Day 133 Shelter Cove to Lake Charlton

Day 133 Friday 9-05 Shelter Cove to Lake Charlton
20.62 miles
From Shelter Cove (mile 1908, elevation 4802)
To Charlton Lake (mile 1926.6, elevation 5678)
Upload 3093
Descend 2238

I had a grilled breakfast sandwich (delicious) and completed charging my devices before hitting the trail.

After recharging my batteries, I finally left camp at 10:30. On the way out, I talked to a man who has a gigantic RV on the main circle. He says he will stay there for a month. Generally, he and his wife live in the RV about 4 months a year. Yesterday, hikers noticed that there is actually what appears to be a wet bar right outside the RV. The owner told me that the wet bar is actually just a bike tent his wife found ($40 online) with a table inside.

This morning the sky was perfectly clear. Mid afternoon it became cloudy and rained for 5-10 minutes along with some distant thunder.

I managed a 23:17 pace for the first 15 miles until lunch. I still hope to go 20 miles today. Today was not as picturesque as some days have been. Rosary Lakes were nice pictures and definitely deserved. But the rest of the day so far has been forest, where the beauty is much more subtle.

Rosario Lake

A little later, as I was finishing lunch, it started to rain again. But this time it continued to rain. There wasn’t any real wind, but it added some pea-sized hail to make it more interesting. If I touched bare skin (my hands were the only thing exposed) it almost felt like it would sting a little. It continued for about 20 minutes before it subsided and the sun finally came out again.

Hail on the ground, only a small part of which bounced off me first.

I wasn’t sure if this trail sign was intended to be «TS!» or «ETI». But I took the photo for my daughter, who spent a summer working at TSI – Timber Stand Improvement.

In 2018, a wildfire devastated Philmont, Scouting USA’s 140,000-acre backpacking camp in New Mexico, while my daughter was working there. They couldn’t really have backpacking gear, so they offered staff the opportunity to work at TSI instead of whatever job they had been hired for. In parts of the campground away from the active fire, they thinned trees and removed ladder fuels along the campground’s dirt roads. Ladder fuels are things like leaning dead trees that could allow a ground fire to develop into a crown fire. The goal was to create a firebreak and also allow the roads to remain passable to help fight future fires.

I made it to 20 miles: Charlton Lake. Before I even had my tent completely up, another couple and their corgi came by. ‘Just Ken» is filling in some gaps from his PCT hike last year. His dog, Trixie, was all energy. She loved playing fetch and swimming. I threw the stick many times while talking to them. And while I enjoyed their company, I found it difficult to get things done.

My tent site at Charlton Lake

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