SUMMARY:

We are beyond grateful to God for the wonders he did for us today.

1. We safely crossed the East Fork of the Navajo River at 6:00am. Scary! Feet and legs like ice afterward.
2. We needed to cross rugged terrain to connect with a road downriver. By “chance” (ha!) we found an elk trail that took us there (scary in places, but great).
3. We ended up on private property—the manager came to “escort us off” and he was the same guy who gave me a ride earlier. Only God could organize that!

DETAILS:

It was a bit dark at 5:20 am, down in the canyon near the Navajo River, and I was NOT looking forward to walking right into it.  As we were getting into our cold wet socks and cold wet pants, I was listening to the roar of the river and thinking, “Oh Lord, HELP!”  Fixit said, “You’d better not try to cross by yourself.  Your trek poles are just about dead.  With the force of that water, they might just collapse and you’d be in big trouble.  We’d better do the SERIOUS river crossing technique.”  What he meant was, I must stow my trek poles (tie them to the top of my pack) and then get behind him, holding on to his pack, and then we sidestep across together.  That way the fiercest force of the water hits HIM and I’m slightly more protected.  We’d done this several times before when we were on the PCT.

When we got to the riverbank, I was glad to see that the water level was indeed down, but the force of the current was still enormous.  We prayed and stepped in to the icy water.  Wow.  It was seriously scary, but we just kept sidestepping and finally reached the other side and climbed out, VERY thankful!  My legs from the knee down felt like blocks of ice.

Down the canyon we went, knowing that it was quite a way to go before we reached the road.  And that is where the miracles really got going.  We were bushwhacking along, with lots of climbing over logs and slogging through wet stuff, when Fixit decided “Let’s try going UP a bit, higher on the canyon wall.  Maybe it will be a bit easier up there.”  And that’s where we found an ELK TRAIL that was beyond awesome.  We were able to follow that trail all the way down to the road!  It unerringly took us through what would otherwise have been some seemingly impassable terrain, including one area that was all steep cliffs, where the canyon became a narrow gorge with the river roaring and foaming at the bottom.  I admit to being very scared during parts of this “cliffy stuff” because I do not like heights and big dropoffs with whitewater at the bottom of them.  Fixit was very patient–he does not mind scary stuff at all.  But the elk had made it through, and so did we.  And even during the worst of the scary part, I kept thanking God that at least we had the elk path, and I was grateful for it.

The elk trail literally dropped us off at the road (we learned later that this road was built so that elk hunters could access the back country) and we happily started walking along, marvelling at how God had guided us.  Without that elk trail, we would have been faced with a SERIOUSLY difficult situation.

The road wound its way down the mountain, and finally came back to the Navajo River.  Alas, when it reached the river (at this point, a roaring whitewater torrent) there was NO bridge, only a ford–obviously for use in summer or fall, when the water level was much lower.  There was no way we could ever get across.  So once again, I looked at the edges of our map, and right by the trimmed edge a bit farther up the map, I found a place where it looked like the road crossed the river AGAIN.  That meant if we stayed on our side of that torrent, and bushwhacked down, we could reconnect with the road!

So the bushwhack began.  We had no elk trail to help us this time, and we had a LOT of climbing over logs, scrambling down into steep rocky gullies, and even a small canyon to negotiate.  Some parts were (for me) rather scary.  But we kept going, and finally Fixit (who was up ahead searching for the best route) yelled, “THE ROAD!”   Sure enough, there it was, switchbacking UP from the river!   To say we were relieved would be an understatement!   We decided to stop and eat lunch (it was late, but whatever) and do a “garage sale” to dry our gear.  So we sat by the road with our stuff spread all over the place and very happily had a cheerful meal, fervently thanking God for His help!

The road climbed up and up, then finally began a long descent.  By now we were way off our maps, and all we could hope for was that somehow we could connect to another road and find our way to Pagosa Springs, our next resupply town.  The road flattened out and went into a large green valley, when up ahead we saw CABINS!   CARS!   PEOPLE!   Now we could find out where we were and where to go!

On the porch of the first cabin were some guys talking, and a couple of dogs, who ruffed at us a bit.   To our dismay, the guys looked at us with a very UNfriendly glare, and when we greeted them, one said.  “Do you know that you’re TRESPASSING?  This is PRIVATE property.  And don’t say ‘We didn’t see a No Trespassing sign.’  We are not required to post those.  It’s YOUR job to know where the boundaries are.”

