The Coldest Night On Trail Yet

This morning I woke up around midnight. It was absolutely freezing. I can’t remember the last time that I woke up because I was so cold. I’ve been sleeping in my senchi top and pants, as well as my rain gear. But even still, I woke up, absolutely freezing.

The mega hand warmer I opened in the middle of the night.

The quilt that I have currently is a Jacks R Better 20° quilt. So far I’ve really enjoyed it for this hike and there have only been three or four nights this entire time where I felt a little bit cold. But I figure for Colorado I’m going to need slightly warmer gear so I’m having the 0° version of the quilt sent out. But by God, did I wish that I had it last night.

When we were in town last I got a couple handwarmers from a gear shop. I figured that I might need them in the wind river high out because of increment weather. I was so glad that I had them and I opened one up immediately to warm me up. Even still, I didn’t sleep for the next few hours. I know that I fell asleep briefly and was dreaming a little bit. But it felt like I hardly slept at all for the rest of the morning.

Originally, we were planning on waking up around 5am so we could be hiking by 6am. But when we did get up around 5am everybody spoke to each other and we decided to sleep in a little bit. It was far too cold to have an early start like that today. So we wound up waking up around 6am so we could be hiking around 7am. At least that way the sun will be out when we started to walk.

A nice rock hop across a river.

When our day began, we lost trail almost immediately and wound up cross-country hiking up a hillside. But it wasn’t long before we caught up to a trail once more. We had just shy of 3 miles before we got to the red line of the CDT. The climbing this morning was really brief and temperate. We walked by a very beautiful lake, which was reflecting the views of the mountain behind it. But so far I haven’t been blown away by the views off the high route. Obviously it’s very beautiful down here, but it’s quite hard to compare anything to the views that we had up there.

This lake looked so beautiful with the mountain reflecting onto it.

A photo of me in front of this lovely alpine lake.

When we finally got back on the line we didn’t even realize that we had gotten on. The spur trail we were on basically just ended and turned into the CDT. I was blown away by the quality of trail on the red line though. There was no climbing at all and the trail was a very well manicured. It was of the easiest hiking that we’ve done in probably 300+ miles. If we had stayed on the redline this whole time we would have absolutely blown through this section. But the valleys just made me miss struggling up there in the mountains. The hiking was very hard up there, but it seemed worth it for the views that we got to see. I wished we had brought more food and planned to do shorter miles each day.

After a couple hours of walking we crossed a river and stopped off there to grab some water. No one was feeling particularly rushed because the trail was so nice and easy. We knew that we were going to make good time today no matter what we did. So we enjoyed a nice long break the river before we continued on.

A bunch of directional trail markers.

From there we planned to walk for another couple of hours until we found a good place to stop off for lunch. Because of how nice the trail was we were making fantastic time. The miles were truly flying by. I can’t remember the last time we did hiking like this. Then around 12:30pm we decided to stop off for lunch. We grabbed water from a creek and then went 50 or so feet up a hill to a nice flat grassy knoll. This seemed like a good place to stop for lunch so that we could dry out all of our gear from last night. It had gotten so cold last night there was a lot of condensation in the air. My sleeping bag was nice and dry but my tent was very wet. Everybody yard-saled everything out on the ground while we were up there. Then we ate some lunch.

Walking through this flat valley area. The CDT red line was so cruisy and easy compared to the high route.

Because I’m so low on food, I decided to make a drinkable lunch. I had a couple carnation instant breakfasts, some hot chocolate, and an Alpine start coffee with creamer packet. All together it was about 400 or so calories in the drink that I made on my stove. And I just ate a few snacks to supplement the rest of the calories and keep me feeling full. Surprisingly though after having that drink, I felt so energized.

The last couple of days I haven’t been eating nearly enough because the hiking has been so hard. Normally when you’re hiking on trail, you can eat snacks periodically while you walk. When you’re doing a trail like the wind river high route you can’t eat while you walk. And we would stop for breaks and hardly stay long because we felt so behind on mileage. I felt like we were just constantly running, so I really was not eating a lot.

We stayed at that lunch spot for a pretty long time before we continued on. Then within the next couple of miles, we passed a group of northbound hikers. A couple weeks ago we were seeing northbound hikers regularly but now we’re really not seeing them as much anymore. We chatted with the nobos and filled them in on what we knew about the high route and alternates. We were able to give them the information that we had.

