Day 13: mile 55.3-78 Snow Lake
Miles: 22.7
Total trip miles: 230
I heard my alarm go off and just went back to sleep. I was not ready to get up at all. So cozy and tired. So a little later start for me than usual. Thankfully it didn't freeze so even though it was cold at least everything wasn't frozen. Although putting in wet shoes and socks in a cold morning is awfully rough. Less than 5 minutes into the hike was the first river crossing, and it felt might cold at 7 am.
Towering cliffs and endless river crossings, not a bad way to spend the morning. But it sure was cold. I made the rookie mistake of leaving my down jacket on and sure enough fell pretty early on. Banged up my knee pretty nicely but it still bends and thankfully down dries.
About 2 miles in Rafiki found a super warm little creek full of duckweed. Rafiki, Thatch and I stood basking in the shallow puddle enjoying warm feet, my toes had been numb since the very first crossing. As for the crossings to come, after the meadows the trail supposedly crosses 85 times. I didn't count but I can assure you my feet were never close to dry.
I also spent the rest of the day in my rain jacket. It stormed on and off with a couple pretty good ones, 2 of which dumped hail. I had no idea what springtime in New Mexico was like but this wasn't what I was expecting.
A horse train passed me by and chewed up the sandy trail pretty badly the rest of my day, oh well. Overall the trail has been easier to find on the upper Gila than the lower but there definitely is flood damage and climbing over downed trees and finding missing trail can be tiring and time consuming.
So side note this is when I fell completely asleep. What a long day.
It was basically just a long day, the trail started to get better as we got closer to Snow Lake. It was of course during this lovely smooth trail that I face planted. My other knee took the brunt but my hands and face didn't come out unscathed. Oh well it turned out not as bad as it felt at first.
It took forever to get to Snow Lake but the lure of toilets and running water was too hard to ignore. Bigfoot and I finally got there, washed out our shoes and started to freeze. It was cold at Snow Lake. Rafiki and Moist and been there awhile. We all headed up into the trees to hopefully get a little shelter from the wind and even got a little cinco de mayo magic. Spam from a lovely tent camper. I'm beat and looking forward to sleep. Hoping nothing freezes tonight since my poor toes have been frozen since I got to camp.
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