After spending a zero day resting at Winding River Resort, we started back on the trail. Shyla’s rest came to an end, as I rode her today, with 33 miles planned. Within an hour of getting on the trail, I saw 3 moose, one bull and one cow and her calf. Meanwhile, my mother was having her own truck adventures, as she had noticed some leaking fluid under the engine after Shyla and I left the parking lot. After tracing the fluid back to its source, she realized the coolant reservoir was leaking, and she took the truck into Granby, where fortunately she as able to get the tank replaced very easily and get back on the road to meet me later in the day.

During this time, Shyla and I had ridden out of Rocky Mountian National Park, and I ran into Aaron and Dixie again. Aaron and I walked together for a couple of miles, with Shyla even helping Aaron up a couple of climbs with him holding onto her tail! Eventually Aaron and I parted ways when he stopped to have a bite to eat.

Shortly before the sun set, Shyla and I finished our last climb of the day up a ridgeline and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.

In the grey light of dusk we started to encounter quite a few downfalls as the trail descended into the treeline again, and I became concerned about doing these downfalls in the dark. So looking at my map, I saw that a dirt road was only a quarter mile away through the woods that would lead to where my mom was camping for the night. So we found our way to the dirt road and followed it for about 5 miles till we got to where my mother was camping about 10pm.

#2018CDT