Just 10.3 miles to Silverthorne. If I average 2 miles per hour, just 5 hours to get there. If I get up and out by 6:00am I’ll be in town at 11:00am. This will give me a nero today, coupled with two zeros. That is some serious rest, and surely needed.
I set an alarm on my watch for 5:15am just to make sure I got up and moving. This is day 60 so the routine is pretty well established. Sit up in bed, put on fleece and puffy, start stove. While water for oatmeal is boiling, deflate pillow and stuff it. While oatmeal is rehydrating (or whatever it does) deflate air mattress and roll and stuff. Eat breakfast. Rinse bowl. Stuff Zpad into pack. Brave the cold by getting out of my quilt and stuff it, then stuff everything in pack and move it out of tent. Shoes on. Disassemble tent, stuff in outside pocket of pack. Look around to be sure I didn’t leave anything. Start walking.
This is where things got different. I could barely walk. My left foot was very sore and hurt with each step. I limped up the trail like Walter Brennan. I thought, at this rate I will never make it to town. I’m too slow.
I worked my way up the trail, hobbling along, hoping my foot would eventually warm up. I made it up to the pass, my pace quickening a little. To my surprise, my watch said I was doing just under 2 miles an hour. I didn’t think I was moving that fast.
Somehow, downhill is easier on my foot. Something about bending the foot when going up hill or on the level creates the pain. Downhill doesn’t require the ankle to bend forward. Luckily for me, it was steadily downhill all the way to town, except for two small rises. By mile three my foot was warmed up or numb to the pain and I was able to walk normally, although the foot was talking to me with each step, not yelling, just talking.
FarOut’s accuracy was as bad today as yesterday. The actual trail was a dotted line on the map on FarOut, not the line they gave us as a guide. I followed the trail and it took me where I wanted to go-Silverthorne.
I contacted Dallas about five miles from town when I was on a bluff overlooking the valley with the town in the distance. I got signal. Somehow Magic Mike had scored a car for a few hours and could drive us around to do errands. Is that why he is called Magic Mike? I reached the trailhead two miles from town a few hours later and started walking the roads and highways to the Econolodge where Dallas has been zeroing the past two days. Again, I must be a sight walking the streets of this bustling little town in filthy clothes, pack with ice axe attached and brimmed hat while everyone else cruises in their cars, showered and clean. I stopped at a 7-11 for a soda, then continued up the hill to the Econolodge, texting Dallas I was here. She greeted me in the lobby and we walked back to her room. We caught up a bit (haven’t seen her since May 12) and I took a quick shower in her room to try to lessen my smell in the enclosed space of a Magic Mike’s borrowed car. He was on time at 11:50am and we met him outside the lobby.
What a luxury, and a necessity with my foot. We drove to the post office where I picked up my resupply mailed by Andy. Dallas and Mike mailed some packages home. Then to REI and the grocery store right next door. Rain cover for my pack ( mine is so old all it does is let the rain in and then doesn’t let it out) and a handkerchief to replace the one I’d lost, then to the grocery store for food for my zeros. Three grocery bags full! Glad I am not trying to carry all this stuff on a bus! Finally, to lunch at an outdoor restaurant, burger and fries, then Mike drove me to Lee and Sue’s house. I found the hidden key, but just then Jean Bruno (Blue Rabbit) opened the door. He had lost his phone for a second time on this adventure. He slipped off a log while crossing a stream and his phone fell out of his pocket into the current and was swept away. He searched downstream for an hour and couldn’t find it. It wasn’t waterproof to boot.
He had to hike back 10 miles. Lucky for him to have it happen here where he can stay at Lee and Sue’s house. He ordered a new phone on Amazon, but it took 4 days to get here. He has been just hanging out at their house waiting. This messes up his plans. He is a high school teacher back in France and must return to work September first. There is now no way for him to complete the trail. He is hoping to get through Yellowstone before he has to go home.
Jean Bruno showed me around the house and I selected a bedroom (there are 5) just off the living room up half a flight of stairs. I stripped and put on my rain gear, then put all my clothes in the washing machine in the basement. Next, a hot bath and then ice for the foot, 20 minutes on, 20 minutes off for the rest of the day. Outside it was storming. Lightning and thunder and intermittent heavy rain. It felt nice to be in a very comfortable, dry house looking out at the tempest.
I had a bagged salad for dinner and Jean Bruno shared half his vegetarian pizza with me. His English is very broken, although compared to day one when we rode together to the border In the same truck, he is now fluent. He is tracking his shipped phone online and it should be here tomorrow. He is a good housemate, cleans up after himself and really takes good care of the house.
I inflated my air mattress and slept on the floor, not wanting to soil sheets and have to launder them and pillow cases. My mattress is super comfy, so no sacrifice there.
Maybe I was keyed up, or was it the electric lights? I didn’t fall asleep until 2:00am! I am usually asleep by 8:45pm, 9:30pm at the latest. Monk had been extolling the wonders of the film Jeremiah Johnson so I rented and watched it on my iPhone. Meh. It was okay, not bad, but too Hollywood for me, to cliché.
Can my foot heal in time for me to start hiking again on Sunday? I don’t know. Hopefully, time will slow and the healing process accelerate so I can get back on the trail. Until now, I am right on the schedule I planned back in January and February, finishing in Glacier National Park at the Canadian border September 15. Come on Foot, heal!!
Again, beautiful meadows, this time at sunrise as I hobble up the trail. This is looking back south at where I have been.
Looking north from the same pass, my route leads across this meadow and then drops down the valley to the right to Silverthorne, out of the photo.
The Glacier Lillies are out in force. They are first to bloom, sometimes pushing up through the snow.
So many downed trees. Sometimes it is walking through a horizontal forest.
Lush vegetation and flowers along the trail with Silverthorne in the background. I’m about three walking miles from “downtown” in this photo.
My road walk in the outskirts of Silverthorne. It is set so beautifully in the mountains, ringed by peaks that still have snow on them. They will be snow
free in a few weeks.
Living space of Lee and Sue’s house. It is such a beautiful place. Jean Bruno and I are racking our brains about how to thank them sufficiently.
Kitchen, dining and great room area. What a comfortable and elegant house.
Their home from the street.
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