One month!
One month on the trail. April 13th, I started out in the dry, hot desert, and this morning I woke up shivering and with ice crystals on the inside and out of my tent. My oh my what a difference 600 miles of walking makes.
At about 3am, I woke up quite literally shivering cold. Even though I had felt the cold start up before going to bed, and had my hat, my down jacket, and my PJs on. I was still cold. My air pad isn’t insulated, so if the grounds temperature drops well below my body’s, the air in the pad will cool, rather than heat up from my body heat. So essentially, I was sleeping on an ice cube. In addition to that, the condensation from my breathing would hit the top of the tent and crystallize, causing little snowflakes to be stuck to the top of my tent, despite the fly sides of my tent being open (of course, the mesh was still closed). Finally, since I had synched my head inside my sleeping bag (so happy I swapped for a warmer mummy bag those weeks ago), the condensation from my breath had dampened the side of my sleeping bag, which was too warm to allow ice crystals to form, so was just moist with my air. Yummy.
I had thankfully gone back to sleep for a little bit, although woke up around 5, then 5:15, then at 5:30 I decided I was actually awake. But no way was I getting out of my warming cocoon, and I laid there watching the sun start to peak over the trees.
Finally, at about 6, 6:15, I found some strength to start my morning. With a double cup of hot coffee. It was definitely a slow morning, and I wanted to let my tent and sleeping bag dry out in the suns heat, but my camp spot was nestled in a bit of a valley with lots of trees, and even by 7:15 there was no direct sunlight.
The mornings hike was wet. And within the first 15 minutes my feet were already cold and wet. All the snow melt around is causing the grassy plains to be flooded and swampy, making it nearly impossible to hop across the wet. Fortunately, most of the snow banks were hard enough that I wasn’t (always) falling through to my hips, but rather cautiously stepping, with thoughts of light feathers, across the tops.
About an hour in, I hear “dusty!” Even out in the wild, one can get caught up on a phone. I was fiddling with something, but hadn’t stopped hiking, and walked right past Jenga and Roger That, who had camped just off to the left of the trail. I would have completely missed them if Jenga hadn’t hollered.
Jenga was ready to roll, but Roger That was still packing up. Eventually Jenga and I rolled out and hiked together for a couple hours. It was nice chatting with someone while hiking, and definitely made the first few hours roll by quite quickly.
Eventually, he had stopped to take some photos and get a snack and I continued on, not to see him for the rest of the day. A few reasons for that, which I realized while chatting with Jenga about hiking styles.
Most hikers carry the bare minimum of water needed, as water is the heaviest thing we carry. Typically, the fill up a liter, and plan to stop at the first available water source. I, on the other hand, fill up my bladder with 3L every morning, and slowly sip that throughout the day, never stopping to fill up for water. Since I use a hydration bladder, I have to pull off my pack, open it up, blah blah blah. It’s not quite as quick as pulling a Gatorade or Smart Water bottle (the two preferred bottles, depending if the hiker prefers a wide mouth opening or not) out from the side of a pack to scoop some water.
For me, even though I start the day with almost 7lbs of water, opposed to 2.2, my pack gets lighter throughout the day, and I don’t lose time fussing with purifying/filtering water and stopping. I much prefer this method.
Second of all, as I believe I’ve mentioned previously, I really just don’t ever stop. I typically have one break, which only lasts about 15 minutes, mid day. And that’s only really to dry out my feet if they’re getting too sweaty, or to rest my knee if it starts to hurt a bit too much.
For these two reasons, I don’t often hike for long with many hikers, as fun as it was to chat with Jenga.
On the knee front, it definitely started bothering me, but only when exacerbated by a decent incline for a few miles, followed by a similar descent on the other side. Other than that, it held its own today. In fact, it felt so decent, I accidentally did about 30 miles. I had only planned to do 25, but I was just trucking along. I ran into Cribbage, Hobbit, and Caveman (the older folks) and took 10-15 mins chatting with them. Even though I was standing, it felt like a break and slightly energized me for another couple hours.
The first water trough I came to, while freely flowing with water, had the spout submerged. Even though I get water from the same place the cows do, I avoid the cowy water as much as possible. That means getting the water directly from the pipe feeding into the trough. Typically, that’s an under ground well pumping water through tubes across the lands ranchers use to keep their cows hydrated. Usually crystal clear and cold, it makes for quite a good water source. But when submerged in the trough, it forces one to share the water the cows drink, and that’s definitely running more a risk of potentially getting sick from who knows what.
So I went ahead and skipped that spot. Another one only 2 miles ahead, sure, I’ll head there and camp nearby. Well I got there, and saw about a dozen cows hanging around drinking. I tried shooing them off so I could get my water, but they really didn’t want to leave. So I kindly chatted with them while squeezing myself between a few and hopping over the muddy mote surrounding the trough, balancing on a tiny bit of dry dirt on the side of the trough. The spout wasn’t as easily accessible as most are, but I was able to fill up my goods, thanked the cows, then decided I definitely wasn’t camping there.
Sooo once again, I push on for about a mile. Find a nice flat spot near a giant river (Rio Chama) and pulled out my tent and sleeping bag to dry in the fading light. I look at my maps, and surprisingly I went 29.7 miles.
I have less than 9 miles to the road tomorrow, so that’s cool! Will be a very relaxed morning. Roger That rolled in and will get a ride in with me. Reports of something called “Big Eddys Take Out” less than 3 miles up give me hope of some sort of food. It’s not actually marked on Guthook, and the comments are only about having a bathroom and trash. So it really could be anything. But I remain hopeful as I head to bed watching bats fly around above snatching up sqeeters buzzing around.
Big mile day! But the knees alright (but still looking forward to a day off), and overall feeling good. Will be nice to have a really short day tomorrow, followed by a day off in Santa Fe once again.
