Sunday, August 5
I think some of my tiredness could be due to the fact that I've hiked 1,600 miles through some tough terrain, but I'm also thinking I'm not eating or sleeping enough. I'm adding a few hundred calories per day by including butter packets for oatmeal and peanut or almond butter with every lunch. I'm also going to eat more when in town. My stomach was bothering me in Steamboat Springs, CO and Encampment, WY but I'm feeling better and plan on eating more at resupply stops. (I'm eating a Mounds and drinking real Pepsi as I write this blog post.)
Sleep is another issue. My alarm goes off at 5:00 or 5:30 AM every morning to be hiking at 6:00 or 6:30 AM. We've been stopping for dinner around 5:30 PM and then hiking again for two hours after dinner. The logic is that in grizzly country we don't want eat and sleep in the same location. So we hike till 8:00 or 8:30 PM and I'm in bed 30 minutes later. The problem is that my body takes an hour or two to relax enough to go to sleep. I'm going to shorten my breaks and meal stops during the day so I can stop hiking between 7:00 and 7:30 PM. This will give me an extra hour before bed to relax. Hopefully I'll sleep better and feel more refreshed in the morning.
Today we hiked 12 miles to the Elkhart Park trailhead and hitched into Pinedale. It was raining when we started hiking and after a mile there was a swift river crossing that required me to leave my shoes on. So it was a wet morning all the way around! By mid morning the sun came out and warmed me up and dried me out. We'll return to the trailhead in the morning for a 10 mile hike back to the CDT. I'm more than half way through Wyoming with only one more resupply stop before Yellowstone.
Here's me in loaner town clothes in Pinedale. I'm guessing these shorts are a few sizes too big.
Thanks for following along!
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