Sagebrush personal hiking blog
I revisit a hike from 12 years ago to refresh my memory of NM, and to try alternates not taken on that previous hike.
Snow came down throughout the night. Look back at the last post, and the rock in front of my tent is no longer visible.
I get ready and start hiking. The going will be tough, but one final night should put me close enough to Cumbres Pass to finish the hike, and then hitch to Chama to celebrate.
Instantly I run into trouble. Powder comes to my knees as I struggle forward, then to mid-thigh, and then a drift comes to my waist.
The trail is often invisible, as blowing drifts of snow obscure the subtle dip that shows me my route. Snow continues to fall, the stubborn dark gray clouds refusing to moving on.
With a sigh I turn around and head back the other way. I can shelter at a pavilion at Hopewell Lake and wait for pickup by Cairn in a few days, when the highway is clear. With rationing my food should last a few days if I am not burning fuel hiking.
The way backwards is much harder than yesterday. Luckily I had been on a dirt road most of the route, and can sometimes see the way, with ample help from my navigation app. Slogging through loose powder is exhausting– this is why snowshoes were invented.
Hopewell Lake is barely visible in the blowing snow, and Hwy 64 is invisible, though completely clear just yesterday.
I try to hike to the lake, but the trail is invisible, and I posthole up to my waist, the powder trying to take my shoe.
Just then two snowplows come by, clearing half the road, and three cars follow them. I jog back to the road, and another car comes past, and I hitch “to anyplace with a motel”. Trail angel Ben is heading past Chama on the way to Colorado. Perfect. On the drive we talk of many things, of farriers and fungi.
The Y Motel lets me check in early to grab a shower, and I stop at nearby Finas’s Diner for lunch.
Tomorrow I head home. Close enough. I am done.
Finished audiobook Recalled to Life, by Robert Silverberg.
I woke up to 6-8 inches of fluffy snow everywhere.
The strategy is to hike all day to keep warm, and to make as many miles as practical under challenging conditions.
In 8 inches of powder I can still make out the trail, though it takes all my powers of concentration. I can see the trail below, can you?
As the day progresses I notice areas that did not receive as much snow as where my tent was located. Or was it just starting to melt here– I am not sure.
Dark gray clouds block out the sun all day, except for a glimpse of blue sky in the evening. Is this weather system really going to snow for a third straight day tomorrow?
The Rio Vallecitos is a wet-foot crossing.
Hopewell Lake does not have any fishermen today, wonder why?
I had worked on a section of the CDT from Hopewell Lake to the highway a few years ago, with a ton of other people, as part of a gathering to celebrate a completion milestone of the CDT in the Carson National Forest. Strange, today the trail looks different.
The trail resumes in mixed conifer plus aspen, with regions of meadow, in wet sticky snow. Footpaths and two-tracks were flooding due to snow melt.
Finally I give up, and shelter under a fir tree, where there is still a patch of ground without snow.
Finished audiobook The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway.