On the next morning after arriving in Lander, my mom and I were at the Ford dealership bright and early. Thankfully Lander is a much nicer town to be stranded in than Rawlins. After we dropped the Ford off, my mom and I along with our two dogs and a duffle bag of dirty laundry headed off down the road to find a coffee shop and laundromat to spend our day at while they replaced the alternator in our truck. It was a productive day and we were able to get our truck in the afternoon and go back to the horses who were having a relaxing day at the trailhead. Once there we prepped feed bags for the horses for the 4 day packing section I had coming up through the Wind River Range and then drove back to Lander for a nice dinner. If things had to go wrong, I was glad they did so while near this cute town.

Then today my mom and I packed up camp in the morning and drove the hour drive back to the CDT munching on breakfast in the truck as we went. It was a relatively easy 21 miles planned and I wanted to get into camp early so that I could finish prepping my panniers for the upcoming overnights. It was going to be a day of elevation gain as Takoda and I finally returned to trees and single-track trail, leaving the dirt roads of the Great Divide Basin behind us.

It was nice to be among the trees and plentiful stream crossings again. Where I hoped to meet my mom and camp had a campground and ranger guard station just off the trail. Not too surprisingly, the campground didn’t allow stock to camp there, so my mom had to find an area a half mile down the road that allowed dispersed camping. So often that’s how it goes, and rarely do we camp in the exact spot we hoped, but we do manage to find a suitable place for our camper, horse trailer, and portable corrals. Once my mom finds a place she texts me on both my phone and satellite InReach so that I’ll know where to look for her camp spot. Takoda and I got to my mom today nice and early, around 5pm, and the horses got enjoy lots of carrots that I had got for them while in Lander. For the next few weeks the horses and I were going to have some very long days and be packing rather than meeting my mom every night, so it was nice to have one last relaxing evening.

#2018CDT