Another Cloudy Day in the Desert

October 9th

I got going and found that the rain had cleared the trail of all footprints, freshened everything up, and generally made the day pleasant. I climbed up on to the big mesa, Chavito Mesa. Great views and great hiking with a good mix of wide open areas and pine trees.

Looking back down from the top of the mesa.

So mesas will often have these open grassy areas with clumps of pines.

Pine nuts in the cone. There are very cool gray squirrels here with tufted ears that are hard for me to photograph.

Late morning I reached a reliable spring called Ojo de los Indios. I hiked down and got some piped spring water. I almost passed it up assuming the rain would fill up the “tanks.” Glad I did not.

There was one long, straight stretch where the hiking was a little dull. My new (old) backpack was not feeling too comfortable and the sun was warming things up. The straight forest service road turned in to a miles long mud pit in the afternoon. The forest service had been grading the road. With this soil, adding rainwater made for a sticky, sloppy walk. Hiking is not fun when your feet get heavier and slicker.

A long, straight muddy road is not a backpacker’s ideal route.

I did run across a couple interesting things:

some black bear paw prints that went right down the middle of the road for awhile.

a guy who looked like he was preparing some type of bait for hunting. I’m not sure sure what is legal and illegal in New Mexico, but he was surprised and did not seem happy to see me.

I saw a micro storm develop and roll over the top of me. It amounted to nothing, but in the distance I could see it morphing in to a huge thunderhead.

This little micro storm developed quickly but also passed by me swiftly with very little rain or lightning.

Later on, all the little storms gathered on the other side of the mesa.

At dark, I ended up just setting up a stealth camp in the sagebrush. The moon was bright and the night on my side of the mesa was great. However, when I looked east, towards Grants, that huge thunderhead was still rumbling. I was lucky to have missed that storm.