Saturday 7/22/2017, 12.8mi/20.6km

Bruce’s Bridge Trailhead (0.0/7,100 ft) – Below Wind River Peak (12.8/10,150 ft) (WY)

I got up at 6am, and it was perfect timing to catch the sunrise!

After an hour of driving, I came to South Pass, where the CDT crosses the highway. I decided to take a quick walk to reminisce from my hike last year. It felt more remote and lonely than I remembered it.

After another hour of driving, I got to Lander at 8:30am and met Quickham at a coffee shop. We got breakfast and drinks, charged and updated our phones, and chatted about life since our CDT hike last year. We left by 10am, and drove over to the local grocery store – Mr. D’s. It was expensive, and they didn’t carry everything that I needed, so we went to the Safeway down the street. I finished food shopping, and we drove the 1.5 hours north, almost to Dubois, to drop off a car at the finish, Trail Lakes Trailhead. The last 5 miles was on a fun dirt road, and I had fun driving it pretty fast in a rental car! We finally got back to Lander at 1pm, and then stopped at the gear shop, Wild Iris. I bought a knife (TSA confiscated mine), and Quickham got a bug headnet. I packed up in the parking lot, we filled our water, and drove to the Bruce Bridge Trailhead, arriving at 3pm.

We started hiking at 3:15pm, passing many friendly dayhikers for the first 2 miles. We got one of them to take our photo together, since it might be the only time we see other people this week!

After the Forks Park junction, we didn’t see anyone else. We hiked along a fork of the Popo Agie River, steadily climbing 2500ft.

We stopped for dinner and water at 8pm at a creek.

The mosquitoes were starting to appear…. video

We ate quickly, and started hiking again at 8:45pm.

We entered the Popo Agie Wilderness near the end of the day. So exciting!

We continued with headlamps for another 45 minutes, stopping in a meadow where another hiker is also camped. We got setup by 10:15pm, and cleverly stashed our food in trees. After a couple minutes of discussion about tomorrow’s plan, we passed out before 11pm.