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Writer's pictureBlake Robinson

Day 21: 8/14/17 First 30 Mile day into the treeless but wildlife aplenty Great Divide Basin


Miles: 31 (first day over 30!!) Steps: 59,122 Vertical gain: 1,579 feet Liquid consumed: 134 oz Wildlife: Lots! Cows, rabbits, tiny lizards, tons of Promghorns, wild horses! Faith in Humanity:Greg caught up to me on the road and rode his bike at my pace and chatted me with for 8 miles or so! Very cool, have a great trip, Greg! First order of business today was realizing the kind owners of Miners Grubstake forgot to mention anything about bathrooms! Yikes! It was early though and there were kind of some woods to duck into, haha. I chatted with Greg as I packed up. We got along really well and are both super chatty so we just can go on and on. I left and hiked about 40 minutes and the Greg pulled up beside me on his bike and ride at hiking pace for a couple of hours. We talked about a wide variety of topics ranging from healthcare to adventures to renting apartments to pretty much everything. That's kind of a common thing on adventures like this, getting along really well with others right off the bat and quickly diving into conversations you normally wouldn't dive into until you knew someone for quite a bit longer. Our routes split when my route went through a gate to cut off a mile or so, so we said goodbye and maybe will never see each other again. So is life on the road. Safe travels Greg, you were great to spend some time with! The Great Divide Basin is a desert area where the water doesn't flow into either ocean, it simply stays within the basin. What does this look like? Really beautiful rolling hills with no trees. Cool rock formations, lots of sage brush., lots of prong horns which run away from such a far distance and can run up to 60mph and sustain a run at 35mph! I wish the cows would move out of the way like that! They usually just kind of stand there, but sometimes run away, but they also get quite irritated when you get close sometimes. Cows are weird. It's also a bit unnerving with no trees though: I ended up walking underneath storm clouds for 4 or 5 hours today with really no escape whatsoever. Thankfully the storm held out until I set up my tent. I did my first 30 mile day today! The hike was almost entirely on very rarely used roads and really flat the whole way. Water sources are interesting because there's lots of cows and wild horses around the water. 3 horses watched me from probably only 20 feet away as I filled my water bottles. Slightly unnerving in some ways as they seemed a bit ornery since I was so close to their water. Got a good photo though! I think I'm about 85 miles from Rawlins, we shall see how the mikes go... There's an animal scurrying around quite a bit as I write this. Stay away little scurrier!


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