Road Walks, Rattle Snakes, and Really Good Trail Magic

This morning, even though we have a lot of miles to get done today, we still left at check out. No one was in any rush to get up and leave the room. After a really nice two days off, I wasn’t particularly excited to start hiking again. Especially because we have a long road walk leaving town.

While we were in town, we accumulated all kinds of stuff. Our friend is getting off trail so he had a whole resupply and a pair of shoes that he left behind. Then Sparkle and James left some goodies in the room which we added to the box. And like always, everyone had a few odds and ends that they weren’t going to hike out with which they bought at the store. So we had this enormous hiker box and didn’t know what to do with it.

When we checked out the room we wound up taking the box down the road to a hotel which had a hiker box apparently. Right as we were walking up another hiker named Front Loader was leaving the hotel. I looked down at his feet and realized he was wearing the exact same pair of shoes that was in the hiker box. And in the most divine fashion, the new pair of shoes that we had was his exact size. So it was like Christmas for him and he got a brand new pair of shoes. It made me happy to know that these items were going somewhere and getting used.

A CDT marker on the side walk because the trail goes right through town.

From there, we continued road walking out of town. We walked right past the Thai food place and the bubble tea place from yesterday. So we popped into the bubble tea place to grab a drink before we hiked the rest of the way out of town. I ate a couple uncrustsbles while we sat there and drank a really delicious Thai tea. Then we continued road walking.

The Thai tea that I got as we walked through downtown Rawlins.

By this point in the day it was already super hot out and the road walking was exhausting. I figured after the 120 mile challenge nothing would feel hard ever again. But for some reason, the road walking today was incredibly challenging. Luckily I have my gossamer gear umbrella, so I carried that. When we had made it about 6 or 7 miles out of town we crossed paths with some bike packers. They let us know that all of the water sources up ahead were dry or not ideal. They gave us all of the water that they had on them because they were worried about us. But if all of the sources ahead were dry, that meant it was about 20 miles until our next water source. And none of us had enough water for that.

We took a break alongside the road with literally no shade. Everyone was tired and we wanted to think about what to do next. If the sources are all dry, then all of us are going to run out of water at some point. Syrup caught up to us and he was not feeling it. He really isn’t a fan of road walking along thru hikes. Which a lot of people aren’t. We’ve met tons of people this year who hitch basically every single road walk along the trail. Syrup doesn’t do that, but every now and then he’ll hitch around the road if he doesn’t want to walk it. Which I can understand as someone who enjoys walking along trail. To me, the road is just an aspect of this hike. But I could totally understand not wanting to suffer unnecessarily. 

A sign stating that pedestrians couldn’t cross a bridge. But we walked across the bridge.

Since we didn’t really have enough water, he was just going to skip the road and hitch up to the actual trail. So hopefully we will catch up to him at some point tomorrow. He headed out and then we sat along the road for a little bit longer. And just as we were getting ready to leave a truck pulled up. Someone made a comment about how we should ask the truck driver for some water. But before we could do so he got out of the car and said that he had water and sodas and beer. Apparently he stocked a cooler down the road and was on his way back down.

This was one of the most divine moments along the hike. Truly, none of us had enough water to complete this section without running out. All of us were very thirsty, but now needed to ration our water. And then here we were about to start walking and a guy pulled up and offered us everything we ever wanted. He gave each of us two cold bottles of water and a soda and a beer. I drank the Pepsi right then in there and it was so ridiculously good. I’ve never enjoyed a Pepsi so much in my life. Then he gave us some instructions about where the cooler is up ahead on trail. But honestly, all of us were so excited about the drinks that we didn’t pay a ton of attention to his directions.

All of the goodies that the kind man gave us alongside the road!

After a while he continued on down the road and all of us kept walking. This really put a pep back into our step. Now I wasn’t worried about being dehydrated or running out of water. I could just focus on walking the hot road. We walked for another 8 or so miles after that. None of us were completely sure about the directions to this cooler. But we saw an icon on FarOut indicating that there was a blue cooler next to the road. So we assumed that it might be the same cooler that he stocked. We pushed on without breaking before then.

