Hannah, Jared, Matt, and The Apocalypse Water Jug

Miles 6.6

Camped at mm 184.1

I put on my rain jacket and then gathered up my rain fly and tent and ground cloth and schlopped it all into a giant sopping wet ball. I put on my pack and picked up the ball. The jacket kept my clothes from getting wet from the tent. I made my way over to Bravestone’s cabin. She flung open the door with a grin and started fussing about. Pretty soon, Stone Soup was there and there was coffee and a hot pot of water was on the burner and we all made oatmeal with protein powder and then we chatted for way too long before the chores started.

But start they did. We took our resupply boxes to a picnic table across the street and spread out our loot all over the place and spread our tents out to dry in the sun.. It was enough food for months. Why did we think we needed this much food? We really do pack our fears. Apparently we’re afraid of being hungry. Anyway, we decided to split the resupply and mail a box to Buena Vista, CO to be picked up Monday. That way we weren’t carrying 7 days of food. That way our packs were a little lighter. That way our bodies will hopefully forgive our continued and aggregious transgressions.

Anyway, we packed about four days of food and got the rest ready to ship, and I donated some bone broth to the hiker box. I rummaged around in the hiker box in the store, and hal-and-julia, guess what I found? A half used roll of toilet paper!! Miner’s Gold! I was so pleased with myself, I completely forgot to see what time the food trucks opened for Bravestone. I skipped back to the cabin to show off what I’d found. Everyone ooh’d and aah’d as expected, and I tucked away my prize into my ditty bag and popped it into my pack.

We stuck out our thumbs to hitch, and the very second car picked us up. It was Hannah, who was out to climb a peak for work. She was amazing and dropped us right at the post office back in Leadville where we struggled with new postal boxes to make everything fit. But fit it eventually did, and we mailed them off, all pleased with ourselves.

We hit up a coffee shop where we blogged and ate some more when I got dizzy and started not feeling well from calorie deficit. After all, I hadn’t eaten in a whole two or three hours. This eating thing is ridiculous. I’m tired of hiker hunger, and it just started. I don’t want to eat all the time. I have other things to do than think about food. I’m getting no enjoyment from this. Chewing so much seems such a bother.

Anyway, we got an immediate hitch back from a super nice fellow, Jared, who had never picked up hitchhikers before. He was out this way doing trail construction and bagging 14’ers, like any bad ass would. He was engaging and we thought he was great. The second trail angel in one day! We felt so much gratitude.

After much delay and some pizza, we walked around the lake and started a climb just as it was getting dark and my tummy was sick and empty and full and fussy and I didn’t know which part of that equation to address. That’s when Matt showed up with Trail Magic. He gave us sparkling water and filled our water bottles with the Apocalypse Water Filter Jug, as he called it. It was super kind of him and Anji chatted with him for a long time while I sat around being generally miserable. Was it was the altitude playing fresh hell games on me? Maybe the pizza wasn’t gluten free after all? Who knows, but I was not having a good time.

Anji remembered we had anti-nausea pills, so I took one and we started the long climb up a pass. We found a nice campsite after a mile of climbing.

Today was just all Angels and Magic.