Done

Grand Cache

I'm done. Last day was a doozy. The trail became a road as soon as I left the cabin. I woke early after a great night's sleep and made coffee and hot beans. (I heated water is all that means. Not carrying a stove makes that a big deal.) Then the trail was nice. Either an old road, now closed, or just a horsepacker super highway. The ford (stop it phone! Don't autocorrect ford to Ford or fords to Ford's! Especially with an apostrophe! Stop it!) of Sheep Creek was easy. Then up and over to the Muddywater River. I stared at it a long time. I was almost set to go, then I found the place the caribou and moose cross. Then I swam it. First ford I just swam from the get-go. Artistic score very low, but technical score at least not a zero, since I'm alive. Then around a boring low mountain in the trees and down to another crossing that showed a gravel bed on the map. So maybe it was braided? Nope, not really. I studied it for an hour before I found trees in the river that created zippers I could connect and get across. Then the rootball of one those trees grabbed my foot and almost sent me in headfirst...
Anyway, it was fine. Screamed and cursed the river, told it who was boss,  and then continued on. Saw a Mama griz and two cubs at 10m only 3 minutes later. They were indifferent and ambled off. Boring road all the way to the trailhead.

Met a nice couple conservation biologists at the trailhead campsite who made me some hot water and gave me a beer. Hot water twice in one day! Once per potentially lethal ford! (The man said the Muddywater has killed hunters on horseback. That's in the fall with lower water! On horseback!)

GDT, I am done!

Just chilling in town today, checking in for the race. 

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