15-06-21 Day 71. Hike Naked or Carry Water – Mark Trail CDT

Hiking The Continental Divide Trail
Mark Trail CDT 2015

We watched the sun rise as we drank our coffee and ate oatmeal. Feels like 2012 hiking the PCT.

With an early start we were hoping to have a great first day. After seven miles we needed to get water at Fish Pond Spring and Reservoir.

It has been redone by an assortment of agencies and has a lot of tanks and a Solar panel but I couldn’t figure out where you were supposed to get the water. I found a pool and squeezed two liters. The next water was sixteen miles and that should be enough. We were crossing the Great Divide Basin and you would have thought that I would know that there were NO trees and NO shade. At 3:00 pm were we very low on water and had six miles to Bull Spring. We were walking along Mineral X Road and flagged down Jim and asked for water. Out of luck and I made a poor decision to continue hiking. It was 7:00 pm and Moonwalker was out of water and out of gas.

 

I went on and got to the spring at 8:00 pm. I filled two liters and headed back when Moonwalker walked up. Wow.. That sure saved me hiking back the two miles. We set the tent up and I quickly took two Advil and went to sleep.

Just before Bull Spring. 23.5 Miles

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