I did make it over Mount Mica. Two young guys came through and led the way which made it a lot easier for me as I didn’t have to do all the route finding and breaking trail in the snow. After checking a number of times and always finding their tracks spot on, I followed in their footsteps for the remainder of the day, only periodically checking to be sure I was on trail.

The top look like an absolute winter wonderland. It could’ve been a scene out of Vermont.

Water wasn’t an issue and in fact I had wet feet all day, but finding a spot to take a break at times was difficult. In places the snow was at least 20 inches deep.

Even though I only hiked an 11 mile day it was exhausting. Eight of those miles were in snow which meant for every step forward, I slid back half a step. Also I could feel the altitude as I reached close to 9000 feet. I had to keep telling myself just take one step, just one more step, and now another. And sure enough by continuing to slog on one step at a time, I got up and over the top.

The downhill was also tough as it was fairly steep and long. It hurt my knees and the bottom of my feet. I had to step really carefully in a few sections when I was slabbing around the mountain in snow with a steep drop off below me, but overall by just focusing on my feet, I didn’t feel fearful.

Ironically, once I got off the snow, I took the third fall of my trip. Luckily, I didn’t bang anything up too hard and after a brief sit to recover I was able to pick myself up and keep going.

The following day I did a 15 mile day which had a wicked climb and a really tough descent for the last 5 miles or so. I had taken the padding out out of my boot to dry my insole and so the bottom of my foot was screaming. But I turned it into a positive by realizing that this proved to me that my experimental fix for my foot made a difference.

I made it to the forest service campground I was aiming for and met Wally, the caretaker, who invited me in for dinner. We had a lovely visit. It was way past my bedtime before we parted ways.

The following morning I reminded myself just to be in the present moment and not to rush. I shared a couple of tea with Wally and then ambled off not thinking about how many miles I would make that day. I stayed in the moment and I again enjoyed all the flowers. I had such a nice day.

The following day water was a problem, but for a different reason. There was so much of it that my feet were wet all day. I did some stream crossing barefoot, but finally gave up taking my shoes on and off. A few crossings were almost too dangerous to cross. Two came up to my crotch, were moving really fast and couldn’t have been warmer than 34° as it was all snow melt coming off the mountains.

I leapfrogged with a couple of younger hikers. One is a young woman who also lives in Vermont and the other was a 40-year-old retired navy man.

That night we all camped near a place called Romero Pass, midway up another grueling climb. There was a beautiful sunset, but then the wind came up with a vengeance. It was so windy that I was afraid my tent was going to be ripped apart. I actually ended up lowering the polls and sleeping in the tent as if it was just a plastic bag wrapped around me. The others had to get out of their tents all night to keep resetting them up.

I was walking by the time the sun made it light enough to see. I put on my wind gear concerned that I might become hypothermic with the windchill. I was also concerned that I might get blown off the narrow mountain trail. In the end it wasn’t such a bad walk, but I felt draggy all day. I had to cross numerous rushing streams and finding ways to do it and keep my feet dry was a challenge. But the climb up to 8000 feet wasn’t as bad as I expected, and the downhill was fairly gradual as well. I just took my time enjoying breaks when I could get out of the wind. I finally made it into Summerhaven. This town sits over 7000 feet and so is colder than the lower Arizona Valleys. Most of this very small town burned down in the early 2000s and has since been rebuilt. I’ve been sitting in a restaurant that allowed me to completely repack my pack with my new food drop and charge up my phone, iPad, flashlight, satellite device and battery pack. In return, I splurged on some food and I’ve been calorie loading.

I expected to spend the night on the floor in the post office. The Postmistress here allows hikers to do that. I love how friendly some of these towns are to hikers. Once on the CDT, the mayor opened the town hall to hikers. As friendly as Vermont is, I’m quite sure my local post office would not let hikers sleep there!

But I lucked out because a friend of mine who hiked the trail a few years back made arrangements for me to hook up with a friend of hers who lives in Summerhaven. I will be able to take a shower, wash my clothes and stay out of the predicted snowstorm.

The trail looks like walking will be a little bit easier for a while. My next chance at posting will probably be Kearney, which will be almost 85 miles and probably close to six days away.