The first day on the trail with my sister

June 9th, 2015

As I was packing up with my sister I was looking through the food and some other stuff that she brought.  One of the thing that she had was a copy of Yogi's guide to the Continental Divide Trail (CDT). I was very interested in the CDT and wanted to do some research for future hikes. I took the guidebook and ripped out different sections that described the trail, what you needed and how it was different from the PCT and the AT (Appalachian Trail). All I knew about the trail was from talking to other hikers. I remembered asking people who hiked the AT and the PCT if they were considering hiking on the Continental Divide and a lot of them said that the trail seemed to be too difficult. This was intriguing to me so I figured now would be a good time to learn about what made the CDT more of a challenge compared to the PCT. 

A little later after I was packed and ready my sister and I started hiking North on the trail. In the first hour I spotted a bear in a small valley down below. I tried to point it out to my sister but by the time she got there the bear was gone. As we kept on going up the trail I wasn't doing the best job at checking my maps and we got to a point were it seemed like we were going the wrong direction. We checked and we did take a wrong turn and ended up going four miles in the wrong direction. We had no choice but to turn around and go back the way we came. This wasn't a big deal but I did feel a little stupid for not paying closer attention to where I was.  Then farther up the trail I saw two coyotes around a corner.  At first I thought it was a mountain lion and then about 50 feet up from me there was a big rock and two coyotes stood up on top of it and looked at me for about five or six seconds and then they walking off. Shortly after this we found a lake with a nice view and set up camp.