CDT mile 580.7, miles hiked 26.5

As I laid in my Katabatic Quilt enjoying my morning coffee and granola I looked over at Freefall and there beside him was an elk and about 5 more moving in.  One of the boys up above stirred and they took off.  We had been awoken by their grunts just minutes earlier.

We left camp and today would be a day of many cross-country adventures either by accident, necessity or by choice.

Accident, we took the wrong road and wound up on a J Ley alternate we hadn’t planned on.  We decided to go cross country for a mile or so to rejoin the trail.

Necessity, I was lagging behind and lost sight of the boys.  I came to an area of blowdowns and wound up off trail in blowdown hell.  I had to navigate my way back to the trail, I found Greg in Wild and then actually arrived ahead of the boys.

Blowdowns are the norm

Choice, we had the option of sticking to a road walk for 3.5 miles or taking a cross-country route to save 2.5.  We chose the cross-country route and Cheezy and Nessie joined us and we had a fun time walking through the forest.
The rest of the day was spent in the high country, post-holing some but the snow is quickly melting.  As of now, we deal with more ice cold water than snow.  We also enjoyed seeing numerous wildlife on our cross country routes; wild turkeys, grouse, elk, mule deer, and squirrels.

Someone has awoken to spring, while we never saw the bear its tracks were cool to see

We did disappoint Buttercup today he wanted to hike 28.5 miles to the Rio Vallecitos A river which we have to cross in the morning.  Myself, Freefall and Bandit were exhausted from the day.  When we arrived at Bonita Canyon we decided to call it a day.  When Buttercup arrived I could tell he was disappointed, his sad face was like a kid having Christmas taken away.  Oh well time for sleep, I’m exhausted.