My wife and I are going in mid-August to visit friends and family, and will have time to do a 4 1/2 day, 4 night section hike of the CT. My friend lives in Dillon, so our planning so far is centering around doing Segments 8 and 9 We are from sea level, and we aren't extremely fast, so the mileage total of 38ish is right at what we would be comfortable doing. Right now, we are looking at our friend dropping us off 1.6 miles into Segment 8 at the Copper Mountain parking area on a Sunday morning. We would then try to hike up to just before treeline to camp at around mile 6 of the segment. Then on Monday, go over the passes, and down to Cataract Creek area to camp. Tuesday, finish Segment 8, and find a place to camp around the end of 8 or the beginning of 9. Wednesday, hike to Porcupine lakes or Bear Lake. Then on Thursday, have a fairly short day to finish Segment 9, where our friend will pick us up for a lunch trip and tour of Leadville.
I just wanted to see if I could get a little advice on a couple of things:
First, based on the general plan above, do you think we will be able to find places to hang our hammocks, or should we play it safe and bring our tent instead?
Second, if hammocks are useable, which one of the lake areas (Porcupine vs Bear) would be better for that? From the vids I have watched, which don't show a lot of detail, it looks to me like Porcupine had more places to hang.
Thanks in advance for any advice you guys can give. We are really excited about seeing the CT!