Day 037 - Continental Divide Trail - Olguin Mesa to Arkansas Creek

Day: 037

Date: Wednesday, 12 June 2024

Start:  Olguin Mesa

Finish:  Arkansas Creek

Daily Kilometres:  39.4

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

Total Kilometres:  1129.2

Weather:  Cool early then warm and mostly sunny.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts/Muesli 

  Lunch:  Trail mix 

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meal/Chicken & rice

Aches:  Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.

Highlight:  In the early morning the trail took us along the edge of the Olguin Mesa at 10000’ with superb views west over a grassed valley far below where we could see a lone elk ambling along.

Lowlight:  Blowdowns!  In the last hours of the day the trail took us through forest where hundreds of trees had fallen with scores lying across the trail.  If we were lucky, we could step over them or straddle them carefully but, in many cases, they were too high to climb over and too low to crawl under.  Often logs were jumbled together and there was no easy way around.  Broken branches were everywhere.  At the end of a long day, the exertion required was significant and there was much cursing.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We woke to a beautiful morning and were hiking by 6am.  Initially we had to descend to a grassy valley, but then we had a long climb up on to the rim of Olguin Mesa and followed that to the north.  The views were amazing (see above) and it was good to be alive.

For the rest of the day we hiked on a mix of single-track and forest roads through peaceful pine forest or through alpine meadows, oscillating between 10000’ and 11000’.  There were snow patches about and some snowy peaks in the distance.

The scenery was just great all day and, although we saw a few other people - a fisherman and a six-person ATV tour - we felt like we had all of it to ourselves.

The only “downer” was the number of blowdowns across the trail towards the end of the day (see above), but that is part of the hiking experience.

Around 6:30pm we found a spot beside a little-used forest road and camped for the night.  We only have about 6km of New Mexico left before we reach Colorado and then another 6km from the border until we reach Cumbres Pass from where we will hitch-hike to Chama, back in New Mexico, for a day off.