December 12th – 14th                Torreon, NM                               (Go to Pt 1)
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I was certain I had been on the main road and didn’t even think otherwise until now.  Was the trading post abandoned or was I following the wrong road… nah, I was on the right road, I think.  Eventually, it grew dark and by then I was almost convinced I had sidetracked onto some unknown road when, in the far off distance, I saw stationary lights that had to be coming from a house or building.
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Okay, cool.  I still had water, so there was no need for me to appear out of the darkness and scare these people half to death by knocking on their door, it could wait until morning.  I found a place in the scrub to throw out my sleeping bag, leaving the tent packed, and again fished through the lunch sack for something to eat.

I’m a guy who requires a lot of water to run properly and the climb to get up onto the mesa, followed by the hours spent getting out to the spring, had sucked-up a worrying amount of my water supply, so being able to refill my hollow containers from the spring was a tremendous relief.

The alarm was going off because I had been relying on this dead-end jeep trail not to leave me stranded out in the middle of the mesa, only to have it abandon me with no more tracks left on the ground to follow.  Adding to my angst were the lack of land features large enough to show on my map and an almost nauseous uncertainty as to my actual location.

The map did show a number of springs scattered across the mesa, so I picked one in the vicinity of where I thought I might be and, for lack of any other corroborating landmarks, guessed at my location, but I didn’t like it.  Guesses out here got you lost.

For 17 miles I had been imagining this ‘trading post’ as an oasis of amenities, you know, with not just cold water on hand but possibly some tacos, and beer, in a beer garden, with palm trees and a waterfall, and maybe a mariachi band – and this was it?  Had I strayed off onto the wrong road?  The abandoned building had nothing to offer and I didn’t know if I was lost… or what.

I still had water enough to get down to Torreon, another 12 miles away, but then I thought, what if there’s nothing there, as well?  If Torreon was abandoned like this place then I was going to run out of water. I felt a twang of panic and my impatience went into overdrive.

I spent two minutes looking at the abandoned building before turning up the road to resume hiking with a stepped-up and anxious pace.  I hated not knowing where my next water supply was coming from and I really wanted to find water before stopping to camp until an hour later when I ultimately concluded, that wasn’t going to happen.
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By then, a couple of pickups had driven by to indicate I was still on the main road, not lost, and I had enough water to get me through another day.  I was tired, my feet were sore, and after vigorous debate I was able to convince myself that I wasn’t going to die of thirst, at least not right away, so I wandered from the road to make camp back up in the brush.

     December 3rd - 7th                  Chama, NM                                    (Go to Pt 1)

Unlike most days where every footfall was noted, I was so lost in thought that I hardly noticed I was still hiking when the town of Chama, my first resupply stop of New Mexico, appeared in the not-so-far-off distance.  Cool beans!

I got into town with afternoon to spare and settled into a mustic (musty-rustic), motel room that looked and smelled like a spare room at grandma’s house.  Chama had a café, and walking back to the motel after a cheeseburger and fries, I came across a puppy, maybe six months old, that had been hit by a car and was whimpering by the side of the road.
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Aw, Jeez.  The poor, little guy. I looked around and saw no one, so I scooped up the puppy and brought him back to my room for the night. He was like a blue-heeler mix and I called him Rosco. Little Rosco-Bosco.
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Rosco couldn’t walk and in the morning the motel owner called the vet for me.  The vet stopped by and said she would take good care of him but I suspected that would mean putting him down.  Boy, did that ever blow a hole through my New Mexico euphoria.

I always got butterflies before heading out and the night before leaving Chama was no different.  The unknowns and insecurities of what I was doing were not easy to get used to and part of the planning process was to contemplate scenarios where things might go wrong.  Identifying potential misfortune in advance, though, would inevitably lead to anxiety and a restless night.

Well, I had crossed plenty of fences over the past months and rarely had I let private property stand in my way, but this fence had an entirely different feel.  Crossing this fence seemed scarry, not like trespassing scarry but more like fugitive on-the-run scarry.  What I saw on the other side of that fence was a place where one could disappear, never to be heard from again.
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At this point, however, there was no getting around the reservation, I was going to have to climb over the fence and take my chances.  As I started down a dirt road on the other side, it was fairly obvious that in this barren, wide open valley, trying to hide while hiking was useless, so I just put my head down and hoped for the best.

For the rest of the afternoon I followed the dusty road deeper into reservation territory without a sign of anyone, anywhere.  No vehicles, no sheep herders, nobody at all.  I made camp near Boulder Lake that afternoon and hid my tent among some terrain features, away from the lake and screened from the road.

