CDT Thru-Hike Week 9. The Great Basin.

Rawlins Resupply

Zoom day into Rawlins, WY with no food left is high motivation. I could see the town for a long time before arriving. Dreaming of all the food I would eat I planned out my town time.

I ordered a large dominos 3 topping pizza while I got some stickers and cdt free bling at the visitor center. Next I picked up the za and walked a block to a park by the train depot. There I charged my phone and inhaled my za. My appetite was ferocious but short lived. My stomach had shrunk. The crusts were all that remained. I wrapped them in napkins for later.

Hiking and hitching through out town I did laundry and food resupply. My food barely fit into my pack. Then the thunderstorm rolled in. So much for hiking out of town that night.

 

Great Basin Blues

The trail slipped away from sight of the road and the rest of the world. Wild horses with their colts greated me with distant silence. The only sound in the morning was my footsteps in the dust. The smell of sage intensified with the afternoon thunderstorms.

The lonely days in the basin gave me focus on being fully present in the moment. No distractions. Just me and the wilderness. Intensified senses of the nature that surrounded me. I was aware of pronghorns, cattle, sheep… by sight and smell and almost a 6th sence of awareness. At water sources I could sense another hiker before I saw them. Maybe I heard, smelled them Subcountioualy. I don’t know.  But it was a cool sensation.

I’ve had these feelings in nature mostly. On the AT in Maine. And on the PCT in Washington. Also while paddling the Mississippi River in the South Pass to the Gulf. Usually when I spend a lot of time alone.

 

Atlantic City

Coming out of the Great Basin I saw 2 hikers go to the right. I decided to follow them. Being open to going where the trail leads me I ran to catch up. By the time I caught them they were at a hostel that they were going to stay at but it was full.

I ventured up to a church where they had a hiker box. The service was not there that sunday so I ate and played my trekking pole flute while I waited for my phone to charge.

The paster and his wife walked in and liked my flute playing the gave me a full resupply so I didn’t have to go into Lander. I was ready for the Winds. Or was I.

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