Even though we had filled up a good bit of water from this kind stranger, all of us were still going to need some more soon. Everyone seemed to be feeling a bit dehydrated and was drinking a lot. And the road walking was just incredibly hot so I was definitely drinking more than usual. When we finally got up to this cooler though it was empty. The bike packers had told us about this cooler when they passed us earlier today. We were just hopeful for some reason the guy we ran into had just stocked it.

Sidequest and 9 Lives up ahead along the road as the sun began to set.

Since there wasn’t any water or anything there, all of us decided to drink the warm beers that we had from earlier. The truck driver had given us all water, soda, and beer. Now my beer was ridiculously hot, but I was really thirsty so it seems like a good time to drink it. We decided to shotgun the beers, which was a lot easier because they weren’t cold. I did a pretty solid job shot gunning mine. And 9 Lives and Sidequest shot gunned both of theirs backwards. So all of the beer shot out of theirs for the most part. I had it all in video which was absolutely hilarious.

Leaving there everyone was alittle bit disheartened about the cooler. We all just figured we must have missed it at some point because no one listened well enough to the instructions. We were all so excited about getting water and soda that we did not do a very good job listening to directions. Apparently though there was another water cache about 9 miles from this empty cooler. We planned to push on to that point at least for the night.

Earlier in the day, we had told Syrup that we were going to attempt to do this whole road walk tonight. It was over 30 miles of road walk before we reconnected to the trail. But after pounding pavement for hours and hours, my body was super sore. The pads of my feet were actually rubbing and kind of hurt. I had felt that feeling before, but it’s been a really long time since then. Every time we stopped the discomfort set back in and it took about 20-30 minutes for it to calm down.

As the day went on we continued walking into the dark along side the road. At one point we stopped off along a fence so that everyone could eat some dinner. I had hardly any water left at this point, but I used the little bit that I had to make some dinner. I was just really hoping that this water cache up ahead had some water in it. Because at this point, I was pretty much empty again.

The sunset alongside the road was bright and stunning.

As we walked in the dark, we actually saw a rattlesnake right on the road. I don’t know if I’d ever seen one before that wasn’t coiled up. It was a very small rattlesnake as well so it took a minute to identify it. It must’ve been trying to stay warm on the asphalt, which had recently been so hot from the sun.

After dinner, we had to walk for another six or so miles until we came to this water cache. I was hopeful that it was the water cache from earlier with sodas and everything that this guy had mentioned. But I was trying not to get too excited. Then as we got closer, I saw some of the indicators that the guy had described to us. And I knew we were in the right place. He said there would be a sign and orange flags.

There was a sign next to the road, and the cooler was covered in a tarp to keep the ice from melting. Then inside was a perfectly stocked cooler with water, sodas, and ensures. I can’t remember the last time I had an ensure. They were the high protein ones too, so each one had a ridiculous amount of protein and tons of calories. All of us were in heaven, stumbling on this cooler at the end of a long day. I was really thirsty so it came in very clutch.

Finally after hours and hours we found the CDT water cache that the man had told us about.

In the end, we decided to just camp right by the cooler. We still had 10 more miles of road walking before we reconnected to the trail. And it looks like there was no water along the whole road or the first handful of miles once we were back on the trail. That means that we were going to have to carry a lot of water from here for tomorrow. So it seemed to make more sense to just camp here for the night, hydrate as much as we could, and then pack out water in the morning.

Nothing like drinking a coke and an ensure right before bed. Somehow I still slept like a baby and never had to get up to pee.

I was so exhausted at this point and was really excited to set up my tent. I got my tent up super quickly and got inside to call it a night. 9 Lives and Sidequest wound up cowboy camping right by the cooler, which was so funny. But there wasn’t space enough for all of us, and I was just in the mood to be in my tent for the night. Tomorrow we have a long day ahead of us to do. So I’m hoping we have a fairly early start.