The plan: Do the Overland trail (14 miles) and connect up to the Railroad grade trail (19 miles) = 33 miles over the next 3 days. HINDSIGHT: A little over ambitious, ha! What we actually did was 25 miles over 2 days.
We drove up from the valley and headed out on the Apache Vista trial to meet up with the Overland trail. We were hoping for some rain and were prepared with our rain gear. We've never had a chance to use it yet! Our goal was to get to Crescent Lake and then meet up with the Railroad Grade trail. Hmmm, only 14 1/2 miles.
Cows: I call cows landsharks. They are scary! Every other animal in the forrest runs away from you. NOT COWS! They stop and they mad dog you. They stare at you all the way before you get to them and well after you have passed them! And if you linger too long, they start walking towards you like to challenge you. The defiant pupil! (from the book Zoo by James Pattereson).
I'm a believer! I'm running!
We passed a million of these cattle guards! They scare me too!
At one point, we had to get out of the trees and follow along in the meadow. Too much debris!
We spotted this little house in the middle of nowhere! We HAD to check it out!
I used the timer to take this picture!
I love the ceiling!
Coming up to a camp site.
Going into the forrest. It says Crescent Lake 10 miles. HINDSIGHT: Get your mosquito net out!
It was hard to get a picture of Jeff because he was being attacked by mosquitos and he was running!
And he made it out! I made it out with no mosquito bites!
After dealing with mosquitos...it started to rain/hail on us! We were in a meadow with no cover. We figured the cows stand out in the middle of the meadow and don't take cover, so either are we! Jeff was awesome as usual. He got his rain jacket and backpack cover on. I managed to get my rain jacket and pants on while he got my backpack cover on for me. While he was doing that, I got a bar out and started eating. I was soo hungry and I didn't care about the rain or hail. I just wanted to eat something!
We did a long stretch in this desolation. It was sandy and never ending. I had the song Body like a Back Road by Sam Hunt in my head the entire time: "Doin' 15 in a 30, I ain't in no hurry. I'ma take it slow just as fast as I can."
We took a little rest and gave our feet a break. Jeff did some stretching while I looked at pictures. I didn't know he took a picture of me and he didn't know I was sneaking pictures of him stretching! HA!
There's an elk on the trail!
The sun in starting to go down. We gotta find somewhere pretty to camp!
We found this awesome grassy meadow next to a copse of trees. Jeff wouldn't let us camp under a tree. He said the limbs could fall off and kill us in the night. Ha? There was a ton of elk poop in the grass, The grass was so thick and tall it was great cushion for sleeping! I had to use my flash to take this picture. We had a crazy night of not really sleeping. I wish I could have taken a picture of the sky that night. We were in the pitch black middle of nowhere and the sky was amazing! You could see billions of stars! We heard elk "chirping". I don't know what you call the sound they make. We heard either wolves or coyotes doing a howl off on two different occasions in the night. The middle of nowhere isn't so quiet!
What a glorious sight to open your tent up too!
After an exhausting night of little to no sleep, we decided that we should just head back to the car. We did 13 miles the day before and we were sore and tired and didn't feel much like doing 19 more miles! So we charted a route to the road. We came out on Mile Marker 395. We were headed the other way (away from the trees).
We started walking into the desolation on a warm sunny day with no clouds in the sky! The bad thing about a road march is that you can see every single mile marker! You're like, "Ugh, it's only been 8 miles!" and like every parent says, "It was all UP HILL!" and that's no lie! Jeff set up my umbrella for me but halfway through the hike I had to take it off because of the sudden violent wind gusts that would practically blow me over because of the umbrella. Jeff played music on his phone and that helped pass the time. We kept talking about how this reminded us of the book "The Long Walk" by Stephen King. It's about teenage boys who do an annual walking contest and they have to maintain a speed of at least four miles per hour and if they drop below that speed for 30 seconds they get shot dead. (Great book. I highly recommend it! ha!) I kept asking Jeff how fast we were going and then had to remember that we were carrying 35+ packs. We made awesome time though!
We started running super low on water. Jeff went down to look at a little "stream" that really wasn't anything. :(
We came up to a little camp site that actually had some shade with trees!! Trees! Blessed shade under the trees! We took our shoes off and rested for about 1/2 hr then geared our self up for another 5 or so miles (still uphill!)
We kept thinking just at the top of the next hill was the turnoff to the truck. Several false finishes later we made it up the crest of a big hill and there was the entrance to the Apache Trail! WHY DID HE HAVE TO PARK SO FAR AWAY! Ugh! The long road to salvation! We had used our last swig of water to make it up the hill right after Hay Lake. We knew there was water in the truck! We did 12 miles today before noon!
We headed to the Alpine Grill for a nice lunch to treat ourselves! When we got there and had to get out of the car, we were so sore and stiff that we could barely walk! The bathroom was sooooooo far away but I had to wash my hands. This was on the wall of the bathroom. I thought it was funny but apparently nobody else did. :/
After lunch, we went to Mountain High Inn and took a long nap. Then went to Fox Fire for dinner. I had my first very own salad! This place is changing me! I think it's the candied jalepeno dressing!
This was an awesome trip! We got some more "firsts" in. We got to use our rain gear for the first time and I got to use my umbrella for the first time! Always learning and the exploring in this beautiful place is unbelievable!