I was on edge that night.  I was a white kid on an Indian reservation where I had no business being. If a Native were to run across my camp, well, I didn’t know how much trouble I might be in.  Maybe they wouldn’t care at all, or maybe they’d have me arrested, or maybe they’d want retribution for 300 years of white-man atrocities.  Fuck if I knew.

The next morning I was awake before dawn and hiking the dirt road by first light. If ever there was a ‘heads-down and go like hell’ kind of day, this was it. I wanted off the reservation and there was only one way get out, and that was on foot.  Maybe I was making much to do about nothing, or not, either way it didn’t matter, paranoia was the rocket fuel.

Before starting out in the morning, I had filled my containers at the lake so that now, as long as I stayed stingy, I’d have enough to get me through tomorrow and down to my next water source at Llaves.  I was bone tired that night, too tired for the Hobbits, and content to just lay back in my sleeping bag and listen to Radio.
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The next morning I was in no rush to wake-up, and after I did wake-up, I continued to be in no rush.  I was still tired from yesterday’s backpacker’sprint across the reservation, and with Llaves only 12 miles to the south I was already planning for an easy day.
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Too bad.

Go to Part 80

From the Navajo River I turned south up a gravel wash, hiking 3 miles of parched streambed while watching the jeep road wither away to tracks in the sand.  At 8,800ft, I reached the arid and open crest of the Continental Divide where I could finally look south into New Mexico.
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My world had just changed dramatically.  The snow, cold, and massive mountains of Colorado had melted away into sprawling vistas of open rangeland, forested hills, and mesas.  There also seemed to be a subconscious knot of stress that noticeably relaxed its grip. My thoughts were light, cheerful, and sanguine.

Unlike most days where every footfall was noted, I was so lost in thought that I hardly realized I was still hiking when the town of Chama, my first resupply stop of New Mexico, appeared in the not-so-far-off distance.  Cool beans!

By the time I got started up the valley it was pretty late in the morning.  I continued along the snowed-over road I’d been following, which by now had at least a foot of snowpack along with the three inches of fresh that had accumulated overnight. Reaching the upper valley required an exceedingly long and mundane slog that gave acute definition to the word ‘slog’.
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After Hermit Lakes, the road dwindled away as I pushed up and out of the valley, over the top, to the south side slopes above the Rio Grande Reservoir. The snowpack diminished significantly once I got on the south facing slope and the descent to the reservoir turned out to be the easiest part of the day.  ​

If I were to follow the Continental Divide westward, eventually I would have to cross over the snowbound, La Garita Mountains at almost 13,000ft, and on a trail I would have to find using this 250,000 series map where a gnat’s-ass equaled 1mi.

From where I sat, and given the map I had to work with, the only sure bet for getting across the distant mountains was a gravel road straight across the valley from where I sat and which started up from County Road 114 at the bottom of the basin.

The map showed this road running up along the extended, Houselog Creek valley, then crossing over the mountains at Carnero Pass which, at just a little over 10,000ft, I figured would still be snow-free, or at least snow-free enough.

If I did go that route, though, I would be looking at several, monotonous days on gravel road, and not much about that part of the plan was very appealing, other than it would be easy, but, like I said, it was a sure thing.
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So with that, I folded up the map and set-off down Middle Creek on a jeep trail that 9, easy miles later, intersected with County Road 114 at the bottom of the basin.  An hour of walking south along CR114 brought me to the gravel road I was looking for at Houselog Creek.

Del Norte was too far for me to reach and anything short of that would potentially leave me trespassing, so I spent the night camped on Forest Service land along Carnero Creek where Radio came back from his hiatus, speaking Spanish.  Okay, whatever.  We listened to mariachi music while I fixed supper but by the time I was done eating, Radio had, once again, worn out his welcome.  It was time to see what the Hobbits were up to.

The following day I was only ten or so miles out from Del Norte, so I was able to walk my way into to town by early afternoon. I checked into the El Rancho Motel and, later that evening, around dinner time, my parents and younger brother, Dave, arrived from St. Louis, having driven the better part of two days to come out and join me for Thanksgiving.

This plan had come together while I was sick in Salida.  As the illness drug on my parents had grown concerned until my Dad started talking about coming out to check-up on me (maybe I was actually poolside in Vegas).  Of course, by then I was feeling better so they decided instead to come out and meet me in Del Norte over the Thanksgiving holiday.   

We spent Thanksgiving together in Del Norte where the North American Falconry Association was holding an annual get together of sorts.  On main street, birds of prey of every size, make and model were on display and having dabbled in falconry in high school, I was pleasantly surprised this event was going on and fascinated by the variety of hawks and falcons to be seen up close, even a couple of owls showed-up.

