{"id":337,"date":"2016-06-02T05:44:50","date_gmt":"2016-06-02T05:44:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=337"},"modified":"2017-05-29T14:31:11","modified_gmt":"2017-05-29T14:31:11","slug":"moments-of-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/06\/02\/moments-of-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Thursday, June 2 Moments of Joy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"june-2-8\"SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>Several times every day (and today was no exception) we lose the trail and don’t know where to go.\u00a0 Some of those “lost” moments last 5 minutes, others last an hour or more.\u00a0 But there is always the moment of joy when we sot a CDT emblem on a tree or post!\u00a0 What a massive relief!\u00a0 Today we were “lost” and hunting for the trail at least 4 times, one of them at 5 pm in a dark snowy forest.\u00a0 But we always found the trail in the end and had the joyful moment of “Look!\u00a0 A CDT sticker!”\u00a0 Today there were magnificent meadows, green forests, scary cliff walks, lakes and quite a lot of snow.\u00a0 We are camped way up on the Divide tonight, at 10,800′ elevation.\u00a0 We feel like we are on top of the world, plus there is awesome alpine scenery!<\/p>\n

DETAILS: <\/strong>Well, if we hadn’t got so “lost” on Tuesday, we might have been heading into Chama today.\u00a0 Oh well.\u00a0 Today we managed to get lost again FIVE times, the worst situation being at 5:00 pm when we were in a forest full of snow and the trail disappeared.<\/p>\n

This morning, we headed out along Trail 41, which had a lot of snowbanks next to the trail that were melting fast and turning the trail tread into a muddy mess.\u00a0 We tried to go around the messes as best we could.\u00a0 But aside from that, it was a very spectacular area, scenery-wise.\u00a0 There were huge, dramatic rocky outcroppings and cliffs and areas where the trail\u00a0edged around\u00a0rock fields.\u00a0 Some of the rocks in those rock fields were HUGE.\u00a0 We stopped and looked at them and marveled, “How did that huge rock ever get over here?”\u00a0 I can see why the trailbuilders opted to go around and not through the rock fields!<\/p>\n

It was a bright, sunny morning–after all those clouds and thunder yesterday, we were really glad to have the sunshine.\u00a0 Besides the rock fields, the trail was mostly in forest,\u00a0but finally we reached a huge green meadow area, where the trail route was marked by posts and cairns.\u00a0 We hiked happily along, till finally in one very long uphill meadow, the posts and cairns disappeared, and so did all signs of trail.\u00a0 Our Guthook was gone because the battery was used up, so it was just us and our eyes and our maps.\u00a0 We\u00a0spent quite awhile checking every possibility of where the trail might have gone, and finally, way up at the top of the meadow, I spotted a fence with a gate and a CDT emblem!\u00a0 Talk about a moment of joy and relief!<\/p>\n

From the gate, the trail headed down into a canyon, way, way down.\u00a0 This involved multiple creek crossings.\u00a0 Unfortunately once again, we lost the trail, and ended up bushwhacking down a steep, muddy, rocky hillside till we reached the bottom, where we had to also crawl under a fence.\u00a0 We tried to joke about this a bit, “It’s still New Mexico–gotta stay in practice at going under fences!”\u00a0\u00a0But we found the CDT again (another moment of joy, spotting an emblem!)\u00a0\u00a0 Now the trail headed up high and followed the\u00a0edge of\u00a0 a dramatic and awesome\u00a0cliff.\u00a0 Ack!\u00a0 I was so scared!\u00a0 I had to use my favorite coping technique–just\u00a0focus totally on the TRAIL and ignore what’s going on around it (like huge dropoffs!).\u00a0 To add to the fun,\u00a0we were walking straight toward a thunderstorm.\u00a0 We made it past the cliff stuff and stopped for lunch, keeping a wary eye on the weather.\u00a0 There was still enough sun that we dared get our sleeping bags out to air, as we always try to do at lunchtime.<\/p>\n

After lunch, the trail dropped down again into a very pretty lake ‘n creek zone.\u00a0 We stopped to get water, and shortly after that, sigh…we lost the trail AGAIN.\u00a0 And it started to rain.\u00a0 But hooray!\u00a0 Another moment of joy!\u00a0 A CDT sticker!\u00a0 Back on trail, up we went to another scary cliff traverse–whew, was I glad to get through that.\u00a0 Again, gorgeous scenery, but with so little food and nasty weather, it kind of took the fun out of it.\u00a0 I was so glad to be back in easy terrain with no cliffs, when a fierce wind began to blow and it started to hail.\u00a0 We scrambled for cover.\u00a0 I was thinking, “This is ridiculous.\u00a0 Today is like crazy.”\u00a0\u00a0 But the hail stopped, the clouds began to break up, and a little while later, the sun came out for awhile!\u00a0 We were thinking, “This is the kind of weather we were expecting in Colorado…is this an early ‘welcome to Colorado’?<\/p>\n

Then the trail headed into a snowcovered forest.\u00a0 Basically what happens is that out in the meadows, the snow is gone and it’s mud and muck, but in the forests, the snow remains.\u00a0 We were very happy to see a lot of footprints in the snow, all travelling along together.\u00a0 But after awhile, the footprints began to split up and wander all over the place.\u00a0 It was late in the afternoon and we were very tired.\u00a0 I stood there looking at the dark forest and all the snow for a minute and sighed and got out the maps.\u00a0After some thinking and studying, I concluded that if we just bushwhacked off to the right, we HAD to hit one of the forest roads, and from there we could figure something out.\u00a0 So that’s what we did.\u00a0 I cheered when I spotted the road, and then cheered even louder when I saw a post with a CDT emblem!\u00a0 Another moment of joy!\u00a0 At that point we sat down and ate some cold dinner.\u00a0 While we were eating, along came another CDT hiker–Cerveza.\u00a0 She was hiking along the road, and told us “I am so DONE with losing the trail–from here on out, I’m hiking the ROAD.”\u00a0 We said a fervent “Amen” to that, because that’s exactly what we had decided to do!<\/p>\n

So for the rest of the day, we happily followed a road (the CDT trail had disappeared into the forest again–NO WAY are we going back there!).\u00a0 The road runs right along the top of the Divide, at around 10,800 feet or so.\u00a0 It felt as if we were on top of the world, in classic alpine country.\u00a0 Up ahead of us were the massive, snowy mountains of Colorado, and way down below, we could see green valleys.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 Awesome!\u00a0 At one point, we caught up with Cerveza–she had stopped to watch a little mini-drama with a porcupine and a coyote.\u00a0 I was also \u00a0able to spot them both.\u00a0 Apparently the coyote had decided it wanted porky for dinner, but when it got pretty close, the porky acted threatening and the coyote changed its mind and left.\u00a0 Wise coyote!\u00a0 He probably saved himself a facefull of quills.\u00a0 Finally we stopped for the day behind some trees.\u00a0 The wind was blowing pretty hard, and the weather looked iffy, so we did set up the tent.\u00a0 The only food we have left is breakfast and a few odds ‘n ends.\u00a0 Hope we make Chama tomorrow!<\/p>\n\n\t\t