Sunday, March 19, 2023
Miles: 33.2
Elevation gain/loss: 4746 gain, 5372 loss (corrected)
I was awake at 5am, and hiking by 5:30am in the dark, after cowboy camping last night. It got colder than I’d anticipated, and I ended up huddled in my sleeping bag trying to hide from the cold wind.
I pushed hard all day and was pretty exhausted. There were a lot of cows; I even saw the fully degraded cow carcass that was only the skin and bones. I also had to maneuver around a lot of barbed wire, including a hiker/biker/ATV cattle guard wrapped in barbed wire that I had to climb over. It was clearly made by a tall person, because the barbed wire rested against my crotch when I was on my toes. Some other enterprising hiker had moved rocks over, and that helped me get across the wire without getting hurt.
I made it to the highway by Patagonia by 3:30pm, where I called a trail angel for a ride. A local man came to pick me up and bring me to the market. I did a quick resupply while charging my phone, ate a dinner of microwave burritos, and had the trail angel bring me back to trail by 5:15pm. I kept hiking past sundown, both to accomplish my miles and because the trail didn’t have much in the way of camping spots.
I finally stopped at 7:30pm, picking a mostly-flat spot on a ridge. The wind blew most of the night at 10-15 MPH, so I was pretty chilly all night long. But at least I felt a degree of accomplishment that I’d managed to keep up with my planned mileage, even though it was kinda killing me.
Transcending Mountains 