Circle of light

This morning was a slow one, for sure. While I still woke up at the normal time, I putzed around, showered, and got my pack sorted; something I usually do the night before, but was too lazy to last night. 

Next to the hotel was a bakery and coffee shop, so I went over there and had some great food and coffee. Honestly, a surprised for such a small random town. That paired with last nights dinner at “Local” could really make Chama the best eats and coffee along the trail, yet (excluding Santa Fe, which isn’t really on trail and I was pampering myself and Lauren when we were there). 

I finally geared up and made my way to the edge of town to get a hitch. I’m beginning to realize that when I’m hitching alone, I either look to old to be young and helpless, or to young to be old and needy. That lured with the thick stance and scraggly beaded is honestly making hitching a little tough. I waited nearly two hours for a ride only 11 miles up the road. Eventually, someone who had already been driving another hiker around town (presumably the other hiker could vouch for me that I’m in fact not a scary person, just a CDT hiker). 

John (previously known as Rooster, but looking for a new trail name as that was many years ago) was just starting the trail in Chama after having done the souther stretch years prior. So he was fresh and dandy, just off his flight from Missouri. 

Once dropped off, I began my hike down the low route. No disrespect to New Mexico, but wow. Colorado has the views, and they’re beautiful. Not very long into my hike, I hear something behind me “I’m happy to see you!”. I turn around and there’s Caveman, one of the older fellas who had been in a group I’ve seen a few times along trail. 

He had just gotten down from the pass, and skipped Chama. Him and his cohorts were in Santa Fe, stacked a resupply at the pass so he could continue on, but left him running solo. Turns out Cribbage and Hobbit got off trail for a little while as Cribbage has a stress fracture in his knee. 

Left to his own devices, caveman was forced to go through the snow alone. He actually told me with no exaggeration in his eyes that he felt he almost died. He was actually brought to tears while on the trail and thought he was going to freeze to death, wet, and broken. The post holing broke some of his gear, and he had to dig out his shoe at one point. While feeling terrible for his experience, it also validated my less scary, but almost as demoralizing, experience. 

Soon he had to make a rest room break, and then that was the last I saw of him for the day. 

I continued onwards and eventually the road turned off to a dirt road, which my feet were thankful for. The paved road had quite a large and flat dirt shoulder, so I could bounce between the surfaces (the super flat paved, or the slightly rocky soft). With my new boots, I was trying to be cautious of new blisters. Thankfully, I had broken them in a bit before leaving for the trail, but my feet have definitely swollen and grown a bit since then and needed to stretch the boots out a bit. 

Even though there were tails of rain and crummy weather, I saw nearly none throughout the day. Lots of dark clouds scattered around, but nothing near me, and lots of blue sky poking out. After the dirt road, the skies definitely darkened. Spouts of light rain would come about, but a blue circle of light seemed to be traveling my direction, and even though it was dark all around, I was mostly dry. With my rain gear at the ready, I didn’t even wear it. 

Nearly 30 miles into the day, I was about ready to stop it was getting late and with my late start I didn’t want to push into the darkness. I was also still very tired from the post-holing, even though it was only a few miles, it was very draining, and I did a lot of miles regardless. 

As I prepared to stop, a car drove passed and stopped in front of me. I causally rolled up to him to see what he wanted and say hello. He asked where I was going and what I was doing, and told him I was about to setup camp for the day and was on the CDT. He said he was on his way to Platoro, a few miles up, and asked if I wanted a ride. 

Theres a lodge and RV park with cabins in town, so I figured I’d roll up there and grab a cabin and then ask them to drive me a few miles back down the road in the morning so I could slack pack the remainder. Notes on them say they like hikers and help them out, so didn’t think it’d be any problem. 

Once we got to this “town” I very quickly realized it was no town at all. It looks like a Wild West set in the movies. Small log cabins littered around a couple dirt roads, a couple “lodges” which were cabin rentals and all very much closed. The fella who drove me in was a cook for one of the lodges, but he said they’re still closed as there’s a new owner and they have t sorted things out yet. So he drove me to the RV a park, but they were also closed (notes say they close at 7, which had just passed, but even still I’m not convinced they’re opened really at all). 

I walked around the small twilight zone of a town for a while to try and find someone to talk to. A couple cars pass by, but no luck finding a cabin. As I’m in Colorado, I’m definitely liable to get shot for being in private property, so had intended to get out of town to setup my tent. However, as I was walking out, there were two cabins which are forest service cabin rentals. Very much closed for the season, I figured being on forest service property would be the safest for me, and it also had a picnic table and little awning near the locked cabins. 

I ate dinner, and popped into my tent. Through my tent walls I saw bolts of lighting off in the distance. With the thunder rolling in a few seconds later, it didn’t seem terribly close. But then the skies opened up. Starting with little balls of hail but turning into buckets of rain, my tent is currently shaking in the wind and almost deafening with the sound of rain hitting it. Warm and dry, I lay here ready to sleep. Hopefully the rain passes and tomorrow I get to hike well. The only scary part is that I go over a pass and summit that’s nearly 12,000 feet. Highest point yet, but also likely that all this rain is snow, so there will be lots of fresh snow up there... 

The good news, is once I get to that point, if I see it’s ridiculous, there’s another low route I can take from there to descend down and once again skip the high route. I hope I can do the 15 miles into Pagosa Springs along the high route,  it happy there’s additional options if I can’t. 

Here’s to hoping I don’t fly away, and that this crazy rain does somehow seep in. But at least the 40 foot metal antenna next to the cabin has already collapsed and won’t attract the lighting (I hope). There have been bolts in front of me that hurts my eyes, and that’s through the tent walls!