Uneventful night, except for the water snake that slithered past my feet as I was in the River bathing. I think he was definitely more afraid of me. Not that I have big feet because actually my feet are fairly small. But when I went to pick him up, he swam as fast as a snake can swim!

We woke up at 4am and were on trail at 5am. The sun had not rose yet but I did see the beautiful pinks and oranges high above on the desert rocks. Absolutely beautiful sight as God paints this amazing picture morning after morning. I just need to be awake to see it.

The early morning was due to the fact that Colorado is experiencing a heatwave. No rain in sight. No lightning or thunderstorms in the forecast, just glorious hot sunny days. Both Triple Z and myself have chrome domes. These are hiking umbrellas that provide shade overhead and when properly zip tied onto my backpack, they provide a good 10-15 degrees cooler temperatures to the hikers that use them. We were so grateful for these as literally everyone on the trail commented on them! If I had a trailer behind me loaded with extra Chrome Domes, I could’ve sold every single one.

The Burned area that was spoken of was quite a small region in comparison to the fire scarred areas I saw on the Pacific Crest Trail PCT. New growth was sprouting up, many redwood cedars, pines and a handful of aspen trees. But mostly low lying grasses, flowers, and butterflies. I’ve never seen so many butterflies, blue, yellow and purple ones all over the trail.

As I rounded the corner, I saw my second snake. In Colorado, they have only one dangerous snake, rattler. This was more like a gardener snake, no rattle and no cares that I was there. He just slithered past and went into a bush.

As we entered Section 2 of the CT, we had our second sighting of a bear. This was a small cuddly stuffed bear on the side of the trail but I couldn’t help yelling Bear! Triple Z had to take a photo as she slept through the first bear sighting.

Water hunting is a common theme around these parts. We originally had planned to stop at Morrison Creek for the night. The Creek was nothing but a tarry like substance that did not resemble anything H2O. We continued on another four plus miles and found home at Buffalo Creek. Lots of trees, pines mostly and heavy flowing creek to bathe in without snakes.

Today was a tough day. Being my second day out, climbing 2500′ , hiking in 95 degree temps, and hiking 19 miles, my dawgs were aching! As I hiked the last few extra credit miles, I could over think about the verse in James

Consider trials and tribulations pure joy my brothers and sisters, for perseverance develops character, so that you may lack nothing.

James 1:2-4