Day 19: Malpais and Chain of Craters

Mileage: 30.1 miles (351.1-380.2)

Even though it's called the Continental Divide Trail it's actually rare the official route is right on top of the divide. Today, however, was an exception ... meaning a lot of ups and downs to stay on top of the ridges! 

I started out the day on about 3/4 mile of lava rock, which was really cool, despite the difficult walking! That particular lava rock is about 1,000 years old, which is quite young for Malpais as the oldest in the park is 100,000 years old. What that means is it hasn't had a ton of time to weather so it's still very sharp and loose ... not a good combo for hiking!

It was a short section though and quickly made my way West towards the divide and the craters which were created by ancient volcanoes. Many of the peaks are the cinder cones from these volcanoes, now densely forested because the debris from the eruptions were nutrient-rich and created great soil for the various pine, juniper, and aspen trees, as well as great habitat for species like Elk, Pronghorn, Bear, and many other creatures.

I actually saw quite a few Elk, some of whom had taken to grazing amongst the cows, which I thought was hilarious imagining them side-by-side having lunch. 

I'd realized the day before that I needed to make big miles to get to Grants by Saturday before the post office closed at noon ... don't ask me how I get myself in these situations, but I just hate letting the postal service set my schedule so I needed three thirty-mile days in a row to make that possible.

So, it was hiking from sunset to sundown, luckily finding some unexpected water along the way to make things a bit easier. The water report still hadn't been updated for this year so I was kind of the test dummy! One of the trail angels (people who help out hikers) up in Grants told me it was a little dicey to take the route I chose, but I figured with the wet spring I'd be ok. 

Cowboy camped again tonight under stars next to a pond that doesn't seen to exist anymore ... only nine more miles to the ranger station and clean water though!