Slow and steady wins the race, they say, and at least I’ve got the slow part mastered. The trail started at ten thousand feet of elevation and goes up from there, to the top of 13k Mount Wheeler, which i think is sandy-face himself. The horn of matter is more domed from this side, covered in scree and conifers, like this last one I’m resting under at the moment to have a snack. Tree line breaks here, so I thought it’d be a good excuse to sit and catch my breath on the soft carpet of slowly decomposing cones and needles and branches and ferns.
The flies soon found my sweat, along with the rest of me and i moved on munching mangoes. Definitely easier to get winded here. Slow, then.
Crossing the ridgeline i see the valley from last night, the windmills in orderly rows, when seen outside the skewed frame of the road which brought me here. A crow shares their captured currents in wings cupped, climbing more easily than I.
A chittering locust and a skunk announce themselves in their own ways. Later i guess it might be something that smells like skunk instead.
There are quite a few emergency rock shelters here, built in U shapes to block the prevailing wind. [See: windmills.] I use one to rest my shoulders from where the pack straps are cutting into the trapezius. I really need a more suitable day pack, this Walmart special is built for a much smaller torso. My good one is back home. Always this problem of stuff, right Mr. Carlin?
Up in 4 hours, a half hour at the top and heading down at 15:30. The last thousand feet was pretty rough in both directions as the trail disappeared under snow. I made a snowball to celebrate it not being 115 degrees.
On the way down, I can tell the air is thicker because I can drink more without gasping for air. At the top it was breathe, sip, breathe, sip. Here it’s drink drink drink breathe. Much better. The Himalayas are twice this high. Wow.
Arrived at 18:20, so even down was slow. I’m beat but feeling good. Resting my everything for a little bit and then setting a course for the next thing.
I rolled out of the park, taking some photos along the way, then got diesel and started across a 75 mile gap between services into Utah. It turns out there’s a ton of BLM land (which this time I’ll clarify as Bureau of Land Management) and that generally means it’s wide open for RVs. I pulled off the road just as it was really starting to get dark, and i found a decent level parking spot with a trash-filled fire pit i won’t use. I don’t think there’s anyone around for miles.
I’m still unable to get my RV internet working, which is the fault of my ISP. And Verizon has very little coverage anywhere around here, so I’m offline again and didn’t get to post last night’s thing. I’m a lot more tired tonight so this will be a short update whenever it goes up.
Tomorrow: Bryce canyon NP, Grand Staircase Escalante NM, Capitol Reef NP, Arches NP, Moab, Canyonlands NP, Bears Ears NM, Hovenweep NM, Canyons of the Ancients NM and Mesa Verde NP. Just kidding, not all tomorrow, but that’ll be the order.
H