Unlike yesterday, I made a good jump that day and started walking before 8am. The day started with fairly gentle terrain, with ups and downs to a moderate climb to the Refugio del Cura. The trail approaching the Priest was even freshly trimmed, which is always appreciated as it keeps tick exposure low.
Freshly cut!
the priest
Forgive me refuge because I have sinned…
At the Priest’s Shelter I took a long rest reading the logbook. For those unfamiliar, it is customary for hikers to confess their sins to the shelter in the log book, since the shelter is called the Priest. Usually sins related to the trail. There were some very funny entries in there, with confessions ranging from the harmless and comical to the very serious and some even quite sad. I duly entered my own comment in the log book. Don’t bother asking what it was, if you really want to know, go up to the Priest’s Shelter and see if you can figure out what my handwriting is! After spending a lot of time there, I completed the rest of the hike to the top of Priest Mountain. Treated with some very good views up there.
View from the top of Priest Mountain
Down, then up, then down again
After that I had a lot of downhill for the next few kilometers. 3200 feet of descent to be exact, all of which I would have to bitterly make up for later that day… Fortunately, the technical parts of the descent were few and most of it was quite cruising, allowing me to make good time and the miles flew by. There were even some good views during the descent.
One of which had some reception and I was able to use it to nail down some logistics for next week (omen…). I realized I was getting close to a trailhead when I started to see a good handful of day hikers. I descended to the trailhead and then began my bitter ascent on the other side.
After climbing about a thousand feet, I made my next stop at Harper’s Creek to refill my water and have lunch. I’ve been hitting a lot of Spam Singles this week, choosing the ever-so-classic combination of Tortilla-Wrapped Bacon Spam Single with Smashed Fritos. Good food could get a note from my book…
I then continued my climb to Three Ridges, which included an additional 2,200 feet of elevation play. Mind you, that’s above the 1000 feet I just finished. To put it mildly, it was a tremendous climb. With many parts with steep elevations and rocky technical sections that made it difficult to pick up the pace.
But I finally made it to the top and was satisfied knowing that the rest of the day would be much easier. The next few kilometers we are practically down.
Devil’s spine
I finally made it to Reed’s Gap, where I found a hookup to Devil’s Backbone Brewery. At Devil’s Backbone, I had a great dinner with a burger, fries, and nachos, along with plenty of beers. After dinner at Tap House, I headed back to the tent sites and there was Trail Magic! A couple of women set up a magical trail on the trail yesterday and only one hiker passed by. So when they saw us, they enthusiastically threw themselves at us as much as they could. Which we happily appreciated. I have plenty of snacks and sandwiches for the next few days. Then I set up my tent and called it a night.
Hikers can camp for free at Devil’s Backbone
Statistics for day 58:
19.5 miles
5,148′ ascent, 6,316′ descent
Crossing from Spy Rock to Reid’s Gap
4 DSLC…
Stove use times: 10
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