{"id":530,"date":"2016-07-15T04:30:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-15T04:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/?p=530"},"modified":"2017-05-02T14:49:33","modified_gmt":"2017-05-02T14:49:33","slug":"heading-for-the-desert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/2016\/07\/15\/heading-for-the-desert\/","title":{"rendered":"Friday, July 15 Heading for the Desert"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 <\/strong>We had a bright idea for an alternate route off the Divide so that we could get out of the mess of blowdowns and poorly marked trail. It was very plain on the map and we wondered why J. Ley hadn’t recommended it.\u00a0 Well, turned out that we got ourselves all entangled in private property, with “No Trespassing” signs everywhere we looked.\u00a0 But going way back up to the CDT mess was not an option, so we climbed over a gate and bushwhacked through the sagebrush, climbed over another gate, and reconnected with the CDT. All this before a rather late breakfast!<\/p>\n

After that, we followed Ley’s alternate route toward Rawlins. It’s a roadwalk through the foothills\u2014lots of up and down. The terrain is terraced and gullied, with alkali water creeks. The clouds were spectacular and the breeze helped keep us cool and we loved the big vistas after so much walking in forest. We are camped by the road tonight.<\/p>\n

DETAILS:\u00a0 <\/strong>The birds cheerfully singing and cows mooing were our wakeup call this morning, which was perfect, because we were really looking forward to finishing up “the mess” and being back where we can just hike.\u00a0 Last night I was studying the maps and spotted what looked like a really nice route on dirt roads.\u00a0 Strangely, J.Ley didn’t have it marked at all and I thought that was odd.\u00a0 Often his maps look like a bowl of spaghetti, with many different alternates to get from a Point A to a Point B.\u00a0 But this route was not marked.<\/p>\n

At first, though, we were still on the CDT, which was basically following a fenceline (hmmm, that should have given me a heads-up…fences with No Trespassing signs…)\u00a0 The CDT finally arrived at one of the dirt roads I had spotted on my map last night, and on the other side of the road, oh great!\u00a0 The trail completely disappeared.\u00a0 That did it!\u00a0 Forget the CDT!\u00a0 Enough!\u00a0 We turned on to the road and began the alternate route I’d figured out.\u00a0 The cows, which were all over the place, became very flustered when we came into view.\u00a0 They started mooing and running.\u00a0 I felt bad about that–I know the ranchers hate it when hikers scare the cows.\u00a0 But there was no way to let them know “we come in peace”.\u00a0 So we walked along in the dust clouds they left behind as they ran ahead of us down the road.<\/p>\n

Eventually we came to a gate and oh no!\u00a0 It had a large and emphatic “No Trespassing” sign on it.\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 So I looked at the map and saw that if we went back a little way to a junction we’d just passed, there was another road we could use instead.\u00a0 So we walked for awhile along the second road until–ANOTHER gate and another “No Trespassing” sign blocked our way.\u00a0 Argh.\u00a0 Our options now were only two: Go all the way back to the CDT and play “Find the trail in the blowdowns” or climb over the gate and take our chances.\u00a0 We chose Option 2.\u00a0 Again, we know how the ranchers feel about their property, and we hated to disregard the sign, but we just could not face Option 1.<\/p>\n

So at that point, we figured, “Let’s get out of here, ASAP” and took a crosscountry shortcut through the chaparral.\u00a0 Though this did involve some squiggling around bushes, and a couple of easy creek crossings, it was way easier than blowdowns and mess.\u00a0 Finally there was one more gate to climb over, and we were back on the CDT!\u00a0 What a relief!\u00a0 At that point, we finally stopped for a rather late breakfast.<\/p>\n

While we were eating, we looked at our maps.\u00a0 The official CDT from here followed the dirt road we were on, down to a gravel road, then followed that road a ways before turning off and going back to trail again.\u00a0 But J.Ley showed another route–just walk the gravel road, which was shorter and easier.\u00a0 We’d already lost so much time that we decided on Ley’s route.<\/p>\n

