August 13, 2024
34.3 miles, 5630′ gain/7228′ loss
I was up at 5:45am. It had rained for a few hours overnight and my tent was very wet. I was hiking by 6:20am. This section from Silverton to Durango was much less exposed, with more tree cover, so it was both less pretty and less anxiety-provoking.
The first half of today’s hiking was along a ridge; I’d started an 18-mile water carry the night before, and I’d walked past the next water source, a ‘creek’ that was actually a slight trickle of water crossing over a rock. I’m not confident I could have gotten water from that trickle, but I didn’t try. And that left me with no water for the next 7 miles. I was able to yogi half a liter from a group of 4 section hikers going the other direction, though they used iodine to treat the water so it tasted terrible.
I hit Efendi peak, my last point above 12,000′ on the CT, and rapidly descended to get further away from the dark menacing clouds and rolling thunderclaps. Also, to get closer to Taylor Lake, where I’d get more water. I met Woody by the lake; he was waiting for his buddies to show up. I didn’t linger, and hiked as quickly as I could towards Kennebec Pass, and the promise of more descent as the sky grew dark, the wind picked up, and it started to rain. I descended rapidly above treeline, aiming for the relative safety of treeline. I saw the most intense cloud-to-ground strikes of the entire trail here, including strikes that hit the next ridge over from me. It proceeded to rain for the next 3 hours. I met Aquarius and Dragonfly hiding from the rain, and chatted with them for a little while.
Later, after the rain had stopped and I was wandering to see how far I’d go before setting up camp, I met Charcuterie making double dinner by a water source. We chatted for a while, and talked about how it felt to be so close to finishing, both never wanting it to end and being so ready to be done.
I stopped at 7:30pm with 8.5 downhill miles remaining, and set up camp. My tent was still wet from the rain last night, as was my sleeping bag. And shortly after getting into bed, it started raining again. But I slept well, knowing this was my last night on trail.
