Gila R- Middle Fork Day 4

At 10:30 last night the steady rain of the evening turned into a downpour. Heavy and hard rain fell for over an hour and maybe longer. (I fell back asleep about 11:30.) It was still raining at 2AM, but not as hard. I slept fitfully the rest of the night as I tried to figure out how we were going to deal with the flooding river I was sure was coming. We were camped high enough not to be washed away, but if the West Fork was rain swollen our path back to the car would be blocked. I dreamt up a number of harebrained escape schemes in my drowsy state. Most of which were forgotten by daylight.

Cappuccino got out of her hammock at first light and walked down to look at the river. There appeared to be no change in the level. Breakfast in our hammocks and breaking camp in the rain was accomplished in record time. Shouldering our packs and going down to the river, we made an easy ford and prepared to hike back up the Hell Hole switchbacks.

Although the original,and then the modified plan, had been to finish the trek by hiking down the West Fork, the continuing rain had me spooked. So we decided to go back up to the canyon rim and hike overland, avoiding the river altogether. Of course this meant we were carrying 8 liters of water between us and planned a dry camp tonight.

The 1,200 foot climb took a couple hours of steady climbing, but once on top the path was good and the terrain pretty flat. Someone with pack animals had walked our trail the day before, so the path was churned up mud in a lot of places, but we still made good time. The rain held off most of the day as we moved from Ponderosa forests to more open hardwood savanna. After about 11 miles we decided to stop and pitch camp. It was only 3:30, but there were claps of thunder nearby and a bit of rain and we wanted one more night of camping.

We were able to have dinner, during a pause in the rain, sitting on Cappuccino’s short foam mat. We also got to watch a brief bit of color as the sun set. Tomorrow we walk the last 5 miles down to the car and head back to Albuquerque.

Until tomorrow, safe travels and happy trails…