Start: Gila River Alternate mile 78.6
Stop: Gila River Alternate mile 104.2
Today’s Miles: 25.9
Total CDT miles: 254.4
It was pretty dang cold overnight, and windy! But as long as I was tucked into my quilt, I was cozy. We got up and on the road quick, cowboy camping definitely has its advantages! The trail started down the dirt road that people access the campground from, and then splits off on a trail after a few miles. The roads are nice because they’re wide, but they do make for tender feet.
The trail was hard to follow, we ended up on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence and had to climb over-but apparently most people do the same thing because there was an easy spot already loose to push down the wires. These cows make great trails, and they’re usually not on our trail at all. Whoops. I wish I could say that would be the last time we did that-but alas, that would be a lie.
By 9am, we were at a cow pond with a solar pump-I’m not sure how we were supposed to get the water from this contraption, but we ended up filling our bags/bottles from the huge spraying hole in the pump tubing. The pond was nasty, covered in cow poop all around.. there’s no way I was wading through that to get to the “better” water-so thank God for the hole!
From the pond, the trail went sharply up and out of this deep valley, then winded along a dirt road through prairie grasses with a few trees scattered about. The rolling hills were beautiful, and the wind was blowing so it wasn’t as hot as it could have been. Pebbles and I hiked together along the dirt road, talking and singing songs and being silly-all to pass the time. I’m really grateful to have him as a hiking partner-even though he’s way faster than me.. it gets lonely out here. We haven’t seen another CDT hiker since we hiked with Special K a few days ago-and that girl is long gone!
Eventually, our prairie grasses turned into wooded hills.. all still on a dirt road. Several cars and trucks drove by. But we never saw another hiker. We got more water from a cow trough with a hose into it from a spring, scaring off quite a few cows by accident in the process. As I was walking with my water, a lady in an SUV stops to tell me she just saw a huge wolf. She then goes, “will you be ok?” Ummm. I guess? Like do you know something I don’t? lol
We only walked up the road a little past the trough to camp, no wolf sightings to be had, and my feet were toast. I picked a spot on the opposite side of the road, that had less cow trails-hoping that they’d stay on their side of the road overnight. We decided to cowboy camp again, since it’s so dang easy. As we’re sitting on our sleeping pads, wrapped in our quilts (it’s already chilly), and eating our dinner-A BABY BEAR GOES RUNNING BY on the opposite side of the road!
Now. We all know, where there’s a baby, there’s a mama nearby. Shit! Literally EATING FOOD on our sleep stuff, no tents set up.. but, we waited, ate, and watched, and there was no mama anywhere! We finished eating, stuffed our food deep in our liners inside our packs, and watched a bit longer. After 30 or so minutes, we said to hell with it and started tucking in for bed. The sun had set, it was getting dark, Pebbles had rounded up some throwing rocks in case we had any visitors, plus we had our trekking poles and headlamps nearby.
I was deep in my quilt, rolling around to get comfortable, when I heard Pebbles say, “did you hear that?” And I’m all carefree in my, “it’s just me making noise with my quilt” as I stick my head out to actual listen. I hadn’t heard anything over the racket I was making. Not a few seconds later, I heard the quick crunching and crashing of something big headed our way.
I popped up to my knees immediately, with a loud, “OH SHIT, HEYYYYYYY BEAR!” And clapping my hands loud like a lunatic. Pebbles popped up too and started clacking his trekking poles together. We couldn’t see anything! It was pitch black, and the tree line behind our little spot went up pretty dramatically. We heard the huffing and growling of something large, and could literally tell when she stood on her back legs. The sounds she was making went from low to high and the growling couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than a bear.
We kept shouting, making noise, turning on our headlamps-we were in a stand off for what felt like an eternity, which was probably only minutes at the absolute most. But mama bear wasn’t backing down easy. We’d hear a crunch and growling and huffing, and we’d yell more. Then, you could tell she dropped back down to all 4s and the crashing and crunching started to move away from us. It was TERRIFYING! We didn’t know if she was about to charge out of the darkness and into one of us.. I was too anxious to lean down and grab a rock, because what if she waited for that moment to charge?! When I wasn’t looking toward her and seemed smaller?
We were very hyped up and freaked out for a good ten minutes before the ache in my knees from being on them on my pad was noticeable. Then I realized how sore my feet were. I told Pebbles that I’m pretty sure she’s gone, and you could see in his face that he didn’t care if I could guarantee she wouldn’t come back-he was not going to be able to sleep here tonight. I probably wouldn’t have been able to either, I was just not looking forward to packing up and walking on achy feet, after our longest day on trail already.
Oh well. Mama bear won. We packed up, quick too. Nothing was put where it normally goes, everything just got shoved in and my pack was a little lopsided. I couldn’t get my shoes back on, so I hiked out in my crocs. In the pitch black of night, we started walking down a dirt road in our headlamps. It was almost more eerie than the damn bear encounter! Ok, not really, but we were both on edge.
We saw an owl, and then so many green glowing eyes. At one point we thought we saw a big cat-like a mountain lion or something similarly lethal, and as Pebbles backed up into me, I backed up into the ditch-quite the little tumble in the darkness. All we could do was laugh-because when I did it, we both screamed. Well, maybe I should say Pebbles yelled lol-whatever. Come to find out-our big cat was a baby calf-all black-and way more slinky in its walking than any of the cows have been during the day. Hahaha, you know those cows were judging us hard, stupid hikers.
We anxiously walked for a little over 2 miles, knowing good and well that a bear could cover that distance in less time than us. We found a mostly flat spot near the road and open from the surrounding trees, and set up our tents. Cowboy camping went out the window with the bear! Something about expensive dyneema fabric that just makes you feel safe! Not really, but it doesn’t offer some sort of comfort.
So, our already “longest day on trail” turned into even longer.. almost 26 miles. I’m happy to be in my quilt and in my tent-and I’m hoping to fall asleep fast, so I won’t care if mama bear comes back! Or the wolf, or the slinky mountain lions turned baby cows! Oh, and thanks to all of the excitement, my back feels fine today! So, that’s a blessing! Good night, yall!