[cdt-l] Finished Hike

[cdt-l@mailman.backcountry.net (cdt-l@mailman.backcountry.net)]

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In a message dated 11/5/2002 11:13:55 PM Eastern Standard Time,
spiritbear2k@hotmail.com writes:


> What were your favorite and unfavorite parts of the hike?  (Same question to
> you others who finished the trail this year.  That was one of the many
> questions I wanted to raise at the cdt workshop at the Gathering that got
> lost in my fear of talking in front of a crowd confusion.)
>

First of all congratulations to Mike E on finishing his hike!

Now on to Ginny's question.  Which were my favorite and least favorite parts
of my hike?  It's easy to say, the well known areas such as the Gila, South
San Juans, the Weminuche, the Winds, and Glacier were outstanding, regardless
of their difficulty.  Other areas, although severe due to the lack of water
and high temperatures, such as southern NM (Jim Wolf route) and the Great
Divide basin (BLM route) were pretty cool in hindsight.  Some of the surprise
sections were the Mt Zirkel, Huston Park, Anaconda-Pintler and Scapegoat
Wildernesses which were all fabulous.  The Bob Marshall, beyond the Chinese
Wall was a little disappointing.

My most memorable day was taking the Jim Wolf route from Mt Flora to James
Peak crossing five 13,000 footers along the way.  Outstanding, and as Jim
describes it, "the crown jewel of the CDT."  Talk about scrambling, it was
great!

Towards the end, when making up the section from Cumbres Pass to Grants, one
day nothing was going right, the trail was dull and boring, and then it
started to rain.  I thought to myself, this is the first day, nothing good
has happened.  The rain soon stopped, and there was an awesome rainbow.
That's all it took and I was back in the groove.

I can honestly say, despite walking with a foot injury and pain for most of
the trip, I never had a bad day!  It was all good!

Sly