High and Dry

October 18th

I got going a little later.  Much to my surprise, it wasn’t insanely cold, just mildly cold.  As I was packing, a few vehicles went by.  Hunters on their way to their posts.

Within about 25 minutes I was chugging up a slope.  I heard an elk call ahead.  I walked more quietly.  Using my headlamp to pick out and avoid any sticks.  On my right I see three faces turn to look at me.  To my credit, I kept all noises, liquids, and solids inside my body.  My first thought was leprechauns, but it was just some young guys squatting down to hunt hunt the small valley below.  We exchanged whispered information and I was on my way.  Turns out they were the ones who made the elk sound.

I climbed up Mangas mountain.  It afforded some nice views looking south.  I did not go up to the lookout.  I believe they are no longer staffed by this time of year.

It was a fairly dull day after that.  I walked down in to some valleys and was on forest roads.  I did have one guy on an ATV come by while I was taking a break on a log.  I was off trail a little bit and he did not see me.  I was curious to see a large bag of some type of feed in the back of his ATV.  An hour later, he came back and the feed bag was empty.  Yea sportsmanship!

Late in the day I came to a large metal tank with an attached solar pump.  However, since the cattle were gone, the pump was not working.  The owner had locked it.  I looked in the tank and it was quite the little ecosystem. Down on the side, there was a small trough which had clear water and some green aquatic plant, clearly the lesser of two evils.  The water was actually cool and tasted OK after filtering.

I put water in my dehydrated meal.  For the first time all trip, the bag leaked.  Of course, it would be coconut curry that leaked.  So, the outside back pocket of my backpack now smelled like a Thai restaurant and I was now carrying a bag of rehydrating food in one hand as I hiked in the twilight.

I was heading up a ridge and heard elk bugling.  It sounded real this time.  Sure enough, I could see the bull ahead of me in the thin trees.  As I got closer, I got my camera out and got the video ready.  I honestly convinced myself that I was going to capture dramatic elk footage with the camera in my right hand and a dripping bag of coconut curry in the left.  Surprisingly, I got pretty close, I came around a corner and found the bull and a cow in flagrante.  It doesn’t matter whether it was me or the curry, but they noticed me and took off.

Ended up cowboy camping on a bed of ponderosa pine needles on a small ridge.  It was a little breezy, but a fine spot nonetheless.