Ughhh! I felt awful this morning! I slept terrible too. Why I am not sure but I was kind of cold, super jumpy, and the wind was blowing again giving me flash backs of Elkhead pass. So when I woke up I think I was super tired. We had a slow start as a result of that. I felt dizzy and nautious even after I had eaten and so we took it really slow to start. The pass at 11880 took us about an hour to do from camp at a little under a mile but at least we were moving. It as windy and we just wanted to get away from the wind over the pass and down into the next valley. So we just kept hiking slowly on. As the morning went on I felt better. I have no idea why I felt so bad other than I think I was just super tired and I feel sick when I am tired like that.
We got to Cottonwood Creek Rd at about noon- about mile 7 so we had hiked 4.5 miles that morning…..and we needed to make up some time. The hike down into Cottonwood creek was not all that scenic or pleasant. Multiple hikers were climbing Yale from that side and I thought the other side was a ton prettier and a more pleasant way to get to the ridge we passed over that morning. It was also hot over here. And this is the first time we were at 9,600 since I started the trip it seemed. It was hot!
We hiked along the creek to the East for about 3 miles. And the trail was rolling flat and easy. I was feeling better so we cruised along the trail for about an hour and then came up to where it climbed out of the canyon and over the flank of Princeton. The climb did not for clear up to 12,000 this time it at that point we were at 8,880 feet and we still needed to climb to 10,000. We thought that climbing 1,200 feet over a couple miles would be easy! Sigh. We were wrong. It was hot. And the trail climbed about 4,000 feet I am sure over 4 miles as we walked those two and a half miles to the ridge. We were dragging. The good part was once we gained a little elevation I could talk with Casey. So I did for a while as I climbed it helped to pass the time. We just kept going up every time I thought I was there. Finally we made it. Finally. We went over the ridge and continued contouring around the mountain we had two miles to go until we hit water. It was getting later and we usually stopped to eat supper but we didn’t have water to cook with. So we just kept going. At least it was cooler up here and not much wind. e started going through aspens too and little open meadows that gave us a view of the entire valley below between Buena Vista and Salida. Beautiful views and the evening was really nice. We got to Silver Prince Creek at about 5 and hiked on to the next creek about 1 mile farther. We passed a couple of young hunters on the way and later heard a couple of gun shots. We set up camp in one of my favorite spots. On a little bench between the slivers of. Millner Creek. There was a little fence built up in there and we set up our tent inside of it and cooked supper. Then right at dark two other hikers camp up and set up camp about fifty feet away. So we had company for the second night in a row! We went over and talked with them until about 10. They were hiking the CT from the south to the south to the north. It was fun to talk with Eric and Adam as they were pretty experienced thru hikers. I slept well this night. Mt.Princeton tomorrow!!!!
