September 15
It was a chilly morning. Of course, the evening rain made for a very wet tent. I know in normal life getting out of bed is tough, and I am not looking for sympathy, but going from a warm sleeping bag and putting on cold damp clothes and then taking down and rolling up a tent with ice/condensation on it is not a great way to start a day. On the positive side, it sure makes you want to start hiking and warm up.
The day witnessed a gentle, important change in my surroundings. I moved from pine/spruce forests out in to more open land and all of a sudden aspens and ponderosa pines started appearing. Of course, I knew from experience that ponderosa pines tend to grow where its drier, so I was more attentive to water sources. In short, the yellowing aspen leaves, cool temps, dried grass all combined to make it feel like Fall.
The weather was clear and in the afternoon I was on an abandoned logging road that went through a mixed pine / aspen forest. It was almost surreal to walk throughba sunny, yellow tunnel on fairly level ground for a few miles. Life is great.
As the day wore on, I passed a couple who were hiking the CT. They were young and carefree. We both got water at one of the last spots for several miles. As the sun went behind a ridge, I made camp on the opposite side of Van Tassel Gulch and hoped my tent would dry out.
It was a great campsite on the edge of the forest at the top of a ridge. It looked over a grassy valley to a twin ridge on the other side. I made a little fire and enjoyed the night just a little longer than usual before going to sleep. Later, the Full Moon came up and showed the same valley in a new light.
backpacking over the hill 