Thank you!

We wanted to take the time to thank some of the people who helped us to make this hike possible. Before we left, the awesome Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, MA where Elaine works had a fundraiser for us. A huge thank you to both Peak Organic Brewing Company and Craft Beer Cellar for doing this and supporting us, we truly appreciate it. Also, my friends Annie and Cap, who helped to fund part of our hike, you are both so generous and kind and I cannot thank you enough for your support, not just for this hike, but for everything else. And of course my family, who helped us along the whole way, thank you!! Below are some pictures of people we met along the way, and some of the people who helped us to complete our hike- we couldn't have done it without you!

This is a picture of my family at the beach this summer. We took a week vacation to go the The Outer Banks in NC and had such a great time, plus it was a great break from the trail :)

Here we are at Craft Beer Cellar, the week before we left, after the final fundraising event with Peak Organic Brewing Company and Craft Beer Cellar. Thank you for helping us to make this trip possible, you guys rock!!

At the Mexico/New Mexico border!!! Here we are day 1, with the incredible Sam Hughes. Sam is the person who drives hikers to the southern terminus of the trail, a nearly three hour long drive, through some of the bumpiest, roughest dirt 'roads'I have been on. He also caches water for the first 90 miles of the trail, without which we could not get through that stretch. There is basically NO water here. Sam is a fascinating person, we had such a fun drive with him-what a great way to start the trail!

In order to get to the Outer Banks to meet the family for our beach week, we had to hitch over 160 miles from Ghost Ranch, NM to the Durango airport in CO. It took us seven hitches and these ladies were nice enough to pick us up along the way. They were ride number two!

This is Ray. We first met Ray when he was hitch number four on the way to Durango airport. BUT, even better was when, over two weeks later, after we came back from the beach we were trying to get a ride back to the trail after coming into Chama to get food, Ray picked us up AGAIN! We'd been waiting for over an hour, and he drove us back to the trail at Cumbres Pass. We had so much fun talking with him, what a great guy!

Outside one of our favorite hostels on the trail, the new Raven's Rest Hostel in Lake City, CO. Here is Brazil Nut with one of the owners, AmyJo. If anyone reading this plans to do the CDT or the Colorado Trail this is a place you don't want to pass up!

These are the guys who gave us a ride out of Darby, MT. We had a fun drive with them, and they were so nice to drive way out of their way to get us back to the pass.

Brazil Nut with our hunter friends, who gave us the best trail magic- a warm place to sleep and FOOD! They were so fun, we stayed us for hours talking with them, and since they had their hunting camp set up right next to the trail, they knew all about hikers and had seen others in previous years. Thanks Jimmy, Carl and Raymond we had a blast with you guys!

What we thought would be our last hitch-leaving Helena, MT. Dan and his dog gave us a ride out of town. Dan was a hiker himself and we enjoyed telling him about the trail. Thanks for the ride Dan!

This was our actual last hitch with Dave. When we finished at the Canadian border, the shuttle service had stopped a few days before, so we had to count on some friendly person to give us a ride-and that person was Dave! He gave us a ride from the border all the way back to East Glacier. Dave was a wealth of knowledge, after having worked for Yellowstone for ten years and now working at Glacier National Park for the past two years, we had lots of questions for him and we had great conversations on our ride. Thank you Dave!!