To Lima Day 1: steep!

Waking up in the park

I had a hard time falling asleep. I had ice tea with my burger and it kept me awake. Some time after midnight a bunch of hikers were dropped off and the entitlement ran high. They yelled and spoke loudly as if nobody else mattered. They were noisy for a long time. The car they came in idled nearby for a long time. 

I woke with a splitting headache. I felt very thirsty. I got up to use the restroom at dawn with fantasies of yelling to wake the entitled hikers up. My charger still was not charged. I felt horror at the thought of zeroing here. 

This place is sort of horrible. The people are very nice but the park is far away from town and the heat of the day and bright sun is oppressive. The huge climb looming before me hangs over me like the smoke from far away fires. I wanted rest here and did not get it. 

Back on trail: pummeled with steep climbs

Fortunately the morning was cool so the walk to town was comfortable. I went over to get breakfast but nothing was open yet. All the businesses had rather lenient opening times. 

I used the Wi-Fi in the library to try to download the Wyoming maps and delete the northern Montana maps. I’m not sure I was successful. I did have to download southern Montana’s maps all over again. 

There were other hikers around waiting for some kind of breakfast. In the end the only breakfast we could reasonably get was from the little general store. They had delicious cinnamon rolls and coffee. I also got a frozen burrito and a Gatorade. 

I ate and drank it all and then fought off the urge to vomit. The owner of the hotel came by in a truck and picked us all up to take us to the trailhead. Everyone in Leadore was so helpful and generous. It’s a shame the heat, smoke and general broken down look of the place is so repellent.

Once up on the pass there were hikers there needing a ride to town, including Lotus and Mushka, a young lady from Reddit who wanted to meet me. She took a selfie with me and hopped in the truck and that was the extent of our meeting. 

I started up the trail with a young man named Peaches. He had worked out an alternate route to shave off 37 miles and a lot of hills. While we climbed hills he tried to figure out how to give me the route. He finally was able to email it. But I did not have a topo map with enough resolution to see where the route would have water. So in the end I stuck to the red line. 

We climbed to 10,000 feet. There were numerous hikers resting at a spring on the other side of the climb. Wrecking Ball  was struggling with shin splints. There would be another spring in 4 miles and at 4pm I figured I could get there by 6 or 6:30, thus avoiding carrying a lot of water from this spring. 

I labored up and down several straight up hills before arriving at the spring, which was a quarter mile off trail and down the side of the mountain. I got water and made camp in the trees below the ridge line. The trail itself was in barren, exposed, treeless terrain. It seemed cozy but not super flat. 

I had become quite frustrated by the difficulty of the hills. Would this trail ever be more normal? I shared my frustration with Tony before losing cell service, and then with a NOBO. I felt bad about my negative attitude. I really just wanted rest in Leadore. I wanted to try to feel strong like everyone else seems. And I’m jealous that Wrecking Ball has people willing to wait for her to keep the group together. I probably will never have that kind of community. I feel lonely and I’m starting to want to go home. 

I hiked 11.4 miles today.