All we could do was to humbly apologize and explain that we had to bail out off the CDT, down the Navajo River.  “That’s impossible,” one of the men said.  “No way can you get down here from up there.”   We told him that yes, we did, and I got out the map and showed him our route.  The guys were amazed, and softened up a bit, so we told them again how we were very sorry we were for trespassing, and if they would just tell us the route to follow, we would get off their land ASAP.  The guys told us which way to go, and we hurried away as fast as we could.

We had walked some distance down the ranch road that led out to the highway, when Fixit decided he wanted to get some water from a creek that looked pretty iffy to me.  So he stopped there, while I kept walking.  No problem–I knew he would catch up with me, and I was anxious to get off the ranch property and reach the highway ASAP.  Awhile later, I spotted a pickup truck coming toward me along the road.  Odd–the truck looked somehow familiar.  And it didn’t just pass me by–it stopped, and out stepped the SAME guy–the ranch manager– who had given me a ride back to the hotel in Chama!  “Remember me?” he said.  Oh yes, I certainly did!  And in my own head, I was saying to God, “I am totally amazed!  Only You could engineer this.  Only You could work it out so this guy already knows me!”

Well, it turned out that the guys back up at the cabins had called him about “two trespassing hikers headed down the road” and when they described us to him over the phone, he immediately wondered if it was me, the hiker lady he had picked up in Chama.  Well sure enough, it was!  So he’d come to pick up Fixit and I in order to “escort” us OFF the ranch.  I quickly tossed my pack in the back of the truck and rode with him till we spotted Fixit, and then he turned around and headed for Highway 84.

As it turned out, it was a very long way out to the highway.  If Fixit and I had tried to walk it, I think it would have been an all-day adventure.  The ranch manager was very cheerful and kind, but very firm about “You guys can’t walk this road; it’s private property.”  Apparently the ranch is a huge private nature preserve, not a cattle ranch.  It’s called “Banded Peak Ranch”, and they are using it to do various studies with wildlife, forest management, etc.  The manager told us about their work in improving the forest by thinning and controlled burns, plus encouraging the elk and deer (they are very proud of their large elk/deer population) and they are doing everything they can to protect and encourage the native cutthroat trout.  They do have one income source, though–in elk hunting season, they charge huge sums of money to wealthy guys who want to go hunting but still have lots of “city comforts”.

The manager also told us what it’s like to live at the Ranch year-round, and spoke with justifiable pride about his own kids, who are growing up to be strong not just in body but in mind and spirit as well.  We told him how much trouble we’d had, trying to find the trail in the snow, and he said, “Snow’s melting fast–another couple of weeks and you should be fine.”  He dropped us off at Highway 84, and at the intersection there was an old gas station/convenience store, which was closed, but there were people working on renovating it.  I was able to get all the water we needed from an outdoor faucet on the side of one of the buildings, and we drank our fill of Emergen-C plus electrolytes.  Man, did it taste good!

A sign along the highway said it was 24 miles to Pagosa Springs, so we started walking.  Now that we were down off the mountaintops, we were spared the usual afternoon thunderstorm, but it was very warm.  We were in cattle ranch country, and I guess the cows weren’t used to seeing hikers–they came over to the fences to stare at us, and then the whole herd would run alongside following us.  There were so many of them that it really did make a “thundering” noise.  Some places had horses instead of cows, and several of the horses had little colts with them.  The horses also followed us along their fencelines, as far as they could.  It was all very entertaining.  We stopped in a wide turnout to eat some dinner.  And even though that was pretty much the last of our food, we had no worries, because the ranch manager said that up ahead along the highway, there were places where we could get something to eat.

At 7 pm, we found a place down below the road and somewhat out of sight, to set up a cowboy camp.  We didn’t want to put up the tent, because we didn’t want to attract attention, and I was a bit concerned about mosquitoes, but there were only a few, and we were soon very comfortable.  What a day!   Starting with a terrifying river crossing, and ending up camped by the road to Pagosa Springs!  But it was a totally “God” day.  Only God could help us find that elk trail.  Only God could help us find the ranch road.  And for sure, only God could have engineered that the very same guy I’d ALREADY MET in Chama, was the manager of the ranch.  Wow.