CDT Day 82: Battle Pass Here I Come

Daily Miles: 9.9, Total Miles: 1,352.4

A thundering herd of elk ran by my tent this morning. Something must have spooked them – it wasn’t me.

I was still hiking from post to post this morning but not too hard to follow. Most posts had a nice chunk of quartz on top from the many large quartz veins in the granite here. Being kind of O-C, I put quartz chunks back on the posts that were missing them.

I crossed in and out of large, lush, green, muddy, sloppy and wet meadows for about eight miles. The trail finally dried out as I dropped to WY Highway 70 and Battle Pass.

Sparse traffic but fortunately the third vehicle pulled over and took me down to Encampment, population of 450. First stop at the PO and then walked to neighboring Riverside for lunch and the Lazy Acres RV Park and Motel. The Bear Trap Cafe has a mean Irish pudding!