{"id":545,"date":"2016-07-22T03:34:24","date_gmt":"2016-07-22T03:34:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=545"},"modified":"2017-05-12T15:01:16","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T15:01:16","slug":"cdt-collage-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/07\/22\/cdt-collage-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday, July 22 CDT Collage Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>Today was like a CDT “collage” for us.<\/p>\n

Piece 1<\/strong> – Breakfast on the deck (surprise! We weren’t expecting it) provided by Mrs. “Wild Bill”. She told us about what it was like to live year round in Atlantic City.<\/p>\n

Piece 2<\/strong> – Second breakfast (after getting our packs reorganized and ready) at the Miner’s Grubstake. Found out that Laurel, the manager, used to live in San Francisco. Great Conversation. Conclusion: Staying in Atlantic City is WAY<\/span> better than hitching into Lander.<\/p>\n

Piece 3<\/strong> – Visiting beautifully preserved and restored old mining town of South Pass City. Could spend all day there, easily!<\/p>\n

Piece 4<\/strong> – Lost the trail\u2014took 3 tries and a lot of frustration.<\/p>\n

Piece 5<\/strong> – Weather! While we were trying to find the trail, black clouds and wind so fierce I could hardly stand up came racing in. Rain, too. Oh great!<\/p>\n

Piece 6<\/strong> – Finally the weather cleared, the trail climbed out of the desert, and we are back in the mountains, with trees and creeks! All that in one<\/span> day!<\/p>\n

DETAILS:<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Well, in our cozy cabin at Wild Bill’s, we could not hear the party over at Miner’s Grubstake, so we slept well, and in fact, slept in till 7 am!!\u00a0 When Fixit went outside, he was spotted by Mrs. Wild Bill, who told us she would have breakfast ready for us on the deck, very soon.\u00a0 Breakfast??\u00a0 We didn’t know that was part of the deal!\u00a0 Nice!\u00a0 And that was the beginning of what I can only call a “CDT Collage Day”, because we got a little bit of everything we’ve been experiencing out here, plus some, all in one day.<\/p>\n

Collage piece #1 \u00a0<\/strong><\/em>So Fixit and I had a very civilized breakfast–we were clean and rested, and sitting in very comfortable chairs on Wild Bill’s house deck, with great views, on a lovely morning with lots of clouds in the sky, so it wasn’t too hot.\u00a0 And the breakfast was great–scrambled eggs, muffins, fruit, coffee, oj.\u00a0 We had fun eating, watching the hummingbirds at their feeder, and talking to Mrs. Wild Bill, who told us what it’s like to live here year round.\u00a0 She said Wild Bill does a lot of gunsmithing, he makes custom knives and he builds cabins for the ranchers–in fact he has one under construction right now.\u00a0 He builds each cabin on a trailer, then tows it out to the ranch, sets it on a prepared foundation, and there it is!\u00a0 We asked her about what it was like in winter.\u00a0 “Very peaceful” she said.\u00a0 “We really like the winter.\u00a0 Most people in town leave, but we stay, and we really like it.”<\/p>\n

Collage piece #2<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Fixit and I loaded up our packs and walked over to the Miner’s Grubstake for a SECOND breakfast.\u00a0 Yum!\u00a0 Laurel, who runs the restaurant, was there.\u00a0 She said the party last night went till way late.\u00a0 “Good thing you were over at Bill’s,”\u00a0 she said.\u00a0 We ate and ate and talked to her at bit–turns out that she used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area (where we’re from).\u00a0 Wow, amazing to meet someone from our “back home”.\u00a0 We are so glad we came here to Atlantic City–some of the hikers who go to Lander dismiss it rather condescendingly with “Oh, it’s just a rundown town with a bar and some food”–but we found friendly, downhome folks and a nice place to stay.\u00a0 No need to go through the bother of hitching, then finding a motel and eating at McD’s, where nobody knows you and nobody cares.\u00a0 We love these tiny mountain towns with REAL people in them.<\/p>\n

Collage piece #3<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Then we walked 4 miles over to South Pass City, which is a beautifully preserved\/restored old mining town, where the whole thing is basically a museum.\u00a0 There is no place to stay or to get food, so we are VERY glad we listened to the bikers and went to Atlantic City.\u00a0 But seriously, I could easily have spent the whole rest of the day here, looking at everything.\u00a0 The highlight for me was the hotel–each bedroom was furnished, and then set up to represent different kinds of travellers, as if the person staying in the room had just stepped out for a minute.\u00a0 There was a little creek running through town, and a bunch of kids were there, trying their hand at panning for gold.\u00a0 Our resupply box was waiting for us in the office–heeeeavy with 7 days of food, to get us (hopefully) all the way through the Wind River Mountains just ahead.\u00a0 Most of the hikers plan to detour to Pinedale, halfway through the Winds, so they don’t have to deal with heavy packs.\u00a0 Maybe we are crazy, but we will try to make it through–that’s what we did on the PCT in the Sierras.\u00a0 We did see Early Bird and Squirrel at South Pass City–they were amazed to see us, thinking we were way behind them by now.<\/p>\n

Collage piece #4<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 It was well on into the afternoon before we got back on the CDT.\u00a0 Fixit is not as thrilled as I am about “old stuff”, so he basically took a nap in the shade while I was running around looking at all the old buildings.\u00a0 Ugh, our packs were heavy.\u00a0 We found a CDT post (hooray) but a short time later, we were back to “Where did the trail go??”\u00a0 We ended up walking along random roads, crawling under fences, trying and trying to find our route.<\/p>\n

Collage piece #5<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, black clouds were heading towards us, and the wind was growing fiercer till it got to the point where I could not walk at all, but could only plant my trek poles and my feet and brace myself, trying not to get blown over.\u00a0 It was crazy wild.\u00a0 And all this time, we were up on a bare ridge, still playing “Where’s the trail?”\u00a0 Soon I could actually smell rain on the fierce wind, and a few minutes later, we were being pelted by a downpour that actually HURT, it was hitting us so hard.\u00a0 This continued for awhile.<\/p>\n

Collage piece #6<\/strong><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Finally the black clouds, wind and rain moved away, and after 3 “goes” with Guthook, we found the trail!\u00a0 The sun started to come out, the trail was nice and clear and followable, and the scenery was very pretty–trees!\u00a0 Rock formations!\u00a0 Creeks with water!\u00a0 By the time we stopped to camp, it had turned into a warm and beautiful evening.\u00a0 While we were setting up, Bambi passed us–he had also passed us in the desert before Atlantic City, but had gone into Lander.\u00a0 Now he’s back on the trail.\u00a0 It’s so peaceful here, and we are looking forward to the Winds.\u00a0 Hopefully, since they are so popular, it will be nice trail there.<\/p>\n

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SUMMARY:\u00a0 Today was like a CDT “collage” for us. Piece 1 – Breakfast on the deck (surprise! We weren’t expecting it) provided by Mrs. “Wild Bill”. She told us about what it was like to live year round in Atlantic City. Piece 2 – Second breakfast (after getting our packs reorganized and ready) at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":925,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545\/revisions\/925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}