Back to the CDT

July 15th 

It felt good to be cleaned up.  I was all set and went to the restaurant to get a breakfast burrito to go.  Nancy made a delicious one and I went over to the highway to hitch.

Two and a half hours later, I finally got a ride.  I am doomed for hitchiking.  Humans are very good at quickly asessing situations and categorizing.  When they see a middle aged man with a white beard, the immediate thought: at this age, why cant he get his own transportation? Must be homeless or broke.  Or on parole.

The guy who eventually gave me a ride was on vacation,  trying to catch cutthroat trout in seldom fished streams.  Small world: he had been in commercial real estate and was familiar with the company I worked for in Houston.

I started hiking around 10.  It was mostly thick, young trees.  I noticed something brown and large ahead on my right.  It was moving towards the trail.  I froze. An elk or moose.  I  slowly reached for my camera.  It was a bull elk. He heard me unsnap my camera case.  We both stood still.  Eventually, he continued on toward the trail. I was able to start the movie function on my camera, but it wasn’t zoomed in enough. He did poke through the trees, took about 2 seconds to recognize me, and bolted.

The rest of the day was spent feeding the mosquitos and flies.  Poor things.  

I ended up doing about 18 miles and managed to end up camping at a ridge line which meant a nice breeze.  One other through hiker came through and camped but I didn’t catch his name.