More Hikers!

Since we joined up with the CDT again, this seemed to be our day for meeting other hikers. We met a couple of CT section hikers on the top of Sargent's mesa, and a CDT thru-hiker named Byron (or maybe U-haul). Later in the afternoon we ran into Cruiser and Reason, who hiked the PCT last year, but were ahead of us the whole time. They actually finished at nearly the same time as Mercury (remember him? we always wondered!). Apparently they all finished on September 17th. Once they finish the CDT, they'll be "Triple Crowners," that means that they'll have hiked all 3 major North-South trails: the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail, and the Continental Divide Trail. That's about 7,928 miles. Their blog is here. We also met one other hiker, later in the evening. We chatted briefly, and it turns out that he's hiked/climbed all of Colorado's 14ers and 13ers! That's 638 peaks! Wow!

The mosquitoes have really picked up over the last few sections. Today they were landing like snow. I'd even treated my clothes with permethrin (a mosquito repellent treatment)before I left, but they didn't really seem to care.

Brent had a rather noisy altercation with a squirrel as he was making dinner. Apparently the squirrel didn't like his choice of dining locations, and started pelting him with pine cones. Brent threw a stick back at the squirrel, but really, who can hit a 6 ounce rodent in a 4o foot tree? We still ate dinner there, but I think the squirrel won.

kim