Day 35: Blizzard on into Colorado

Mileage: 22.9 (664.4-687.3)

New Mexico didn't want us to leave. The morning started off beautifully, with completely blue skies and a few clouds. We started off early, rising with the Elk. I roused a few on the jeep track, one which was just thirty feet away. It was the first time I've gotten to one of these massive creatures up close and impressed by how graceful they were dancing through the snow.

The first few miles were no problem on the road. Commando, Karma, and I had a lot of energy, perhaps a leftover from the surprise shelter we found the night before. We were seeing all kinds of prints in the fresh snow: Elk, Mule Deer, Blue Grouse, and the tails of mice dragging between their tiny toes.

All of a sudden, we noticed a large, dark figure in the distance. My first thought was big Elk. But then we realized the creature was making a lot of noise. As it got closer, we realized it was a human, walking down the road in the opposite direction. I figure in any other situation I would have realized the shape was human a lot sooner, but it was unfathomable that we'd ever run into another human so high up and away from the road after such a big storm. 

As the dark clad man got closer, and we heard the shouts, "Brother! Brother!" we knew it must be Maniac. He'd left a day sooner than we had, so we figured he had already made it to town. When we met we could see how relieved he was to run into us. We giddily embraced and then saw how shaken he was. His GPS and phone batteries had both nearly died and he had spent 15 hours in his tent waiting out the storm. With his good running low he had decided to try and walk the road 28 miles all the way back to the highway. 

To be honest, I'm not sure he would have made it. He had tried calling 911 the night before but the call wouldn't go through. That we met him at all was a miracle in of itself: we had taken the road on a whim, as a way to avoid a confusing part of trail through the campground. Maniac explained he "always has a guardian angel looking out for him." I'm not sure who was watching over him, but I'm sure glad that we ran into him. And you certainly can't deny the serendipity.

After we got Maniac's spirits up and he started telling us how he'd gotten steak and green beans the day before we started not feeling quite as bad for him sleeping out in the cold.

We continued walking and Karma, Commando, and I took turns breaking the trail through the snow. At most we would break for 45 minutes at a time before falling back in line as a Canada goose might take it's shift at the head of a flying v. We gave Maniac a reprieve since he'd been breaking trail for us the couple days before. We had some beautiful views off an icy ridge before the weather started to turn by about 11am. 

The clouds gathered and it began sprinkling and then quickly dumping snow. The snow fell it fits and starts, but steadily all day long. We managed ten miles by 10am, but for the rest of the day we were lucky to do 1 1/2 miles per hour. This is less than half our normal pace of 3-3.5 mph. The snow was just too deep to keep any normal pace going. Every step you'd sink into the snow. If you treaded too hard your whole leg would crash through the crust or feet would splash into the icy mud below.

The roads and the trail itself were turned into streams by the snow melt, giving no respite from the slog. In fact, we avoided these at all costs. As the afternoon wore on, the snow fell harder and we pressed on towards the Colorado border and the road which would take us to Chama, NM and a hot meal (Yes, we walk into CO, only to hitch back to NM one hour later).

We were all pretty beat by mid-afternoon, but Maniac was the worst off. His night out in the blizzard had taken a lot out of him, so we did all we could to keep him moving. We alternated breaking trail more often and opted to take more direct routes instead of the official trail, which wound around mountains and cliffs. I would take a compass bearing from our position the GPS and then try to stay on it a mile or two until the next waypoint. This worked well, but also made for slow going as we had to do a lot of up and down on steep slopes, instead of contouring along the ridges like the official route.

We finally made it to the border by 4pm and took some celebratory photos. There was no monument or cairn, just a sign that told us we were entering Rio Grande National Forest. Though  I didn't fully understand it, I knew I had done something special, completing close to 700 miles of trail in a little over a month through rivers, mountains, mesas, desert, wind, rain, sleet, and snow. I was grateful for every wildflower, elk, grouse, and rainbow.

Our reflection was short-lived though as we all got cold quickly as the wind was howling. 

We had 2.7 miles to the road and the clouds were closing in on us. I took one final bearing to get us to the road and off we went striding down our first slopes in Colorado, literally bounding like rabbits through the fresh powdery snow. Before we got to the road, we ascended one last ridge which had the stiffest winds we'd seen the whole hike, with gusts topping out at 50 mph, enough to push you side to side. Without the cliff face to our West we carefully plodded along until we finally reached the road at 6 o'clock. 

We had an 11 mile hitch to Chama and the first car we saw in 15 minutes drove right by us. It was a full on blizzard now and we contemplated taking shelter in the privy and weathering the storm. Me and Commando were going to walk down the road. Then we saw a new VW bus creating over the hill. We all waved our hands and poles like madmen. Luckily, they stopped. Mary and Heron from Boulder, our lifesavers! Laying in the backseat of that heated bus was like heaven. They all shared some special herb and I'm sure I was feeling some of the effects.

After we got to Chama we hurriedly went to the closest restaurant in town, the Chama Grill, which was housed in the old Dairy Queen. I had two taquitos, a fish sandwich, French fries, a giant smothered burrito, an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate, and (as Laura said, "most surprisingly") three soda cups of Mt Dew ... my first soda in many years, but dam it tasted good. With a full belly, we went back to the hotel and I quickly fell asleep, unsure of what lay ahead.