CDT81
14th July Friday
Easy hitch hike into Dubious, I got to the edge of the highway and probably after the fifth car, I got my lift to the town for resupply and decent hot meal. The driver works for the Ranger (forestry department) maintaining and upgrading the roads. He dropped me off at a cafe that serves decent breakfast.
I must have spent 6 hours there, had two breakfasts, coffees and spent my time relaxing updating my blog, and finally I committed myself to a finishing date where I fly out of Seattle to South Korea. My next job was to research and order a pair of new trail runners as after doing just under a 1,000 miles, I think in another 200-300 miles I’m due for a replacement. But the lady came over and said we close in 10 minutes and that’s not enough time to make the order through Amazon. I’ll save that job when I get to Old Faithful in the Yellowstone national park.
While on Facebook I saw an update from a hiker ahead of me about two hazardous river crossings, very dangerous and ones I want to avoid. As Colorado and Wyoming have had 200% more snow this year, its to be expected that the rivers will be higher.
Joe Brandl tannery business, one of many features on the walls,
This, to be honest, stressed me out a bit, lady at the Cafe told me the best person to talk to is Joe Brandl who runs a local hide Tanner and Gift business. But first I went to the Ranger office for options, they were helpful but their department mainly deals with agriculture. But the real luck came when I meet up with Joe.
TV show “Naked and Afraid.”
Joe was real helpful and was exactly the person I needed to speak with, I was looking at options and the only one I could see was to bypassing the river crossing by jumping ahead 80 miles with hitchhiking and return to the trail again the South gate of Yellowstone national park. Fortunately Joe with his calm and systematic approach to my problem showed me other options should the river be still high. The Bufflofork river had a couple of small bridges, a little out of the way but it’s a much safer option.
As it turned out, after I had a shower that Joe offered, that Joe was a TV celebrity and featured in a TV show about man woman going naked surviving in Africa, Nubbia.
Now that I have a good plan to tackle these river crossings, Joe then offered to take me back to the trail head, but not before I stopped and had my last town food, hamburger with the works and chocolate milk drink.
Along the way, I was shown a few natural bush medicines such as antiseptic plant that if you have a cut you could rub the leaf on the effected area, and also one to open up your respiratory system, the long distance Native Indians use this.
I got to the drop off point where there was a really nice camp site, I’m sure the mosquitoes thought the same. Joe strongly advised me to start hanging my food bag and he pointed out tips of how to manage this.
Hanging my food bag with great views of the lake
Another tip he told me about, but wasn’t sure how good it was, is to pee around the tent to mark your territory. Problem was I ran out and only did a half circle.
