Day: 036
Date: Tuesday, 11 June 2024
Start: Rio Vallecitos
Finish: Olguin Mesa
Daily Kilometres: 40.8
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1089.8
Weather: Cold early then warm and sunny to noon. Thunderstorms and a little rain in the afternoon.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts/Muesli
Lunch: Trail mix
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: None in particular
Lowlight: We had to ford the Rio Vallecitos around 7am when we were already quite cold. The rocks underfoot were slippery and Julie partially fell, knocking her knee and getting a bit wet, but avoiding significant immersion.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We got away from camp around 6am with a slightly damp tent from intermittent overnight rain. Our first hour involved descending steadily to the Rio Vallecitos which we then had to ford. It wasn't that wide, but there was a significant current and the rocks underneath were slippery. Neither of us really wanted to start out the day with wet shoes and socks, but we had no choice.
After the ford, most of the rest of the day seemed to be spent gradually ascending through forest and across huge alpine meadows. The scenery was again spectacular. Perhaps our only complaint was some of the trail design. When we were hiking the Appalachian Trail last year, hiker jargon included the word PUDS - Pointless Ups and Downs - and on the CDT we plan to introduce another bit of jargon, UMS - Unnecessary Meandering Switchbacks. Yesterday and today we have had sections on gradual hills where the trail uses sweeping curves to gradually gain height when it would have been very easy to walk a straight line, as many hikers before us have done.
Around noon, what had been a beautiful morning began to turn ugly with cloud building and regular thunder. There was occasional light rain but what was amazing was how quickly it dropped the temperature and brought wind gusts. This was the pattern for most of the afternoon as each thunderhead moved through.
We had our lunch at the National Forests Hopewell Lake Campground - tables, toilet and trash - where we also got water from the camp caretaker.
During the afternoon we passed the Lake, in a beautiful alpine setting, where a number of people were fishing and then steadily climbed, mostly through meadows, with the occasional patch of snow visible, and a herd of elk in the distance at one point.
Around 6:30pm we found a lovely tent site on a knoll set amongst a grove of silver birch close to a stream. Sadly, there are some mosquitoes, but the birds are also singing. We are at 10200’ so expect a cool night.
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