Gila Wilderness Loop-Day 3
We were up at 5AM and on our way by 6:15. Our goal today is to get over to the West Fork drainage. Our original plans to hike up near the head of the...
Monthly Archive: May 2026
Gila Wilderness Loop-Day 2
At 5 a.m. we woke up, packed, had breakfast, and left by 6:30. Everyone was in good spirits as we started up the Middle-Fork canyon. It was in the low forties, and we watched...
Gila Wilderness Loop-Day 1
I arrived in Albuquerque on Friday, and Cappuccino met me at the airport. We did some shopping for last-minute items and got our gear organized. On Saturday, we picked up Slinky at the airport...
Mark’s Photos #11
The thermometer read 19°F and my hands were almost numb. The snow crunched under my trail runners as I stumbled around in the dark. It was 9 o’clock PM on a first quarter moon...
Cautiously Optimistic
Last weekend the Hummingbird Fire in the Gila Wilderness had consumed more than 5,600 acres and was zero percent contained. Its location, directly to the west of our proposed trek, and prevailing westerly winds...
Mark’s Photos #10
“Not all miles are the same,” Spider Woman had told me, and she was right. We all know this, but sometimes it’s good to be reminded. A ten mile level forest walk is not...
6 responses to “Mark’s Photos #10”
You do resemble a small conifer at times…..
I’ll take that as a compliment.😄
“there were no other plants in this hellscape” gives me quite the picture of this field of cinder. And where did you finally find water?
There was another spring two more miles from where I got to the forest, but I just couldn’t go that far. So I set up camp in the shade and was able to find a seep where I collected about 8 oz of water over a couple hours. That tided me over until morning when I hiked to that next spring.
A seep? I don’t know that term. Between two rocks?
“Seep” means to flow or pass slowly through small openings or porous material. Sometimes called oozing, it is an area where small amounts of moisture are coming out of the ground or from a seam of rock. Often a slightly damp or muddy area in an otherwise dry stream bed with a little digging can be coaxed to form a tiny pool of water given time.