SUMMARY:  We met a couple of hunters today (out on a pre-season expedition). They said the forecast for today was 90 degrees — yikes! But clouds moved in, and it was overcast all day, which made hiking much more pleasant. Basically we were in forest all day, with an occasional meadow, one rather swampy lake, and a couple of glimpses of valleys below.

Sometimes the forest was so thick and the trees crowded so close together that it was almost like walking through a giant corn maze. Some of the undergrowth is beginning to show fall color. We were “lost” for awhile today, even with the Garmin, and at the end of the day, we were disappointed to find we’d only done 21 miles. Thought we did better than that—oh well.

DETAILS:  It never got cold last night, and I didn’t even need to put my jacket on to eat breakfast.  I was thinking, “Oh boy, it’s gonna be a hot one today!”  The smell of smoke is still very strong and the sunrise was very “smoky” too–so smoky that it was hard to see the fact that there were clouds in the sky.

In the morning, we had our first time of going over some “new style” cattle guards–no pit needed.  Nice!  It was a very warm morning, but tempered by the overcast skies.  The trail was pretty much in thick forest all day, with hardly any views.  But the few views we had showed us that we are WAY up high!

One nice thing today was that somebody had been through and logged out all the blowdowns.  It would have been really awful getting through here, otherwise.  One of the worst was where several trees all went down together in a giant pile.  But no problem–“Paul Bunyan” had cut a way through it.   Sometimes we did get to go through some pretty meadows.  There are still wildflowers, including a lot of what looks like a small yellow snapdragon.

To our great surprise, we were leapfrogging all day with Shepherd.  Normally he would be way faster than us, but he says for some reason he’s really tired, and he has a very heavy pack with enough food to get him all the way to Lincoln.  Part of what’s slowing him down (and us, too) is that getting water has become a tedious business.  The springs are all barely trickling, and the only way to get water is to collect it in a cup before pouring it into our platypuses.  Sloooow.

We also missed a turn in the trail near Cottonwood “Lake”.  (Swamp would be a better term–it’s not really a lake.)  We finally realized our mistake and went back, but even with the Garmin, we still could not find the trail.  Grrrr.  So we ended up just bushwhacking straight up the mountain until voila!  The trail!  After that came a big climb around Thunderbolt Mountain.  It was still overcast, hooray–otherwise it would have been really tough to do all that climbing in sun and heat.

Along the way we met two guys who were out on a pre-hunting season survey trip.  They told us that the weather forecast had been for 90 degree heat, but the clouds were taking care of that.  When they found out that we’d walked all the way here from Mexico, they were very impressed and insisted on shaking hands “with 2 tough people.”

In the afternoon, the trail was often confusing and we had to stop and look at maps and Garmin several times.  At 7:00 we found a nice campsite in the forest, and I was bummed that we only made 21 miles.  But I guess with all the time spent getting water and being “lost”, that’s what happened.  And we are just plain tired.  It’s been a long trail!