Slowness of snow
Last night we had bunked up with two other hikers, and the room was quite hot, so didn’t sleep the best. One of them left at 4:45 as she had to get a bus to 84, where ghost ranch is, and she’s currently on trail. Sunshine, Roger That, and I had a ride setup for 7am.
Taxi Lady is the wife of Doggone, who I actually started the trail with on April 13th. TL is following along and supporting Doggone with a car and trailer that she sleeps in. So she’ll roll around to trail towns with her two dogs and camp out in her trailer while she waits for Doggone to get to roads where she picks him up and helps supply him.
Since she’s rolling around town, and knows what hikers looks like, she often stops off and offers rides. Sometimes it’s a quarter mile to the post office, like yesterday, or in today’s case, it’s a 45 min drive back to 64, where the campground was that we got off trail at. She’s a wonderful lady to offer up her time and vehicle to help other hikers when she’s not helping her hubby. It was also nice that we got a fairly early start for leaving town.
We were a been nervous about the snow conditions, with the recent dumping, and hearing that a fellow hiker had gotten stuck and almost lost her shoe in a deep deep post hole.
However, we were pleasantly surprised with relatively dry, beautiful trail. Occasionally, there were mounds we would have to post hole through, but for the most part, all manageable.
Roger That bolted off, and Sunshine was in the middle with me tailing at the end. A few hours later, I come across sunshine taking a break, as well as Jenga. I then continued on letting them rest a bit (no breaks for me!).
While the sides of the trail and views were littered with mounds of snow, the really scary view was off in the distance. The mountains of Colorado, with their stark white peaks. And not patchy, like we’re seeing here, solid. Tall. It’s going to be interesting! But one battle at a time.
Throughout the day, I was doing my best to push away the thought of crushing 40+ miles from the road we got dropped off on, up to 17, which is in Colorado, and brings you back down to Chama. With my gear waiting for me tomorrow, it would have been epic to make it there (even if after dark) sleep in a bed again and start the morning off right (with a shower and endless coffee). I had been making decent time, but even still, wouldn’t get to the road until 9-9:30. With the sun setting a bit after 8, ambient light would be somewhat visible until around 9. I can make it, I thought. I will make it.
With about 7 miles to the border of New Mexico, and 10 miles left to 17, I was ready to rock. It was already about 6-6:30, but I felt ready. Even though I’m not a huge fan of night hiking, the benefits were there.
I’m just two weeks, I have my next Lauren break. While we had a great time in Santa Fe, Lauren put in quite the leg work getting there. Luckily she gets off work early on fridays, but even still, we essentially only had one day together. A late flight into ABQ, drive up to SF, then flight back afternoon on Sunday. So, this time around, I’m going to her. I can get in on Friday at a reasonable time, and leave Monday, giving us two full days! I also wanted to show that I appreciate her efforts and want to show I’m committed to building our relationship, and not just expect her to come out every time we see eachother.
With all that said, I’ll be flying outta Denver. The trail hits I70 and there’s a lodge that has buses go straight to the airport and back. So it’s a perfect opportunity for me to get to the airport and not lose too much trail time, and get to spend as much of my time off trail with Lauren.
With the unexpected two days off, I really wanted to make chama today so I could leave tomorrow and get back on trail and not get stuck and have to push out more miles ahead so I can make my timeframe. But, the trail wanted to remind me, it’s in charge and has its own plans.
With 9 miles left, I hit snow. And a lot of it. 4-6 foot mounds that didn’t end. With the warmth of the day softening the snow, I fell deeper than even the foot prints I was trying to gingerly step in. Also, those foot prints were seldom going in the right direction. With few trail markers, it was very very easy to go wrong direction. And even if you knew the foot prints were going the wrong way, making fresh holes in the snow was even more time and energy consuming. Zig zagging trying to see markers on trees while not falling too far into the snow, and worse, hit a tree or rock hidden under the snow, my pace slowed down significantly.
I quickly realized the hope of getting to the road this evening was far from a reality. I now only have 7 miles left, but found a small dry patch of land as the sun began to set. I didn’t want to get caught postholing in the wrong direction without any dry land to plop my tent on. And just as I set my stuff down, Roger That rolls out from the trees, from some other postholing path that he found. He, on the other hand, continued on into the darkening night a few more miles. Brave lad.
The one benefit to being surrounded by snow, is that I have water. Not as much as I would like since I have to melt it and don’t want to spend too much time or fuel doing that, but I could cook and have some drinking water. So even though I wasn’t near a water source, it wasn’t all that bad.
With number feet and wet from the knees down, I was very excited to be done for the day. Over 34 miles, so definitely not a bad day at all. But oh how I wish I wasn’t at 11,000 feet and in a bed. BUT! The good news? Today was my last full day in New Mexico. I kick out my first state and start with Colorado tomorrow morning.
