After making the decision to skip Colorado until the snow clears there, the next step consisted of working my way up to Rawlins WY from Chama NM. The only ways out of Chama were on foot (nope), hitch hiking (nope), or taking the free Blue Bus which only runs Monday to Friday. So first thing at 5:30 AM on Monday morning, we caught the blue bus which took us to Espanola after which we hopped onto another bus to Santa Fe. All of the other hikers that I was traveling with decided that they were going to head home for a while and wait for the snow to melt if they came back at all. They would all be heading to the airport in Albuquerque. Instead, I walked across Santa Fe to pick up my car rental and started my 8 hour drive to Laramie Wyoming where I would drop off my rental car. From there I would stay overnight and then take a Greyhound bus to Rawlins Wyoming the next day at 3P.

Another apocalyptic storm as viewed from the Greyhound “station” in Laramie

Lots of cool old cats out west

All went according to plan except the Greyhound bus. After waiting and waiting next to a big Greyhound placard stuck on the concrete wall of an old gas station that functioned as the “bus station”, it turns out that the bus was going to be 5 hours late, yikes!!!! Really? So… I figured, why don’t I try hitch hiking instead.

Well that little experiment didn’t work. The only person who stopped tried to give me a dollar. He thought that I was homeless and felt bad for me. Unfortunately he was also going in the wrong direction.

So after the very late bus and the three mile walk across Rawlins to the Super 8 it was 11P. So much for All You Can Eat Thai food in Rawlins but, hey, I had made it.

The next morning, I started the hike north solo across the Great Divide Basin. This is a 115 mile patch of sagebrush in which none of the rain flows to any ocean (endorheic basin). Basically, it’s like a giant birdbath without a drain and actually without much water in it either. The trail started from Rawlins with a bit of a road walk which turned onto a nice dirt road that was easy to follow. Soon, however, the CDT started to become aspirational again. The markers started leading across untracked desert and with many of the already scarce markers knocked over by the wind or by animals until they just disappeared completely. Bloody hell, not again! Out came the GPS so I could roughly follow the trail and get to the next water source.

After about 15 miles, the CDT started to become a real trail again. In fact, it became very easy to follow as it was now an arrow straight road heading north and stretching to the horizon. I’d spend some amount of time hiking with my eyes closed and seeing how long I could Braille walk without going off trail or tripping over a sage brush. There wasn’t much out there besides me and the antelope.

Trail heading north in the Great Divide Basin

Pronghorn Antelope

Rainbow at sunset at the end of the first day in The Basin

After seeing only one other hiker the first day, I met maybe 20 thru hikers heading southbound the second. Their plan was to knock out the Great Divide Basin and keep heading south until the snow in Colorado stopped them again. The big wave of Northbound thru hikers had basically crashed upon the snows in Colorado and scattered up and down the CDT trying to work around this year’s record snow pack. They will probably be hitting snow again around Steamboat Springs in another week and then what?. Having lost so much time chatting that day with other hikers and still wanting to get my 30 miles in, I didn’t end up putting up my tent until well after sunset. Unfortunately, that night, the winds started to really blow until my tent was flapping so hard it felt like it was threatening to yank out all of the tent stakes and blow away with me in it. Eventually, I gave up on my strategy of hiding in my sleeping bag and waiting for the wind to die down as this was clearly not working. Just like when you have to pee in the middle of the night, that feeling just won’t go away until you take care of it. So, at about midnight, I packed up my camp and had to find a sheltered place to set up my tent in the dark and hope not to lose anything. Fortunately, I remembered a little sheltered cow pond about a half mile back that was carved out by a little trickle of a stream. So after clearing out most of the dried cow poop, I had myself a nice cozy spot and the trail taught me another lesson.

The next day, the winds continued. The forecast was for 40mph sustained winds and it was easily that. The terrain was beautiful though going up and down mesas and the winds were mostly quartering winds so you only had to kind of crab into them. I met up with Slo Mo though and she didn’t look very happy and was really worried about finding a sheltered spot for her palatial tent. I heard a couple days later that she bailed soon after and flew back home to San Diego (she left behind lots of delicious candy though in the hiker box in South Pass City).

There was very little cover that day since the sage brush now only went up mid calf at most with no trees all the way to the horizon, so when I saw a big boulder off trail around lunch time, I jumped at the chance to hide behind it and take a break. There was a tear in my pants probably from squeezing through or crawling under some barbed wire (actually more than one tear but this one the wind was opening up and making bigger) that needed repair. So there I was, leaning against a boulder in my underwear, hiding from 40mph winds, sewing up my barbed wire shredded pants with dental floss, and I’m feeling something tickling my back. At first I ignored it thinking “oh great more bugs” but after finishing up with the sewing, I stood up and shook out my shirt and out dropped a 3′ long snake who seemed just as surprised as I was!!! I remember thinking, “this is not the kind of thing that happens to normal people in real life.”

CDT in The Great Divide Basin

CDT in The Great Divide Basin

This time, having learned my lesson from the day before, I found a nice quiet location for my tent that night. Another 30 miles in the books.

Campsite near Alkali Creek

On the last day, the winds had abated a little bit to maybe 30mph but the trail turned so the entire day you were walking straight into it. After about 10 hours with no place to hide from the incessant roaring freight train wind I screamed “Just Stop Blowing!!!!” That didn’t work. I ended up cooking up dinner in a ditch on the side of the road as this was the only shelter from the wind.

Wild horse

The CDT here follows part of a Pony Express Route, the Oregon Trail, and the Seminoe Cutoff of the California Trail

Finally, on the last day, trees started to appear. I had missed the trees and was almost giddy to camp in the shelter of a little grove just outside Atlantic City on the other side of the Great Basin. 115 miles in 4 days, phew!!!