Bye Bye ben

The day started off with a slam dunk of bummer news. Bens knee wasn’t feeling any better, and he couldn’t continue hiking. He also felt strongly that once the weekend with the girls passes, he won’t be continuing on with the trail at all. 

As much as I would have liked to hang with him for the next 6 days and take it easy and wait for the girls to come into town, if he’s not continuing on afterwards, I didn’t want to have to start all the way back down at Doc Campbells over a week later, as that would put me pretty far behind “schedule” and I know I’d get antsy sitting around doing nothing. So we agreed that I would continue on, and maybe he would be able to pick me up in Pie Town (yes! That’s actually the name of the town, it’s not a nickname), which would be a huge help as I wouldn’t have to get an awkward hitch. 

I packed up my goods, made my breakfast and said good bye to all my new hiker friends, as well as Ben, and hit the road. 

All the hikers were talking about doing the high route to a side path that got them back to the Gila. I had intended to just jump on the Gila as the high route is notoriously dry, but looked at the map and saw the route they were talking about was only about 13 miles or so. I figured 13 dry miles would be faster than wet miles, so made a last min plan change to follow suit. 

I got to the turn off back down to the Gila around noon. There was another 9 miles to the only reliable water source on the high route, and maybe if I really felt like it, another 4 miles down to the Gila without a side route like the initial plan. Well, I was feeling frosty, and not only got down to the Gila, but hiked another 2.5 miles up it after I got there, in total about 27-28 miles for the day. 

With a cool breeze, smooth trail and lots of tree coverage, the high route was actually quite beautiful, and enjoyable. At one point I threw up my umbrella just so I could take off my hat, and that made it even nicer of a walk. There wasn’t a single person on the trail, until I hit the water source where three hunters had posted up with their horses and a big ol group of hunting dogs (besides their hound like lineage, they all had the GPS collars on). The fella laying in the tent asked if I had seen any, as a couple of their dogs had run off. Sadly, I had not. 

Originally, I was just going to stop once I got to the Gila, about 25 miles in. But once I got down there, there was a group of weekend warriors in the nice camp spot near the water, so I continued on. After I went through my first river crossing, I figured I’m already wet now, so I may as well keep going until I find a good spot, which didn’t come for miles, really! Finally, I found a nice flat spot next to the river where I’ve posted up for the night, cooked dinner, and refilled my water. Now it’s time for one of my first solo camping nights since the first couple days of the Appalachian Trail all those years ago. Might sleep a little closer to my knife than usual, but expecting to seem soundly with the babbling brook next to me.