So that’s how we began an ALL day gravel roadwalk.\u00a0 Tough on feet!\u00a0 For the rest of the morning, the road wound up and down (mostly up) through sagebrush country and foothills.\u00a0 We were astonished to see SNOW still lingering on many of the hills nearby, even though the weather was warm and dry.\u00a0 We saw several antelope, a hawk, and jackrabbits.\u00a0 The plants are mostly just grayish sagebrush, with occasional green areas with a few wildflowers where there is some water ( I say “water”, but every creek we crossed was ugly alkali gray-green, and yucky-smelling.\u00a0 In fact, even the dust here smells yucky.\u00a0 I guess it’s the all-pervasive alkali.)<\/p>\n

Clouds began to build up in the sky and soon we were walking along in much cooler cloud shadow.\u00a0 Nice!\u00a0 I like geology stuff, and the rocks were fascinating.\u00a0 Everything is very terraced-looking, and I commented to Fixit, “Yeah, looks like a water recession zone from the Flood.”\u00a0 I have to laugh every time I think of the introduction I read once in a geology textbook.\u00a0 It basically said, “When you look at the geologic evidence, you would think that once there was actually a worldwide flood as mentioned in the Bible.\u00a0 But of course we know that’s just myth.\u00a0 We know that what we see is the result of millions of years and natural processes.”\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 Uh-huh. Let’s ignore the obvious evidence in favor of our preconceived notions.\u00a0 That’s not exactly science!<\/p>\n

Of course, since we were walking on a road, various cars and trucks went by.\u00a0 Some roared past us at full speed, leaving us to walk in an alkali dust cloud for some way, while others very kindly slowed down.\u00a0 One guy even stopped and gave us some water!\u00a0 And there were the bikers.\u00a0\u00a0 They’d come pedalling towards us saying, “Hi, hikers!” and we’d grin back at them with “Hi, bikers!”\u00a0 They are RIDING the Divide from Canada to Mexico, and camping along the way, so their bikes are loaded up with saddlebags.\u00a0 They also told us that this morning they’d passed 8 or 10 CDT hikers like us, all headed for Rawlins.\u00a0 Looks like we are in a “hiker bubble”.<\/p>\n

But by 5:30 suppertime, we were two very tired and footsore CDT’ers.\u00a0 The road gravel is small enough not to twist your ankles, but large enough to hurt when you walk on it all day.\u00a0 After the supper break, we determinedly shouldered our packs (sore shoulders too, from the weight of water we’ve been having to carry) and pushed on, while the clouds overhead grew thicker and darker.\u00a0 Soon we could see that rain was trying to fall, but not reaching the ground.\u00a0 Finally at 7:00, we were able to spot a flat place off the road, that was UPWIND from the road–very important, because every time a car goes by, there is a cloud of dust, and we didn’t want those dust clouds blowing all over us all night!\u00a0 Unfortunately, though the ground was flat, it was also very lumpy, and there was no way to avoid it.<\/p>\n

Oh well–we set up our tent, admiring the gorgeous sunset, and just as we were into our sleeping bags, we had a visitor!\u00a0 A dog (named Corby as it turned out) was riding in the back of his owner’s pickup truck.\u00a0 Corby spotted our tent as the truck went by on the road, jumped out, ran over and tried to get into the tent with us!\u00a0\u00a0 The owner stopped and came over and tried to get Corby to come with him, but the dog didn’t want to come.\u00a0 Finally he had to just grab poor Corby by the collar and drag him away, while apologizing to us for Corby being such a nuisance.\u00a0 We felt bad for Corby–I don’t think he is a happy dog.\u00a0 Who knows what his life must be like, if he was desperate enough to try to hide with us?<\/p>\n

After that, we just watched the sunset till it faded into night, thinking to ourselves, “Rawlins tomorrow!”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SUMMARY:\u00a0 We had a bright idea for an alternate route off the Divide so that we could get out of the mess of blowdowns and poorly marked trail. It was very plain on the map and we wondered why J. Ley hadn’t recommended it.\u00a0 Well, turned out that we got ourselves all entangled in private […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wyoming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530","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=530"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":904,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530\/revisions\/904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montybillpct.net\/blog2016\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}