I left Cuba with Bigfoot, Focus and Mountain Spice. We came across a dog that was limping and howling in pain from getting a cactus stuck in its paw. It was all love and gratitude after Focus removed it...aww!
Bigfoot stopping to make a pizza! We had barely made it out of town and already we were stopping for food. This would basically become an ongoing theme for us for the remainder of our time spent hiking together. What you don't see is the rest of us laying around in the background, eating candy and mixing up strong caffeinated drinks...
Then we began to climb up into the forest. The trail followed forest roads for a while and then came to a trail head. The path was nice and slightly overgrown at first. As it climbed we crossed a swiftly flowing creek and then again, water everywhere. In many places it had become the trail, so soon we were crossing it back and forth, over rocks and fallen logs where it was deeper. Aspens quaked gently in the breeze. New Mexico was finally starting to resemble Colorado.
There were snow drifts at the top and we got good and soaked in the meadows where it had all flooded from melting. It was fun though, trudging and splashing through the swampy cold grass. I didn't take many pictures the next couple of days...it rained pretty good on us; we got lost for a bit at least once; we got our first taste of decent postholing; we spent a good amount of time picking our way through a blow-down area, following tiny pink flags that served as trail markers. Focus lost her umbrella from frolicking over logs in the rain. It was a pretty normal section. Then the clouds parted and the scenery turned to beautiful, color-strewn mesas. The trail turned to thick mud from all the rain. Good times.
Stopping to dry out gear from the night before with Focus and Bigfoot. Oh, and there's Mountain Spice lurking behind Bigfoot... Sorry, Spice, didn't see you at first back there!
We were especially happy to take a long break at this nice clear flowing water source. Earlier that day we had been forced to drink water from a creek that was so thick with sediment that it resembled chocolate milk. Let me see if I have a picture... Nope. But just imagine taking a nice, long, un-filtered drink from the river in the following photographs.
A double rainbow from where we camped on the side of the road. (photo credit: Focus) That night Mountain Spice, Focus and I sat around in between rain showers and threw rocks off over a cliff toward the river for like, half an hour. Cookie Monster, Dayglo and Giggles ended up camping next to us. The next morning we hiked the last few miles into Ghost Ranch.