Tl;Dr: work in progress. Mostly off cell service, next update probably Friday. Weather says: Rainy.
Might consider Vallecitos Mountian Ranch or a near by cabin if thing looks iffy. Update: Vallecitos Mountain Ranch is to busy hosting bhuddist retreats to offer water or shelter to travelers, but they assure me it’s beautiful. Huh.
You know what assumptions do right?
Assumption:reality
- El Rito is tiny, no food or water: El Rito is charming, and the ranger station gave me water, coffee and power
- New Mexico Roads are awful: Abiquiu to Cañon Plaza roads have been very nice. Even the forest roads are really easy.
- Cañon Plaza has no services: the Summer Store is closed, but Sylvia let me hide out from the weather in their tractor garage & gave me water.
- Thunderstorms mean hail & lightning: just thunder & light rain today.
- On that last point: see below
Gonna get back out in it, looks like the cell is past me.
Update 10pm
Made it to Hopewell. Camped, water re-supplied thanks to Merlin, Katie & Yeshe – next door neighbors. But getting here…
After leaving Cañon Plaza I knew I had a lot of elevation to gain, and it started right away. Up through more very pretty meadows, with a handy dandy flowing creek on one side.
Around 5 I started the final climb up to 9.9k. Just after I left Point Of Interest ‘Cabin’ I could smell the petrichor and sure enough a little rain after that.
Then more, and more and more. With thunder, and lightning. for 2 solid hours as inched my way up to 9.9k. I can’t really describe it, the photos don’t even do justice. I wore 2 of 4 of my rain kit clothes, probably the right amount.
The lightning was scary. Never closer than 5 miles, but hard to predict how fast it was moving or what I would do. I tried to stay out of wide Open spaces, but that was not always possible. Regardless, I left.
What was even more scary were the seven cars I saw going to the local Buddhist retreat. This was a very rough road, but that seemed not to matter to the people driving the Corollas and Priuses. Priuses dan, what was essentially a stream at nearly 30 mph. One of them stopped to say “Hi!” and then left without another word. The rest seemed not very interested in me and perhaps a little perturbed that I was making it harder for them to get by. Hmph. I feel like I should write the spiritual leader of that place a letter. Which probably means I should not.
Camp Hopewell Lake is a standard car camping setup, loop, pit toilets, no running water. Slightly more expensive and the place I stayed last night that had a kitchen, running water and Wi-Fi. The other campers have been lovely, including Merlin, Katie, and Yeshe who loaded me back up with water.
Bad news is that quite a bit of my clothing is very, very wet. Supposedly it is going to rain again tonight so things won’t really have a chance to dry out. I strung up a laundry line with the things that are essential regardless since they can’t get any more wet. Wet clothes will be disgusting, but for the most part I don’t have to wear them. And I will need to find a place to store them that doesn’t make everything else wet.
I hear from the camp host Don but tomorrow will be muddy no matter what route I take. That means a lot of slow going. I’m not quite sure whether I should forge on a head, or wait for a day to dry out. Yeshe says Colorado is amazing.
Really pooped, g’nite
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