On Friday we all drove up the road to Creede and went on a short hike into one of the nearby canyons for a picnic lunch under a warm and brilliantly blue sky.  Our time together passed quicky and no sooner had my family arrived than they were packing up to leave, which made for an interesting juxtaposition Saturday morning.

As Dad, Mom and Dave packed their suitcases and loaded the car, I was busy re-packaging food supplies and getting my pack reloaded for the next stretch of hiking that awaited me.  Once everybody was packed and the car loaded, we all drove up to Creede together and had lunch in a small restaurant before saying our goodbyes.

After lunch, my Dad had offered to drive me out to the trailhead, several miles further down the road from Creede, but that would have put them even further in the wrong direction and I’d already come far enough by car as it was; it was just easier to say goodbye to everyone right there in Creede.

We hugged and Dad looked pleased while Mom looked worried, and Dave, well, Dave just looked like good ol’ Dave.  I watched as my family drove away then shouldered my pack and headed down the road.

After getting the tent pitched, I fetched my camera to take a picture, the tent being my new, favorite photography subject, but as I went to take the shot I did a double-take and looked at the camera again.  Film.  I only had four exposures left on the roll in my camera and after that I had no more film; my mind suddenly seized on the oversight.

As the shutterbug and photography expert in our family, my Mom almost always included slide film with my resupply packages but, for whatever reason, there hadn’t been any film in the supply box this last time around.  That being the case, I had planned on picking-up film at the grocery store but the grocery store only sold print film, which meant I was going to have to find a drugstore or someplace else that carried slide film and, in the end… forgot.

With only four exposures left to cover a week’s worth of travel, I actually started hoping I wouldn’t see the kind of dramatic scenery in the days ahead that would beg for a fresh roll of film.  “Well, shit.” I muttered, stashing the camera away.

From O’Havor Lake the following morning, I spent several hours hiking a monotonous, gravel road to where it crossed over the Continental Divide at Marshall Pass.  I stopped for lunch at the pass and basked in the sun. Temperatures were mild and while there were traces of snow on the shaded slopes, real snowfall had yet to find these mountains.

After lunch, I left the gravel road to follow a jeep track running through the forest along the Continental Divide, as far as Windy Peak.  At this juncture, the Continental Divide continued west then south to sweep around the Saguache River Basin in an arching, horseshoe bend of maybe 40 miles.

I had decided to shortcut this sweeping bend by taking a more direct route across the basin to the other side.  Standing at the crest of Windy Peak I caught a view looking out, across the basin to the faraway mountains where I planned to rejoin the Divide.  Not only did those mountains appear to be a long ways off but, from what I could see, they also looked formidable as hell.

At this point, my body had only committed to getting me down to the highway and once I’d reached the road my biological systems crashed, reducing me to fervent prayer for a quick ride that was not to come.  I was light-headed, my equilibrium unsteady, I felt nauseous, and I was gutted with no more energy left to expend.

I sagged down onto my pack by the side of the road, waiting for any sign of life to appear on the roadway, but after only a few minutes I was shivering and too cold to stay put any longer.  With tremendous effort I re-shouldered my pack, which felt like it had doubled in weight since dropping it five minutes earlier, and started lumbering down the side of the road.

I walked for two hours and in that time only two cars materialized, both passing me by. Eventually, I came out to the open, sagebrush plains just west of Poncho Springs and I could see the tiny town sitting off to the east.  Cold, steel-grey clouds hung over the valley and seeing the town consumed me with thoughts of getting warm.

I was in a warped, almost desperate state of mind and tried to keep my eyes down on the roadside gravel because every time I glanced up at the town, still a few miles distant, I would fall further into despair, certain I wasn’t going to make it.

For some reason, the phone poles stringing off toward town stood out with uncharacteristic prominence, phone pole after phone pole after phone pole.  Enduring another tortured hour of struggling down the road, and as the distant phone poles appeared to sway and bend before what now appeared to be only the mirage of a town, a truck finally - finally - pulled over, offering me a ride into Salida.

Climbing into the truck was like entering a cocooned sanctuary.  It was warm inside the truck and I melted into the cushioned seat, dozing-off almost immediately.  In the instant it took me to doze-off we were suddenly in Salida, which was only 6 or 7 miles away, and the guy was poking me in the shoulder to “wake up”.

