Day: 043
Date: Tuesday, 18 June 2024
Start: Park Creek
Finish: Wagon Wheel Gap
Daily Kilometres: 39.6
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1294.3
Weather: Cold early then warm and sunny with a blustery wind.
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Breakfast burritos, ice cream
Dinner: Rehydrated meals
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Nothing in particular.
Lowlight: We snapped off two tent pegs, the first of the trip, as we packed up this morning. Dave had hammered them in extra hard with a large rock last night as the wind was threatening to pull them out of the ground, and apparently he had driven them into tree roots like nails and they would not come out until we snapped them off while trying to budge them. We have two spares, but will need to find some replacements.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We were hiking by 6:10am, despite time lost trying to unsuccessfully retrieve two tent pegs (see above).
We followed our forest road for another 5km until we reached Hwy 160, which was quite busy, even at 7am, and followed that northwards. At one point we were passed by a cyclist with a number attached to his road bike, pedalling quite seriously then, shortly afterwards, by a van with flashing lights atop and multiple bikes on the back. Googling later, it seems likely he was in the Race Across the West (RAW), a qualifying event for the famous Race Across America (RAAM) which only takes 12 participants each year.
After another 10km along the highway, we reached the small town of South Fork and a recommended exotic cafe at 10am and had some breakfast. It was good.
South Fork seems to be the world centre of summer RV Campgrounds/Resorts and we saw many, some of them huge, on the way into and out of town. Lots of Texas license plates so they must migrate here to beat the heat.
South Fork also offered other outdoor activities in addition to the ubiquitous ATV rentals. Rafting, including fly-fishing from rafts, seemed very popular on the fast-flowing Rio Grande, the same river that eventually makes it way to the Gulf of Mexico and marks the border between the US (Texas) and Mexico. We also saw that you could hire small, pedal-driven rail cars that used the old railway line following the Rio Grande upstream.
We also followed the Rio Grande upstream as we continued our long road walk, this time along Hwy 149. It was easy to forget that we were still above 8000’ as we walked along the highway admiring the high orange cliffs to our right and the huge mountains to our left, with the rushing Rio Grande below. There was quite a lot of traffic but we had enough room on the verge to stay safe. There were also lots of vacation cabins along the river and nestled in the woods.
After a long day on the road, we found a tent site behind some trees near the highway in Wagon Wheel Gap at around 5:40pm and called it a day. We now only have a short walk to Creede tomorrow morning where we will resupply and have a motel room booked for tomorrow night.
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