Longstride

Today was a quiet day of rest and resupply in Grand Lake.

Grand Lake

• After a long day yesterday, CareFree and I decided to not hike today, and instead slept in a bit. The altitude has been catching up to CareFree, and she decided that the only way she was going to be able to do the loop through Rocky Mountain National Park was if it was not today.
• We got breakfast at the Sagebrush BBQ & Grill. It was pretty good.
• We walked to the Grand Lake Center, and picked up the new boots I had sent there. It was definitely long past time to get new shoes; my current ones are really starting to fall apart.
• I also arranged a shuttle to the trailhead for tomorrow and possibly Monday with the very friendly woman at the Grand Lake Center’s front desk.
• The grocery store in town was expensive, but I was able to get what I needed to resupply: five days of food to Steamboat Springs, the last trail town in Colorado; and another six days of food that I’ll send to South Pass City in southern Wyoming, which will get me to Pinedale. (I already have a box waiting in Encampment, WY that’ll get me from Encampment to South Pass City.)
• It was dreary out, with occasional light rain. I was glad we’d decided to zero today and not hike.
• We got pizza from Grand Pizza for dinner. It was excellent, though took a bit longer to be ready than they said, because they were very busy.

Tomorrow, we do the loop through the Rocky Mountain National Park, starting from a trailhead about 23 miles up and hiking back to Shadowcliff.