- CDT NM 2025 Day 29, Monday May 5
- Start mile 722.1, underneath a fir tree
- End mile 742.9, elevation 10.3k
- Miles walked: 20.8
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.
I knew Sagebrush was on one of his long hikes during much of April and May, but did not know he was hiking New Mexico’s section of the CDT going from south to north. So when the state began getting its first snowstorms since November in late April and early May, I had no idea of the unseasonal hardships he was encountering on the northern part of the trail. Luckily, he is a great outdoorsman.