Journey Day 398 | CDT Day 61

Hiking through Wyoming in 1987.

8/14/87

Struggle awake, feeling sick from food and beer consumed the night before. Shower again, get things organized, read the Washington Post (where I worked before starting the hike). 10 a.m. comes too soon, but I got my boots sealed thanks to the room heater. Out to breakfast, then laundry, where I talk with an older lady and woman from Winchester, Va. Also letter writing, taking my time, as rain and ugly foreboding skies are outside.

Out to the store for new boot laces, back to the hotel for stashed pack. Proprietor and I look at maps, others who come through add their two cents. I have trouble with the strip topo, but decide to hike from the Pilot Rock road.

After a post office stop, where Scottish bikers pull through quickly talking of freezing rain at the pass, I walk to the edge of town. Wait a long and cold time before a Laramie Fish and Game guy picks me up.

Dropped at the wrong road, I walk up to the right one, walk a logged area to the Divide, where I meet Ernie Wampler and his wife seeing off her parents.

He's with the forest service, former game warden working to keep cattle from replanted clear-cuts. I catch a ride down to their camp at Beauty Creek Park, have coffee and peanuts, good talk, plus details on the hike up the North Fork Fish Creek to the South Fork. Bid farewell to them and their dog Jessie. Hike muddy road, which piles up on the bottoms of my boots as I slide along, searching in vain for solid ground. I pass a dog at a camper truck camp. Hike to the first drift fence, realize must go, through and leave the road. Short ways down, pitch on the track, down to the creek for water, pitch, cook and crash.