Sunday, May 12, 2013

Day 33-AT Style

This spring collected into a metal barrel that was piped into the trough.  Sadly it tasted strongly of rust.   
Right after dinner it started to rain. We had already set up the tent so all we needed to do was crawl in and set up our stuff. I slept so well--made up for a poor night's sleep at Ghost Ranch.

Yet another grauple storm.  This one was around 10:30 in the morning just after we finished a snack break.  Portrait stowed away his electronics, but it wasn't enough of a storm for us to pull on our rain jackets.
The trail was higher than I realized--we stopped for a break and I asked Portrait what our elevation was and much to my surprise we were over 10,000 feet. Perhapes I'm getting used to the higher elevations--which will sure come in handy soon as Colorado is getting closer every day.

While I was happy to not have to ford the river crossing on the log wasn't the easiest.  The flat side of the log was tilted towards the water. I crawled across rather than risk falling in and Portrait followed my lead.  Once across we had a late lunch in the sun--it was nice to finally be warm, but once lunch was over I could feel heat pouring off me.
This cow was huge and more interested in eating than moving off trail, but it finally relented and we continued north. 
It was getting on towards 6 o'clock, but seemed darker than that as we walked up a dirt road. Portrait was reading out-loud so he wasn't looking or I'm sure he would have spotted the creature first.  He usually spots the elk, deer, boar, or rabbit first.  We think it was a coyote--kind of a dirty tan or grayish creature.  It didn't seem big enough to be a wolf--but we were too far away for a proper look.  
Is it the AT or the CDT?  After hiking 26 miles we had planned on staying at a campground the trail went through, but it wasn't open for the season yet so all the water was off and the toilets were locked.  Under a threatening sky we kept going to the picnic pavilion by the lake and had dinner there, as we were finishing Highlife hiked in.   It was cold and windy by the lake so we left, hoping we'd find somewhere better to pitch the tent.  And not 10 minutes later we came across this AT style shelter and the three of us settled in for a wind and rain free night. 

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