{"id":335,"date":"2016-06-01T05:43:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T05:43:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=335"},"modified":"2017-05-28T21:42:05","modified_gmt":"2017-05-28T21:42:05","slug":"thunder-rumblings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/06\/01\/thunder-rumblings\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday, June 1 Thunder Rumblings"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"june-1-2\"SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>The sky had only a few clouds in the early morning, but that did not last long.\u00a0 Big, dark gray ones came rolling in, and basically for the rest of the day, our hiking was accompanied by thunder, occasional sprinkles of rain, one downpour of hail, and some lightning that got kind of close.\u00a0 But in spite of it all, at 9:30 am we came to a river ford and at last we knew exactly where we were.\u00a0 But it means we did very few actual trail miles yesterday, so we will run out of food a day before we reach Cumbres Pass, if we don’t ration.\u00a0 But the scenery today was gorgeous, the sun came out as we were setting up camp, and we will see what tomorrow brings!<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>Last night I was in my sleeping bag, studying the maps, and concluded “I still don’t really know where we are.\u00a0 All I know is I think\u00a0we are on the CDT, maybe….?”<\/p>\n

In the morning, Fixit made the decision to use up the last of our cell phone battery to consult Guthook in hopes of locating where we were.\u00a0 No luck.\u00a0 On our phone (which is rather old), what we do is look at the shape and pattern of the “trail” as shown on the phone, then try to find that same shape\/pattern on the map.\u00a0 But no luck.\u00a0 We could not make any sense out of any of it.<\/p>\n

Fixit’s response was “Let’s sit down and really study the maps and try to figure this out.”\u00a0 My response was, “We have only\u00a0two days of food left.\u00a0\u00a0That’s not enough to spend a lot of time hunting for the trail.\u00a0 At this point, all we can do is find a road that will take us to\u00a0a town–then we can get more food AND we will know where we are.”\u00a0\u00a0 To further complicate the situation, Fixit was also convinced that we had been going the wrong way, and needed to go back.\u00a0 It took a lot of persuading for me to show him that if we went back, we would\u00a0actually be going back to Ghost Ranch, which is not what we wanted to do!\u00a0 Finally, after some debate, we decided to keep on walking along the road we were on.<\/p>\n

And then, HOORAY!\u00a0 We spotted a CDT emblem!\u00a0\u00a0And then another…and another.\u00a0 And then, oh joy!\u00a0 We reached a river crossing with some distinct features, and I FOUND US on the map!\u00a0 There was a log bridge over the river, but it was way too tilted to one side to be of any use.\u00a0 Fixit went off into the forest to look for a lever he could use to straighten the log, while I scouted for a ford.\u00a0 According to the map,\u00a0there was a place where the\u00a0river was only thigh deep, and yes, that was true!\u00a0 So I started across, very carefully.\u00a0 The current was strong but not scary strong.\u00a0 The problem was that the bottom of the river was full of smooth, rounded rocks covered with algae.\u00a0 Very slippery!\u00a0 And BRRR the water was cold–it was fresh snowmelt.\u00a0 But I made it, and sat down on the other side rejoicing to know where we were.\u00a0 I studied the maps and figured out that yesterday we only did a few\u00a0real CDT miles.\u00a0 Ouch.\u00a0 That puts us way behind.\u00a0 We will come into Chama\u00a0“running on fumes” foodwise.<\/p>\n

Eventually\u00a0Fixit came back–no luck finding a sufficient lever.\u00a0 He really did want to fix that log, so he was a bit disappointed.\u00a0 He does not like it when he can’t FIX something!\u00a0 He made it across the river, too, and since it was 9:30 am “Snickers break” time,\u00a0we\u00a0sat in the sun and relaxed for a few minutes.\u00a0 I felt like a huge weight was lifted off us, now that we knew where we were.<\/p>\n

When we shouldered our packs and headed out, dark gray\u00a0clouds were rolling in, and by lunchtime, \u00a0thunder was rumbling.\u00a0 \u00a0But we marched happily along, so glad to be on trail again, till we reached Hopewell Lake, with its campground and picnic area.\u00a0 It was raining at that point (with thunder) and we lost the trail again.\u00a0 It took about an hour of beating around before we finally were able to find it.\u00a0 Sadly, there were some\u00a0posters up about a missing\u00a0antler hunter.\u00a0\u00a0Apparently he went out with some friends recently to hunt for elk antlers, and at the end of the day, he never came back.\u00a0\u00a0Doesn’t sound good.<\/p>\n

But now we were back on trail, and after that, things went well.\u00a0 We were just beginning a roadwalk section when we met a ranger who told us how to locate the trail up ahead where it made a\u00a0right turn.\u00a0 As we hiked along the road, off to the left we could see two guys busy working with a Bobcat on building TRAIL so that future CDT hikers don’t have to walk the road.\u00a0 They saw us and waved and cheered!<\/p>\n

We found out later that several of our fellow CDT hikers, when they reached this road, simply hitch hiked to Chama, because like us, they had been “lost” so much that they didn’t have much food left.\u00a0 But we decided to go for it anyway.\u00a0 Once we got to the trail turnoff,\u00a0 we were back to dealing with mud and marsh and snowmelt, with the additional difficulty\u00a0of having a thunderstorm right over\u00a0us, spitting lightning.\u00a0 Our policy on this kind of situation is to keep going and pray, “Lord, You know where we are….send the lightning someplace else, and keep it from making trouble.”\u00a0 At one point, it began to hail, and we ducked under a tree to wait it out.\u00a0\u00a0 The temperature was dropping, and the rest of the afternoon it was very cold, with lightning and thunder continuing.<\/p>\n

At 7:00 pm, we stopped to camp at a spot where obviously someone else must have recently camped, because the grasses were flattened.\u00a0 And as we set up our tent, the sun came out!\u00a0\u00a0 The storm went\u00a0away and of course that meant a glorious sunset.\u00a0 I studied our maps and told Fixit, “Well, we have 48 miles to go, and one day of food.\u00a0 This will be interesting!\u00a0 But at least we’re on the trail!\u00a0 And the scenery today was gorgeous!”\u00a0\u00a0 Fixit agreed, and we burrowed into our sleeping bags for a cold night.<\/p>\n\n\t\t