I checked into a motel across the street from where the guy let me off and could hardly believe I had actually made it to town when at long last I collapsed in the room.  I pulled off my boots, and without undressing, climbed under the covers, curled up in a ball, and fell asleep.

Somewhere in the night I got up and pulled off my outer layer of clothes and at another point I got up to go to the bathroom and through the drawn shades it appeared to be daylight outside, which was confusing for as long as it took me to go to the can and get back in bed.

The next morning, or whatever time of day it was when I finally awoke, it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere and I was also pretty sure the motel had only charged me for one night.  Before I went comatose again, I figured I’d better get out of bed and go down to the office to pay for another couple of nights. (This pre-dated motels keeping a ‘card on file’).  At the office I told the clerk I wanted to stay two more nights and gave him my credit card to pay for the extra nights.

The guy ran my card and handed it back to me along with the receipt but as I started to walk away I noticed he had charged me for three nights, so I turned around and pointed this out.  The guy looked confused and asked, “You said you wanted to stay for two more nights, right?” “Yes,” I replied, “but you charged me for three.”  Seeming to clear-up the misunderstanding he said, “The third night is for last night.”

Now it was my turn to look confused, “But I paid for last night when I checked-in” I protested.  “No,” the guy replied patiently, “you paid for Wednesday night when you checked-in.  Today is Friday.”  Huh?  “Friday?” I asked incredulously, to which he nodded and pointed to a newspaper sitting on the counter.  Sure enough, Friday, November 11th. I’d slept through an entire day and night without even knowing it.

I ended up sick in Salida for nearly a week and a half.  Early on, I went to the market and bought some ramen and crackers and I was four days in bed before I felt well enough to go out and have toast and coffee at the café. Even after I started feeling better I was weak, I’d lost weight, and my appetite was lite.

For several days after being bedridden, I had enough coughing, hacking, difficulty walking around town so as to make the prospect of shouldering a heavy load and resuming my winter backpacking trek unthinkable.  I would have to wait until my bronchial tract cleared and my strength returned, at least somewhat.
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So, it wasn’t until after a prolonged stay in Salida, the first half of which was truly miserable, that I finally felt well enough to pull my supplies together and leave town on the next leg of my journey.  Thankfully, the next leg to Creede would take less than a week and nothing about the terrain looked to be difficult, at least according to the maps.

     November 6th 7th & 8th             Buena Vista, CO                       (Go to Pt 1)
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At Morrison Creek I called it quits. It had been another tough and exhausting day, only to come up short of where I needed to be.  I had hoped to reach Frenchman Creek but that was still another valley away and now I would have to tack today’s lost miles onto tomorrow’s journey.

As soon as I went to place the first tent stake I knew I was in trouble, the ground was frozen solid. I tried beating the stakes with a rock but that only ended up bending them.  I was tired, and cold, and in real need of getting the tent up but I was bending stakes with every try and getting nowhere.

Finally, I had to go hunting for rocks, big rocks, that I now needed to secure the tent with and which were not just lying about but had to be kicked out of the frozen turf with my boot.  And not with a whole lot of luck, I might add.  It took multiple scrounging trips and over an hour to collect enough decent sized rocks to properly anchor the tent.  I cussed and cursed my way through the whole fucking process but finally got the damn thing up and pitched taut against the wind.

After that mighty struggle was over, I piled inside the tent, pulled off my boots, fluffed out my sleeping bag, and laid down to rest.  I still had supper to fix so I didn’t want to get too comfortable but I was too tired not to just lay down for a bit.

When I finally pulled myself up to get the stove lit, I felt a little dizzy in a nauseous kind of way.  The wave of nausea passed but when it was time to eat, my appetite was off.  I couldn’t finish the pot of noodle surprise I’d made and that never happened.  There was no such thing as ‘leftovers’ on the trail.

In the middle of the night I woke-up with swollen throat glands, a cough, trouble swallowing, and realized I was getting sick, something I’d probably pick-up while I was at the ranch.  The next morning was bitter cold, probably around zero degrees, even though Radio was reporting a mild 53 degrees in Fort Worth, Texas, the only station available from Hancock Lake.
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The cold, dry air rasped at my throat, irritating my cough, and I felt lethargic as hell with every little task turning into a major chore.  This was the last day of this section and all I had to do was get over Chalk Creek Pass and out the Middle Fork valley because at the mouth of the valley was a road into Salida where I’d be done with this stretch of Colorado.

 At Morrison Creek I called it quits. It had been another tough and exhausting day, only to come up short of where I needed to be.  I had hoped to reach Frenchman Creek but that was still another valley away and now I would have to tack today’s lost miles onto tomorrow’s journey.