SUMMARY:  We had a bright idea for an alternate route off the Divide so that we could get out of the mess of blowdowns and poorly marked trail. It was very plain on the map and we wondered why J. Ley hadn’t recommended it.  Well, turned out that we got ourselves all entangled in private property, with “No Trespassing” signs everywhere we looked.  But going way back up to the CDT mess was not an option, so we climbed over a gate and bushwhacked through the sagebrush, climbed over another gate, and reconnected with the CDT. All this before a rather late breakfast!

After that, we followed Ley’s alternate route toward Rawlins. It’s a roadwalk through the foothills—lots of up and down. The terrain is terraced and gullied, with alkali water creeks. The clouds were spectacular and the breeze helped keep us cool and we loved the big vistas after so much walking in forest. We are camped by the road tonight.

DETAILS:  The birds cheerfully singing and cows mooing were our wakeup call this morning, which was perfect, because we were really looking forward to finishing up “the mess” and being back where we can just hike.  Last night I was studying the maps and spotted what looked like a really nice route on dirt roads.  Strangely, J.Ley didn’t have it marked at all and I thought that was odd.  Often his maps look like a bowl of spaghetti, with many different alternates to get from a Point A to a Point B.  But this route was not marked.

At first, though, we were still on the CDT, which was basically following a fenceline (hmmm, that should have given me a heads-up…fences with No Trespassing signs…)  The CDT finally arrived at one of the dirt roads I had spotted on my map last night, and on the other side of the road, oh great!  The trail completely disappeared.  That did it!  Forget the CDT!  Enough!  We turned on to the road and began the alternate route I’d figured out.  The cows, which were all over the place, became very flustered when we came into view.  They started mooing and running.  I felt bad about that–I know the ranchers hate it when hikers scare the cows.  But there was no way to let them know “we come in peace”.  So we walked along in the dust clouds they left behind as they ran ahead of us down the road.

Eventually we came to a gate and oh no!  It had a large and emphatic “No Trespassing” sign on it.  Sigh.  So I looked at the map and saw that if we went back a little way to a junction we’d just passed, there was another road we could use instead.  So we walked for awhile along the second road until–ANOTHER gate and another “No Trespassing” sign blocked our way.  Argh.  Our options now were only two: Go all the way back to the CDT and play “Find the trail in the blowdowns” or climb over the gate and take our chances.  We chose Option 2.  Again, we know how the ranchers feel about their property, and we hated to disregard the sign, but we just could not face Option 1.

So at that point, we figured, “Let’s get out of here, ASAP” and took a crosscountry shortcut through the chaparral.  Though this did involve some squiggling around bushes, and a couple of easy creek crossings, it was way easier than blowdowns and mess.  Finally there was one more gate to climb over, and we were back on the CDT!  What a relief!  At that point, we finally stopped for a rather late breakfast.

While we were eating, we looked at our maps.  The official CDT from here followed the dirt road we were on, down to a gravel road, then followed that road a ways before turning off and going back to trail again.  But J.Ley showed another route–just walk the gravel road, which was shorter and easier.  We’d already lost so much time that we decided on Ley’s route.

So that’s how we began an ALL day gravel roadwalk.  Tough on feet!  For the rest of the morning, the road wound up and down (mostly up) through sagebrush country and foothills.  We were astonished to see SNOW still lingering on many of the hills nearby, even though the weather was warm and dry.  We saw several antelope, a hawk, and jackrabbits.  The plants are mostly just grayish sagebrush, with occasional green areas with a few wildflowers where there is some water ( I say “water”, but every creek we crossed was ugly alkali gray-green, and yucky-smelling.  In fact, even the dust here smells yucky.  I guess it’s the all-pervasive alkali.)

Clouds began to build up in the sky and soon we were walking along in much cooler cloud shadow.  Nice!  I like geology stuff, and the rocks were fascinating.  Everything is very terraced-looking, and I commented to Fixit, “Yeah, looks like a water recession zone from the Flood.”  I have to laugh every time I think of the introduction I read once in a geology textbook.  It basically said, “When you look at the geologic evidence, you would think that once there was actually a worldwide flood as mentioned in the Bible.  But of course we know that’s just myth.  We know that what we see is the result of millions of years and natural processes.”  Sure.  Uh-huh. Let’s ignore the obvious evidence in favor of our preconceived notions.  That’s not exactly science!

Of course, since we were walking on a road, various cars and trucks went by.  Some roared past us at full speed, leaving us to walk in an alkali dust cloud for some way, while others very kindly slowed down.  One guy even stopped and gave us some water!  And there were the bikers.   They’d come pedalling towards us saying, “Hi, hikers!” and we’d grin back at them with “Hi, bikers!”  They are RIDING the Divide from Canada to Mexico, and camping along the way, so their bikes are loaded up with saddlebags.  They also told us that this morning they’d passed 8 or 10 CDT hikers like us, all headed for Rawlins.  Looks like we are in a “hiker bubble”.

But by 5:30 suppertime, we were two very tired and footsore CDT’ers.  The road gravel is small enough not to twist your ankles, but large enough to hurt when you walk on it all day.  After the supper break, we determinedly shouldered our packs (sore shoulders too, from the weight of water we’ve been having to carry) and pushed on, while the clouds overhead grew thicker and darker.  Soon we could see that rain was trying to fall, but not reaching the ground.  Finally at 7:00, we were able to spot a flat place off the road, that was UPWIND from the road–very important, because every time a car goes by, there is a cloud of dust, and we didn’t want those dust clouds blowing all over us all night!  Unfortunately, though the ground was flat, it was also very lumpy, and there was no way to avoid it.

Oh well–we set up our tent, admiring the gorgeous sunset, and just as we were into our sleeping bags, we had a visitor!  A dog (named Corby as it turned out) was riding in the back of his owner’s pickup truck.  Corby spotted our tent as the truck went by on the road, jumped out, ran over and tried to get into the tent with us!   The owner stopped and came over and tried to get Corby to come with him, but the dog didn’t want to come.  Finally he had to just grab poor Corby by the collar and drag him away, while apologizing to us for Corby being such a nuisance.  We felt bad for Corby–I don’t think he is a happy dog.  Who knows what his life must be like, if he was desperate enough to try to hide with us?

After that, we just watched the sunset till it faded into night, thinking to ourselves, “Rawlins tomorrow!”