{"id":149,"date":"2016-05-19T05:57:28","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T05:57:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=149"},"modified":"2017-05-20T16:05:32","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T16:05:32","slug":"amazing-rocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/05\/19\/amazing-rocks\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, May 19 Amazing Rocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"may-19-10\"SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>We woke up to a thick ground fog that made everything (including us and our gear) soaking wet and fringed with ice.\u00a0 But oh, it was beautiful!\u00a0 We packed up and walked out into what looked like a misty watercolor painting.\u00a0 Gradually the fog cleared, and we went through “The Narrows” where menacing black lava reaches the foot of dramatic sandstone cliffs, including the famous “Ventana Arch.”\u00a0 Many hikers do a trail that goes across the lava, but we skipped that (lava – very sore feet) and roadwalked into Grants, continually amazed at the rock formations.\u00a0 We had some trail magic, too, from a tourist family and from a ranger, and reached the Grants Motel 6, ate dinner and collapsed.\u00a0 Zero tomorrow!<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>In the dim light of early morning, Fixit woke me up.\u00a0 “Oh no!\u00a0 Everything is soaking wet, and we’re in a tule fog!”\u00a0 Sure enough–a look outside the tent showed ground fog so thick that we could barely\u00a0even see the road.\u00a0 Everything was soaking wet, and fringed with ice, both inside and outside.<\/p>\n

But being a thruhiker has its benefits, and one of them is previous experiences.\u00a0 So my response to Fixit was, “Oh boy!\u00a0 Washington State again.”\u00a0 We both remembered similar mornings on the PCT in Washington.\u00a0 So we sighed and got dressed and packed up our wet stuff and headed out into a magical, misty, beautiful\u00a0world.\u00a0 It was like walking in an old watercolor painting, with the sunrise light making the fog sort of glow.\u00a0 It was very cold (32 degrees).\u00a0 At one point, I stopped in awe–there was a sort of rainbow in the fog clouds!\u00a0 I’m afraid I started sounding like a broken record after awhile as we continued down the road, saying\u00a0 “This is so BEAUTIFUL!” over and over again.<\/p>\n

Soon we reached The Narrows, where dramatic, colorful sandstone cliffs meet up with menacing black lava.\u00a0 The road squeezes between the lava and the cliffs, and it’s a good thing we were on a ROAD, not a trail, because we spent most of our time looking up and doing some variant of “oooh, aaaah” because of the awesome, gnarly, color-layered rock formations.\u00a0 There was even a small natural arch right by the road that we could stand in.\u00a0\u00a0 We waited till things had warmed up a bit before stopping for breakfast at the Ventana Arch parking lot.\u00a0 The Arch was really impressive, but unfortunately it was still in early morning shadow and I could not get a decent picture of it.\u00a0\u00a0 We found a great sun patch, sat down\u00a0and leaned on the wooden fence \u00a0to soak up some rays and eat granola.<\/p>\n

As we were eating, along came a whole family (mom, dad, kids), who had just walked the Arch access trail.\u00a0 They were all wrapped up in blankets because it was so cold.\u00a0 Seeing us, they stopped by to talk and had a lot of questions about our CDT adventures.\u00a0 We’d noticed their car in the parking lot–a really old one that looked like it was on its last legs (or wheels).\u00a0 The family went to their car, unwrapped themselves from the blankets, and climbed in, except for the youngest boy.\u00a0 He came back over to us carrying two little bottles of Gatorade.\u00a0 “We want you to have this,” he said.\u00a0 “Good luck on your hike!”\u00a0 We were awed.\u00a0 Here was a family who obviously didn’t have much, and yet they were sharing what they had.\u00a0 So we told him how grateful we were and how this would really help us hike better today, while he looked pleased and scurried back to the car.\u00a0 After some difficulty, the car started (it sounded kind of rough) and the family drove away, waving to us.\u00a0 We hardly felt worthy to drink that Gatorade.\u00a0 But we could pray for the family, that they would make it safely to wherever they were going.<\/p>\n

The roadwalk continued, with more spectacular cliffs on our right, and lava flow on the left, which included “islands” of colorful rocks.\u00a0 We were pushing it a bit, hoping to make it all the way to Grants by tonight, when we met a group of 5 bicyclists all wearing matching shirts that said, “Flatlanders Riding the Divide.”\u00a0 Turned out they have been RIDING the Divide from Canada to Mexico, doing 300 miles each year, and they were on their last leg of the trip, looking forward to finishing.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 We wished them all the best and congratulated them!<\/p>\n

Many CDT hikers don’t walk the road as we were doing–they take a trail that goes across the lava field.\u00a0 But we feel like we did our lifetime quota of lava-walking on the PCT in 2005 and 2010.\u00a0 Lava walking = very sore feet.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So we stayed with the roadwalk instead.\u00a0 And besides that, one benefit of the road is that we can really look at the awesome scenery instead of having to stare at the ground, constantly calculating where to put our next footstep.<\/p>\n

