SUMMARY: Our little blue tent stood bravely last night in the midst of miles of beautiful golden prairie with distant dark hills.  Coyotes howled around us, but we slept well and warm.  This morning while we were packing up our little “tent on the prairie”, an elk came and stood on a nearby ridge to watch us.  Amazing!  Elk are usually very shy.  We spent the rest of the day doing miles of roadwalks through prairie and forest.  Great views!  Dramatic clouds today.  Tonight we are back on trail, camped on a rocky ridge.  So now I guess we’re the “Little Tent on Rocky Ridge.”

DETAILS:  Our little blue tent stood bravely last night in the midst of miles of beautiful golden prairie with distant dark hills. It made me think of a book I loved when I was a kid–“Little House on the Prairie.”   Coyotes howled around us as I studied the maps to figure out where we missed the CDT turn yesterday and how to get back to the CDT. Finally we fell asleep, but we slept well and warm.

When we woke up this morning, brrrr!   There was frost INSIDE the tent as well as outside, but our shoes (tucked inside the tent) did not freeze, hooray.  As we were doing our final packup, we could hear coyotes howling again (Or were they those nasty Mexican wolves?  Who knows?) when an amazing thing happened–an ELK came and stood on a nearby ridge to watch us. Wow! Elk are usually very shy, and as one hunter we met on the PCT put it, “They have Romulan cloaking devices.”  You normally do NOT see them.

After about 15 minutes of walking, we reached a hilltop where I could look out over the terrain and pinpoint us on the map.  It didn’t take much longer, and we were back on track with the CDT, following a dirt road headed north.  Canada, here we come again!  And it was beautiful–mile after mile of prairie all golden in the early morning light.  Once it warmed up a little bit, we stopped and had some granola for breakfast and just soaked up the incredible views.  Coyotes were still howling all around us, but we never did see any of them.

After breakfast, we cheerfully resumed our NORTHward trek, noticing that there were an awful lot of elk tracks and scat on the trail.  Sure enough, we did catch one glimpse of an elk herd, but they spotted us and instantly disappeared.  We reached FR (Forest Road) 28 where it actually crosses the Divide itself, which was sort of a big deal, because we haven’t actually had much contact yet with the REAL Divide.    Then it was miles & miles along FR 28, which meant we got a lot of miles in, but it’s a bit hard on feet.

Water is scarce on this stretch of the CDT, and it was turning into a warm day with big puffy clouds.  We met some horse packers getting ready to head out, and they kindly gave us some water to supplement what we had.  At 11:00, as seems usual around here, the wind came up and really started to blow.  Again, I dared not try to cook at lunchtime with all that wind, so we settled for rehydrating our freezedried dinner by just adding water, putting it in an outside pocket of Fixit’s pack, and hiking on.  By suppertime it would be ready to eat.  In the meantime, we ate our “supper” food for lunch.

When we finally reached Cox Creek, we got out the AquaMira (cows were everywhere; we dared not drink that water without treating it!) and we took on FULL loads of water–heeeeeavy in the packs!  Now we were headed into the Tularosa Mountains, and the scenery changed again.  Today so far we’d had golden prairies, dry forests, and now we were into GREEN forests, and really climbing–when we got a view through the trees, we could see we were really up high.  And of course there were cows everywhere, happily eating the green grass.  There were plenty of cute calves, and very calm, too.  Instead of spooking and running away, the calves stood curiously to watch us pass by.

By suppertime, we were really up into the Tularosas, and looking forward to being back on CDT trail instead of dirt road.  And we were awfully tired–we did so many miles today (but I don’t know the exact figure, because there are no handy mileage charts like we had on the PCT).  This morning’s pretty, puffy clouds have turned dark gray, thicker and ominous.  We eyed them and wondered if they were planning any rain.  But the half hour break and a good meal were very reviving, and we felt energized to get in a few more miles before camping on a ridge at around 9,000 feet elevation.  We rigged the tent for possible rain, and turned in.  Wow, it feels good to be horizontal!  But it also feels good to know that we ARE on the CDT!  And I guess tonight we are the “Little Tent on Rocky Ridge.”