Day 015 - Continental Divide Trail - Gila Wilderness to T Bar Canyon

Day: 015

Date: Tuesday, 21 May 2024

Start:  Gila Wilderness

Finish:  T Bar Canyon

Daily Kilometres:  37.8

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  418.0

Weather:  Cold early then warm and sunny later, but with a cool wind.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts 

  Lunch:  Trail mix 

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

Aches:  Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - left knee improving.

Highlight:  For much of the morning we travelled along the crest of a broad ridge.  It was lightly forested with tall pine trees and the path was often covered with pine needles.  There was no wind and, apart from an occasional birdsong, it was absolutely quiet.  Magic.

Lowlight:  Dave didn't like the steep loose rock descent to the Gila River late morning, but managed to stay on his feet.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were away by 6am and resumed our journey along the Gila River High Route which we had begun yesterday after lunch.  We could have stayed on the Gila River Route, but we didn't feel the need for more river crossings, though knew we would miss some great scenery.  We had already had some magnificent scenery on the High Route, so we are happy with our choice.

The morning’s hiking was excellent (see above).  There were sections where the path was covered with loose volcanic rocks that made hiking tiring, but much of it was also excellent trail.

Around noon our route took us steeply down to cross the Gila River, again, and then steeply up the other side.  We had great views and at the top of the initial climb the trail crossed a mesa covered with open grassland.  Quite a change.

Eventually we reached a forestry campground where there were some horses wandering around and some parked horse floats, and we stopped for a break at one of the picnic tables.

After about 8km of road walking along gravel roads with almost no traffic, we turned up a canyon near the end of the day and found a spot to camp beside the trail at 6pm.  According to our navigation app we are camped at 7800 feet and have spent much of the day between 7000 and 8000 feet.  It was noticeably cooler hiking today, especially when in the cool wind.