SUMMARY:<\/p>\n
We are beyond grateful to God for the wonders he did for us today.<\/p>\n
DETAILS:<\/p>\n
It was a bit dark at 5:20 am, down in the canyon near the Navajo\u00a0River, and I was NOT looking forward to walking right into it.\u00a0 As\u00a0we were\u00a0getting into our cold wet socks and cold wet pants, I was listening to the roar of the river and thinking, “Oh Lord, HELP!”\u00a0 Fixit said, “You’d better not try to cross by yourself.\u00a0 Your trek poles are just about dead.\u00a0 With the force of that water, they might just collapse and you’d be in big trouble.\u00a0 We’d better do the SERIOUS river crossing technique.”\u00a0 What he meant was, I must stow my trek poles (tie them to the top of my pack) and then get behind him, holding on to his pack, and then we sidestep across together.\u00a0 That way the fiercest force of the water hits HIM and I’m slightly more protected.\u00a0 We’d done this several times before when we were on the PCT.<\/p>\n
When we got to the riverbank, I was glad to see that the water level was indeed down, but the force of the current was still enormous.\u00a0 We prayed and stepped in to the icy water.\u00a0 Wow.\u00a0 It was seriously scary, but we just kept sidestepping and finally reached the other side and climbed out, VERY thankful!\u00a0 My legs from the knee down felt like blocks of ice.<\/p>\n
Down the canyon we went, knowing that it was quite a way to go before we reached the road.\u00a0 And that is where the miracles really got going.\u00a0 We were bushwhacking along, with lots of climbing over logs and slogging through wet stuff, when Fixit decided “Let’s try going UP a bit, higher on the canyon wall.\u00a0 Maybe it will be a bit easier up there.”\u00a0 And that’s where we found an ELK TRAIL that was beyond awesome.\u00a0 We were able to follow that trail all the way down to the road!\u00a0 It unerringly took us through what would otherwise have been some seemingly impassable terrain, including one area that was all steep cliffs, where the canyon became a narrow gorge with the river roaring and foaming at the bottom.\u00a0 I admit to being very scared during parts of this “cliffy stuff” because I do not like heights and big dropoffs with whitewater at the bottom of them.\u00a0 Fixit was very patient–he does not mind scary stuff at all.\u00a0 But the elk had made it through, and so did we.\u00a0 And even during the worst of the scary part, I kept thanking God that at least we had the elk path, and I was grateful for it.<\/p>\n
The elk trail literally dropped us off at the road (we learned later that this road was built so that elk hunters could access the back country) and we happily started walking along, marvelling at how God had guided us.\u00a0 Without that elk trail, we would have been faced with a SERIOUSLY difficult situation.<\/p>\n
The road wound its way down the mountain, and finally\u00a0came back\u00a0to the Navajo River.\u00a0 Alas, when it reached the river (at this point, a roaring whitewater torrent) there was NO bridge, only a ford–obviously for use in summer or fall, when the\u00a0water level\u00a0was much lower.\u00a0 There was no way we could ever get across.\u00a0 So once again, I looked at the edges of our map, and right by the trimmed edge a bit farther up the map, I found a place where it looked like the road crossed the river AGAIN.\u00a0 That meant if we stayed on our side of that torrent, and bushwhacked down, we could reconnect with the road!<\/p>\n
So the bushwhack began.\u00a0 We had no elk trail to help us this time, and we had a LOT of climbing over logs, scrambling down into steep rocky gullies, and even a small canyon to negotiate.\u00a0 Some parts were (for me) rather scary.\u00a0 But we kept going, and finally Fixit (who was up ahead searching for the best route) yelled, “THE ROAD!”\u00a0\u00a0 Sure enough, there it was, switchbacking UP from the river!\u00a0\u00a0 To say we were relieved would be an understatement!\u00a0\u00a0 We decided to stop and eat lunch (it was late, but whatever) and do a “garage sale” to dry our gear.\u00a0 So we sat by the road with our stuff spread all over the place and very happily had a cheerful meal, fervently thanking God for His help!<\/p>\n
The road climbed up and up, then finally began a long descent.\u00a0 By now we were way off our maps, and all we could hope for was that somehow we could connect to another road and find our way to Pagosa Springs, our next resupply town.\u00a0 The road flattened out and went into a large green valley, when up ahead we saw CABINS!\u00a0\u00a0 CARS!\u00a0\u00a0 PEOPLE!\u00a0\u00a0 Now we could find out where we were and where to go!<\/p>\n
On the porch of the first cabin were some guys talking, and a couple of dogs, who ruffed at us a bit.\u00a0\u00a0 To our dismay, the guys looked at us with a very UNfriendly glare, and when we greeted them, one said.\u00a0 “Do you know that you’re TRESPASSING?\u00a0 This is PRIVATE property.\u00a0 And don’t say ‘We didn’t see a No Trespassing sign.’\u00a0 We are not required to post those.\u00a0 It’s YOUR job to know where the boundaries are.”<\/p>\n
All we could do was to humbly apologize and explain that we had to bail out off the CDT, down the Navajo River.\u00a0 “That’s impossible,” one of the men said.\u00a0 “No way can you get down here from up there.”\u00a0\u00a0 We told him that yes, we did, and I got out the map and showed him our route.\u00a0 The guys were amazed, and\u00a0softened up a bit,\u00a0so we told them again how we\u00a0were\u00a0very sorry we were for trespassing, and if they would just tell us the route to follow, we would get off their land ASAP.\u00a0 The guys told us which way to go, and we hurried away as fast as we could.<\/p>\n