By lunchtime, we had reached El Malpais BLM ranger station, where we planned to get water and eat.\u00a0 But the driveway up to the station was closed.\u00a0 No problem–we walked past the gate and went there anyway, because we wanted to do a “garage sale” to dry out all our wet stuff.\u00a0 Sure enough, there was a picnic table and benches and lots of places to spread out our gear.\u00a0 The rangers were there, and very friendly, but apologized that there was no water–in fact, they were working to fix a water main break, and that was why they were closed.\u00a0 Some of the rangers were also working on making a firebreak around the station, anticipating the dry season ahead.\u00a0 One of the rangers sat down and ate lunch with us.\u00a0 He said the\u00a0ground fog (we San Francisco Bay Area people call it a “tule fog”) was normal for this time of year, and made\u00a0his drive to work every morning a bit of a challenge.\u00a0 He also insisted on giving us a bunch of his own water, since none was available at the\u00a0ranger station.\u00a0 Once our stuff was all nice and dry, we headed out.\u00a0 It was 1:30 pm, and we had 15 miles to go.\u00a0 Do-able, but we’d have to walk fast.<\/p>\n

We hadn’t gone far when to our surprise, we met Hippy Longstocking, hiking SOUTHbound.\u00a0\u00a0We told her about the water situation at the ranger station, and she looked a bit grim, since\u00a0she was counting on getting water there.\u00a0 All we could do was wish her luck.\u00a0 Soon we could see I-40 in the distance and trains going by over the pass.\u00a0 Logically, I should have taken it\u00a0easy more, but the sight of the highway and the trains, and all I could think was “FOOD!\u00a0\u00a0 SHOWER!\u00a0\u00a0 BED!” and began to go as fast as I could, even though I was\u00a0very tired.\u00a0 The last 6 miles were along a very busy highway with a narrow shoulder, so we were constantly having to detour into rough ground and weeds to get out of the way of cars.\u00a0 At 6:00 pm, Fixit announced that he was hungry and wanted to stop and eat.\u00a0 At that point, I could actually SEE way up ahead, the Motel 6 where we were planning to stay.\u00a0 There was no cafe or\u00a0place to eat along the road, so it would mean sitting down in the weeds and trash to eat something from our packs.<\/p>\n

So I told Fixit, “I don’t want to stop.\u00a0 Look!\u00a0 There’s our motel, over there!\u00a0 I’ll keep on hiking–I’m sure you will\u00a0catch up with me, no problem!”\u00a0 So that’s what we did.\u00a0 Fixit stopped and detoured into the weeds, and I kept on going.\u00a0 I was desperately tired.\u00a0 In retrospect, I realize it would have been a good idea to at least stop and rest, but I was so determined to make it to Motel 6 ASAP, that I just kept on going, looking at the interesting features of the outskirts of Grants.\u00a0 One place I passed was a car tire place\u00a0surrounded by scary-looking razor wire and two even scarier-looking snarling dogs inside.\u00a0 One of them would make a great “hound of the Baskervilles.”\u00a0\u00a0 There were small neighborhoods with little houses, and what I wondered about was why nobody seemed to have a garden, not even a fruit tree.\u00a0 Most of the yards were just bare dirt, or maybe a bit\u00a0of grass and a couple of bushes.\u00a0 There were no flowers and no veges anywhere.\u00a0\u00a0Trains were going by constantly, which was really great–I love trains!\u00a0 And there were lots of cute wild bunny rabbits, which might\u00a0explain why nobody has a garden??<\/p>\n

Fixit caught up with me just before the turnoff to the Motel 6, which involved getting over the I-40 freeway and the railroad tracks.\u00a0 The overpass was for cars only–no room for people on foot.\u00a0 So all we could do was pray and then RUN as fast as we could.\u00a0 Whew, we made it, and soon we were at the Motel 6 by 7:30 pm.\u00a0 After a brief cleanup, and putting on our “town shirts”, we headed to Denny’s restaurant and ate till we were totally stuffed.\u00a0 Showers followed, then we completely collapsed.\u00a0 I felt like I never wanted to move again.\u00a0 But before we went to sleep, Fixit read Psalm 107, which includes “They (Israel) wandered in the wilderness in a desolate way…hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.\u00a0 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses…and led them forth in the right way.”\u00a0 Then verse 8 says, “Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, for His wonderful works to the children of men.”\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 We know about that, for sure!\u00a0 And we ARE grateful!\u00a0 Like Joe Anderson at Casa de Luna on the PCT says, “It’s not just trail magic.\u00a0 Give God the credit He deserves.”<\/p>\n\n\t\t