From there we only had another mile or so before we got onto the alternate for cirque of the towers. In the end, we only really wound up missing about 18 miles of the wind river high route. I think we got to see most of the best parts of it and I’ll just have to come back another time to do it all over again. But I definitely don’t have regrets about getting back down onto the red line. If we had stayed on the high route we probably would have ran out of food.

Just before we got onto the cirque  alternate we had to ford a river. This was the first water crossing of the day and it seemed like it was going to be the last as well. So I actually just took my shoes and socks off and crossed through a sandy portion of the river bed. It didn’t take any time at all and I was able to keep my feet, shoes, and socks dry. Normally I won’t bother to take them off to river crossings. But if I know that we only have one crossing for the day then I’ll definitely do whatever I can to keep my feet dry.

Syrup and I taking our shoes and socks off to cross this river.

We took a short break after that and got some more water. Then we began a climb up the alternate trail for cirque of the towers. Around this time we were seeing literally dozens of section hikers. It was blowing my mind to see so many people out here. We passed by a group of people on horseback who had carried gear in for a camp. It was so crazy to think that some people were out camping with the luxury of having all of their gear carried in. Then all the campers had to do was set up a base camp or hike a little bit further. That sounded super luxurious.

Walking around some alpine lakes as we headed toward Texas Pass.

At this time we are making our way towards Texas Pass. We knew that this would be the next pass for the day and probably the last pass we would do today too. On our way to the pass we walked by a bunch of really beautiful lakes. Then we stopped off along the shore of one of the lakes to take one final break. The shore was really nice and we sat there for a few minutes to eat some snacks. While we were sitting there some really dark clouds rolled in and we were just hoping that it didn’t start to rain. Texas Pass apparently wasn’t that hard but it was at almost 12,000 feet. So it would’ve been pretty unfortunate for it to rain.

Climbing up Texas Pass.

From there we continued on and got to the base of the climb up Texas Pass. Once you got to Texas lake you only had about a half mile to the top of the pass itself. There were some comments on FarOut saying it took an hour to get up the pass. But we were hopeful we’d be able to do it quicker than that. We had planned to leave ourselves enough daylight so that it would be fine either way.

9 Lives climbing up Texas Pass.

In the end it only took us about 20 minutes to get up to the top though. It was super easy to navigate up to the top. The climb was just super steep and rocky and a little bit slippery in some portions. But in comparison to what we’ve been doing the last couple of days, it was ridiculously easy.

Up on top of Texas Pass.

When we got to the top the views were incredible. You were looking down at Texas lake below on the north side. The south side was grassy and covered in wildflowers. It was a fairly gradual climb down at that point to lonesome lake, which was a mile down from the top of the pass. This is where we planned to set up camp for the night. There were a couple portions of the descent towards the lake which were steep. And when we were probably only a half mile from camp I slipped and saved myself on my trekking pole. I was very close to breaking my pole, which would’ve been really bad because I’ve been letting 9 Lives use one of my poles to set up her tent at night! That’s because she broke both of hers a couple days ago. I only need one pole to set up my tent so I have one to spare.

The views descending Texas pass were exceptional. The wild flowers were so bright and beautiful.

When we got to the bottom of the pass we arrived at lonesome lake. Then we followed along the trail which circumvented the lake. There were loads of camp sites around the lake so we got to walk until we found one we liked. A lot of other people were camped around the lake too. But we wound up finding a good spot.

Lonesome lake, where we set up camp for the night.

Our site was close enough that we were able to eat our dinner with lake views. Because I’m low on food I snacked on some wheat thins with salsa packets as my dehydrated meal cooked. Then I ate a dehydrated lasagna and added two packets of mayonnaise to it to add some calories.

Everybody got set up and then grabbed some water. Then we sat by some logs to cook dinner and hang out together. At this point in time we were pretty curious where Sidequest was along the trail. I assumed he was behind us just because the route he was on was more slow going. But he’s a really strong hiker so it’s tough to say.

Everybody ate dinner together before getting into our tents for the night. Hopefully tonight is a lot warmer than last night. But just to play it safe I put all of my layers on before I got into my quilt for the night.

Yesterday I was a bit bummed that we got off of the high route and were going through areas with much less spectacular views. But after we were able to do a casual marathon yesterday, it definitely seemed worth it. We needed to pick up the pace a little bit because of the food situation. Before getting onto the cirque of the towers alternates today,l the trail was so nice and easy. We did 28 miles with only 3500 feet of elevation gain and no issues. Now we just have to finish this alternate and get back onto the red line tomorrow. Then we have a good bit of mileage to do on the red line before we get to the highway to hitch into Lander.