous post, but what happened to Crunchmaster?
He flipped in Chama. He starts his southbound hike from
Canada tomorrow. The snow was a little too much for him and many others. I’ll see him again in Wyoming