July 5, 2021
Miles: 38.2 miles
Steps: 76,997
My internal clock woke me up at 5:30am but I wanted to sleep in until at least 7am.
Left the hotel around 7:45am and had a nice road walk on the highway. About a mile and half in the trail leaves the highway but in CDT app said about part of the trail not able to go through and suggested staying on the highway as the trail meets back up later. So I stayed on the highway for another 10 miles.
Then I went through an opening in the fence by the highway and went up to get water from a spring then followed the trail back to the highway. Then after about a 5 minute road walk I was back on a dirt trail which I would stay on the rest of the day. The trail was starting to enter more desert like conditions, hot, no shade and dry.
I was able to move at a good clip as the trail was mostly flat but as the day went on it started to be more rolling hills.
Hit my 2nd water source of the day 27 miles in. There were lots of cows in the area and they didn’t like me there. I drank a lot of water and packed out a lot since I wouldn’t get to another water source until tomorrow morning.
Left the water with 10 more miles. The clouds were getting darker so I knew it was only a matter of time before it started raining.
Also my new shoes from Walmart were starting to give me blisters on the bottom of my feet which is no good. I’m still able to hike but it’s a little painful. I think I’m going to have to go to plan C on my shoes situation.
About 3 miles from camp I decided to eat dinner and right as I was eating the rain started and the wind picked up a lot. I ate as fast as I could.
The rain didn’t last too long but the wind never died off. I just kept hiking hoping the wind would die off a little so I could set up my tent but no luck. It was not easy setting my tent up in that wind.
I did get to see a nice sunset.
Hopefully the wind isn’t too bad tomorrow as it’s shaking my tent pretty good now.