SUMMARY:  We had a glorious time this morning, hiking high up on the Divide, with awesome views in all directions.  For a time it was a forest fire zone, which meant a lot of climbing over fallen trees; that’s normal.  But around 11:00, with no warning, the really nice trail (well-marked with CDT signs) simply vanished.  We were low on water and not sure exactly where we were, because the battery ran out on the cell phone.  So we spent the whole rest of the day bushwhacking.  It was very tough and we were severely rationing our water.  Long story short,  we finally popped out of the woods, spotted a big house, got water from their garden hose (nobody was home) and found our way back to the CDT by 6:30 pm. Now it’s raining, but we got into our tent in time to stay dry.

DETAILS: We had a ridgetop campsite last night, but it wasn’t too cold, so this morning we weren’t dealing with ice & frost.  Nice!  Mornings are way more fun without ice! Off we went on VERY well-built trail with glorious views–the only hazard was we had a lot of blowdowns to climb over, since it was a forest fire zone.  Bummer about the fire, but it did make those great views possible–otherwise it would have been green tunnel hiking.

The fallen trees and fire debris were pretty bad, but the wildflowers were beautiful.  I was specially impressed by some tiny white flowered plants.  They looked so fragile, yet were doing fine in the midst of all that destruction.  We stopped for breakfast, and just as we were packing up, along came Double Magic.  He was very happy to see us and said he had not seen any other hikers in several days.  (He’s young and he’s fast.  We didn’t see him again, and heard that he was among the first to finish the CDT this year.  Way to go, Double Magic!!)

The really nice, well built trail continued for some time, and I was thinking “Whee, I’ll call this ‘Trail Day’ today.  Finally, trail all day, just like the PCT!”  At one point we met up with a whole group of cows, calves, and BURROS, who took one look at us and ran for it, ahead of us, along the trail.  It looked like we were herding them, so I started singing “The Old Chisholm Trail” just for fun.  Finally they ran off down the hill.  At one point, our nice new trail disappeared on a rocky ridge, but no problem–there were little pink flags to show us where to go, and soon the trail reappeared.

But at about 11:00 am, suddenly the trail just STOPPED.  Dead stop. There were a few cairns after that and a few blazes on trees, then nothing.  We hunted everywhere, and to add to the fun, we were low on water.  We tried to figure out where we were on our maps, but no luck there, and we couldn’t consult Guthook because the cellphone battery is done.  It’s only good for a few looks at Guthook, and we’d used it up.  Our biggest concern though, wasn’t just “Where is the trail?”  It was “Where can we find water?”  Fixit finally said, “Let’s just head down a wash–maybe there will be water at the bottom.”

So we turned our backs on the ridge and began to bushwhack down, with Fixit in the lead and me following.  It was very steep and very rough, and we both collected a lot of cuts and scratches. (I got one on my hand that took a long time to heal).  On and on we went, with no sign of water anywhere.  Fixit finally gave up and said, “Forget it–let’s just head north.  Eventually we’ll hit the Tularosa River, if we keep going.”  So that’s what we did, and a bit later we came to a sort of trail where people had been making burn piles.  I was very hopeful of finding proper trail of some sort soon, but then even the “burn pile trail” disappeared, and we were back to bushwhacking “north and a bit west”.  At this point, we were severely rationing our water and both Fixit and I were awfully thirsty.  Fortunately it was a relatively cool and cloudy day, or we would have been in big trouble. I could see that the clouds in the area were trying to rain, but it wasn’t making it to the ground.  Occasionally we stopped for a snack and a swallow of water, but we could not do a proper meal.

Finally we found a dirt road heading in more or less the direction we wanted to go, and started to follow it, till it came out of the forest at the edge of Big Dry Lake, which was on our maps!  I cheered!  FINALLY we knew where we were!  And even better, off on the other side of the dry lake, we could see a HOUSE–a big nice log house!  Water!  We left the road and walked toward it, so thirsty and so glad.  It was a magnificent 3 story high log and stone building.

At the house, there were no cars around and it looked like no one was home, but we wanted to first ask if it was OK to get some water, so I did climb the stairs and ring the doorbell.  Nobody answered.  We walked around the house till we found a garden hose, and yes!  The water was ON!  We mixed up some electrolytes and just drank and drank and drank, then filled our Platypus reservoirs.  A look at the maps showed that the CDT was not far away, so by 6:30 pm, we happily headed down the house driveway towards the main road.  That’s when we encountered a SERIOUS fence and big iron gate with a gatehouse and lots of “No Trespassing” signs aimed at the road.  Oops.  I guess we did trespass, but in the direction we came from, there were no signs.  The only way we could get to the road was to squiggle under a barbed wire fence, and it was a tight fit.  Good thing we aren’t big people!

A bit of walking down the road, and we were back on the CDT.   We were exhausted.  We stopped and made camp and ate some supper–freezedried refried beans and cheese, with Fritos.  It tasted really good, and after that, we just crashed.  Not long after we were in our sleeping bags, it did begin to rain, just a gentle pitterpatter on the tent.  I was megagrateful to God for 1) Cool weather when we were so low on water  2) Finding “the house” so we could get plenty of safe water.   We found out later from other hikers that everybody had a terrible time with this part of the trail.  Hope someday they at least get some more pink flags in to show which way to go!