Leg 7: Buena Vista to Salida

Stats:
Distance: 7 legs, 14 segments, 35 days, 253 miles
Best food: wild strawberries
Wildlife sightings: a cadre of mating iridescent beetles, a cow

Day 31:

We conned our perky wagon into another slack pack day! Nana and Baba and Aunt Annalise even walked us down the trail a mile, then sent us off on our merry and free way.

We decided we were walking through the Mushy Mossy Forest. So many mushrooms! A little bit of sprinkling and a lot of lovely cloud cover made for an easy handful of miles.

To save our soles and sanity, they then picked us up at the dreaded Road Walk (6+ miles of asphalt — yuck), and took us to get ice cream bars instead. Yay!

We spent the night camped on their Airbnb porch with a stunning view of Mt Princeton and the Chalk Cliffs.

Day 32:

When you’re a few miles from a hot springs, you just have to go, right? We thought so. We packed ourselves up and headed straight for Mt Princeton Hot Springs. We spent the morning swimming and screaming down the flume, and then lunch dining on their patio. Ahhhhhh, the life of a thru hiker.

Then it was time to hit the trail again. We have a job to do, after all! At the end of the asphalt, we started climbing up and away.

Juuuuust at the top of our little hill, it started to blow almightily and rain. We removed ourselves into the trees, found as thick a trunk as we could, and huddled down behind it. The girls and Pie cuddled fully under the ground sheet, while Bill and I sat in our rain jackets and watched for any blue sky to reappear.

Which of course it did. (Good thing you didn’t ask me.) We continued on in the sunshine a few miles and set up camp in a lovely little meadow. It feels good to be off the road again!

Day 33:

No rain today; just blue skies all around, with a few puffy clouds late in the afternoon. My kind of day.

We walked through all different sorts of forest: sparse aromatic ponderosa, wet green aspen, mushy rocky and piney, shrubby and granitey. And at one point, we found exactly 4 ripe wild strawberries!

A little after lunch, we hit another milestone too — the halfway point (243 miles)! Another thru hiker walked past as we sat right down in the middle of the trail, so we got to share the good news with him as well. Every step we take now feels like it’s taking us home.

We decided to put in a few extra miles in order to stay close to a campground. (We get use of pit toilets and a dumpster. A night of luxury!) And it put us closer to our perky wagon and our next zero day in Salida.

Day 34-35:

We cruised down the trail, getting to the highway just as our ride rolled up. We got to have a picnic lunch together and then rolled into Salida and our super Airbnb.

Salida is a lovely little town, and we took full advantage of window shopping, ice cream, pool time, restaurants, TV, and games. Good thing; the next section might be a beast!