A touch of peanut butter, a tablespoon of glaze: Denver to Río Chama (NM) in photos and verse

I arrived on the path of the Río Chama exhausted, thirsty, generally disgusting. It had been much of my morning walking along the line of the crest of a beautiful and high table, looking at the landscapes that would still strive to cross on foot, looking at my next water source weaving well below, a cloudy brown snake cutting the colorful rocks and miles of the following hills, the smoke, which indicates the following problem, which I should have a need to confirm, my other smoke miles. side of that burned land.

A couple of days before I curled up during a long night of torrential rain, my air pad is now a floating pool, you see, the internal store of my four full season does not remain well at that pressure, but I chose to take this only on my southern walk out of Colorado in June and in the desert in July. I guess «Oops» may not be a word strong enough! It does not matter, I have lived and survived a lot in the last 6,000 miles of hiking throughout the year, often with inappropriate equipment and cents for dollars.

I calculated badly when I left Denver from Littleton on June 1. If you could break during these 5 weeks and about 700 miles. My Garmin experienced a sudden and total death above 12K the morning I woke up to cross my next treacherous crest buried in snow deep and unpredictable stability. My phone’s screen darkened that morning, a problem that I have been having for some time, usually solved with an old school hits the head. Not this morning, and not in the coming weeks. Thirty hard blows and 24 hours later I could temporarily see the screen in my only remaining functional navigation and quasi beyond the brands of unreliable paths already often invisible or too distant. Sometimes the footprints could guide me, but we were a small and heterogeneous team that dangerous these heights so early in the season … We often divert and diverge!

I staggered and staggered, the side of each well -recorded foot better than I could on the steep slope of another snowfield, my right right hip and the lower back constantly threatening to yield while mountain marks joked and skated with such beauty and ease. I looked on the snow shelves that threatened to collapse the peaks and passes that I would need to cross, snow rocks larger than a car that I had already tried the descent and sprinkled rocky and sterile spikes northwest of my real path, the one that probably could not happen without becoming the next avalanche.

I often diverted me from the way, brands are not clear and my technological navigation that frequently lacks the roll call. My food would diminish in the long hauling pounded by a frustrating error. On a particularly beautiful night, I discovered my mistake much later than I would have liked. I kept the map on my phone in my hand, turning to determine the shortest distance back to the right path, you see, I had not entered the weeds, nor did I notice a clear intersection of divergent paths. I had simply followed the visible path where I needed to wander one less stepped on. However, I stayed there, looking at the irregular crest between me and my beautiful CDT, the alternative is to walk my steps back, whose thought let too many growls from my feet and my stomach. I fuck the crest! Nature rewarded me with a garden of gods, a picturesque serenity that I would not have found if I had made the smartest decision. I staggered when I had staggered before, the west sun and distressed fatigue, I relieved my foolishness paid more than what it took once more.

Although it could explain and adjust most of these calculation errors, in fact, a fun task to try to deal with the exchange of guarantee while walking through a great distance, I could not easily plan the only barrier that I least expected to collapse me. He had planned a quick walk south. I packed lighter than I would do, and accepted that I would probably have one or two nights in the landing of an uncomfortable torrent with a less ideal team. The lesions added frustration, but in no way impacted my rhythm beyond the high snow waste work. Just when my hip felt almost cured, a single false step with strong winds that lowered the ribs added to an equation that was already swallowing and did not resolve. I would also adjust there, too much beauty to let so much nonsense collapse an even more wild adventure.

Day After Day, However, I Failed to Reconcile A Yearning Growing Faster and Digging Deper With Each Night’s Camp Amongst 12k Peaks and Stunning Mountain Lakes, Such Solitude A Blessing after The “Wellness Checks” of Kansas and The Many “Hobo Camps” in Metropoli and Smaller Cities Across The Midwest (Um Yes, I Did That Twice!). I packed and planned a quick walk, with physical aptitude to start, but here I found little more than stay, stop my roll, be present instead of ghosts along a trace of invisible souls. I talked to many nobles while robbing south, one of whom stopped to ask me: «Is there others ahead, I haven’t seen anyone in the days?» I smiled: «They are like mosquitoes, I can’t get away quickly enough!» What I really said: «I’ve already seen five of you this morning, the most recent does not have more than twenty minutes!»

These past conversations only served to increase my desire to spend less and photograph more, but I had not planned such adjustment. Frankly, I would have run out of money, food or water, probably all of the above, without the energy that I normally carry for those walks for the blackout of 30-50 miles per day. My heart often longs for the turn and the passage of landscapes, feverish dance through the liminal space of the ecological transition. In general, I love triage in my store, naps instead of sleeping, the calorie and electrolytes when AC/DC hits my ears. I love that feeling of flotation, the strange «become» that comes from an almost incessant movement and beyond total exhaustion. I have persecuted that euphoria all my life! I hoped to chase him again to the southern border. But as I looked for, I could not find my firm companion in all these thousands of solo walk miles, my muse and my friend … absent in the roll, like the technology that helps me navigate beyond the stars in an era of modern miracles.

In fact, the miracles, while sitting on the path of Rio Chama, looking at a forest fire and watching helicopters throw chemicals to turn off the flames and calm the smoke that becomes more sinister per hour. He had no internet and those free subscription maps refused to approach and be useful. I knew how I was driving to the road and that the road would take me, at some point, to Santa Fe. Subno and beyond beat, I bathed in the murky brown water of that snake snake, leaked and filled my belly, and I started the walk that would lead to a hook with an unexpectedly stimulating conversation about socialism and social failures, beyond which I would crash for two days in a fantastic hostel that pushes more free food than my wildest dreams I could have imagined before I imagined me before I imagined me before I imagined me before I imagined me before I imagined me before I imagined me. A bus that would have returned to Olym. While I do, I can return to the high mountains and deserts to continue my walk with the resource I need to walk fast if I want, but also slow and with pause I should continue feeling that desire that it is worth listening.

Will continue …

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