Hills and Valleys

We've been walking through rolling hills, wide open meadows and forest groves.  

We are in the foothills and valleys between mountain ranges.  The trail has been following the Cochetopa river upstream.

 In the late afternoon the trail started climbing and the river began carving out more of a canyon.  It's been neat to see the slow transition back into the mountains.  We made it halfway up San Louis Pass before camping.  

Again we saw more north bound hikers and we enjoyed catching up with them.

Pounce is reading a trail book and she shared a quote from it that I really like.   "I'm not done with the trail and the trails not done with me."  It's spot on.  I hiked the PCT in the perfect year.  I didn't get rained on once in 5 months.  I knew the CDT would give me all the challenges that I didn't get on the PCT.  It has.  And then some.  I've asked myself more than once "why am I doing this?"  But I'm not done and neither is the trail.  And I'm glad to still be walking.  It's beautiful.