We had walked some distance down the ranch road that led out to the highway, when Fixit decided he wanted to get some water from a creek that looked pretty iffy to me.\u00a0 So he stopped there, while I kept walking.\u00a0 No problem–I knew he would catch up with me, and I was anxious to get off the ranch property and\u00a0reach the highway ASAP.\u00a0 Awhile later, I spotted a pickup truck coming toward me along the road.\u00a0 Odd–the truck looked somehow familiar.\u00a0 And it didn’t just pass me by–it stopped, and out stepped the SAME guy–the ranch manager–\u00a0who had given me a ride back to the hotel in Chama!\u00a0 “Remember me?” he said.\u00a0 Oh yes, I certainly did!\u00a0 And in my own head, I was saying to God, “I am totally amazed!\u00a0 Only You could engineer this.\u00a0 Only You could work it out so this guy already knows me!”<\/p>\n
Well, it turned out that the guys back up at the cabins had called him about “two trespassing hikers headed down the road” and when they described us to him over the phone, he immediately wondered if it was me, the hiker lady he had picked up in Chama.\u00a0 Well sure enough, it was!\u00a0 So he’d come to pick up Fixit and I\u00a0in order to\u00a0“escort” us OFF the ranch.\u00a0 I quickly\u00a0tossed my pack in the back of the truck and rode with him till we spotted Fixit, and then he turned around and headed for Highway 84.<\/p>\n
As it turned out, it was a very long way out to the highway.\u00a0 If Fixit and I had tried to walk it, I think it would have been an all-day adventure.\u00a0 The ranch manager was very cheerful and kind, but very firm about “You guys can’t walk this road; it’s private property.”\u00a0 Apparently the ranch is a huge private nature preserve, not a cattle ranch.\u00a0 It’s called “Banded Peak Ranch”, and they are using it to do various studies with wildlife, forest management, etc.\u00a0 The manager told us about their work in improving the forest by thinning and controlled burns, plus encouraging the elk and deer (they are very proud of their large elk\/deer population) and they are doing everything they can to protect and encourage the native cutthroat trout. \u00a0They do have one income source, though–in elk hunting season, they charge huge sums of money to wealthy guys who want to go hunting but still have lots of “city comforts”.<\/p>\n
The manager also told us what it’s like to live at the Ranch year-round, and spoke with justifiable pride about his own kids, who are growing up to be strong not just in body but in mind and spirit as well.\u00a0 We told him how much trouble we’d had, trying to find the trail in the snow, and he said, “Snow’s melting fast–another couple of weeks and you should be fine.”\u00a0 He dropped us off at Highway 84, and at the intersection there was an old gas station\/convenience store, which was closed, but there were people working on renovating it.\u00a0 I was able to get all the water we needed from an outdoor faucet on the side of one of the buildings, and we drank our fill of Emergen-C plus electrolytes.\u00a0 Man, did it taste good!<\/p>\n
A sign along the highway said it was 24 miles to Pagosa Springs, so we started walking.\u00a0 Now that we were down off the mountaintops, we were spared the usual afternoon thunderstorm, but it was very warm.\u00a0 We were in cattle ranch country, and I guess the cows weren’t used to seeing hikers–they came over to the fences to stare at us, and then the whole herd would run alongside following us.\u00a0 There were so many of them that it really did make a “thundering” noise.\u00a0 Some places had horses instead of cows, and several of the horses had little colts with them.\u00a0 The horses also followed us along their fencelines, as far as they could.\u00a0 It was all very entertaining.\u00a0 We stopped in a wide turnout to eat some dinner.\u00a0 And even though\u00a0that was pretty much the last of our\u00a0food, we had no worries, because the ranch manager said that up ahead along the highway, there were places where we could get something to eat.<\/p>\n
At 7 pm, we found a place down below the road and somewhat out of sight, to set up a cowboy camp.\u00a0 We didn’t want to put up the tent, because we didn’t want to attract attention, and I was a bit concerned about mosquitoes, but there were only a few, and we were soon very comfortable.\u00a0 What a day!\u00a0\u00a0 Starting with a terrifying river crossing, and ending up camped by the road to Pagosa Springs!\u00a0 But it was a totally “God” day.\u00a0 Only God could help us find that elk trail.\u00a0 Only God could help us find the ranch road.\u00a0 And for sure, only God could have engineered that the very same guy I’d ALREADY MET in Chama, was the manager of the ranch.\u00a0 Wow.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SUMMARY: We are beyond grateful to God for the wonders he did for us today. We safely crossed the East Fork of the Navajo River at 6:00am. Scary! Feet and legs like ice afterward. We needed to cross rugged terrain to connect with a road downriver. By “chance” (ha!) we found an elk trail that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=449"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":779,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/449\/revisions\/779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}