Today was the day I’ve been waiting for ever since starting the CDT. There’s finally going to be an actual river.
Before we get there, we of course need to stop by a water tank first and fill up. There was a real life cowboy there who was contracted by the government to remove feral cows from the Gila wilderness.
He had a whole team of dogs with him but only let two off the leash. They were both really friendly.
With water comes life. I’ve seen a few of these guys along the trail, but this is by far the biggest. Some friends of mine even saw a bear today, and I saw a turkey.
After a massive descent, we made it down to the river. Of course we all got in and just hung out for a couple of hours.
Don’t worry, we were wearing shorts.
The landscape here is completely different from almost anywhere I’ve been. It’s really no surprise people built cliff dwellings in nearby canyons.
After reaching the river the trail turned upstream, sometimes crossing, and sometimes following, the river. There are no bridges and we ended up crossing at least 50 times. I stopped counting after about 25.
At one point we came up on a couple that was making camp. They were pretty far out on the trail and weren’t expecting to see anyone else. I know this because they were naked.
We had a pretty ambitious plans for the day. Our next resupply was 29 miles away. It’s a sort of general store/trading post along the river called Doc Campbell’s. It’s next to some developed hot springs as well. We didn’t think we’d make it there by close so we chose a spot about 3 miles away from Doc Campbell’s.
This campsite had its own private hot spring! After setting up our tents and eating dinner I fixed myself a “cocktail” (just some Mio Flavoring and water) and went for a soak in the spring. The small pool could fit about 5 people and was a really nice temperature. It was fed by a small cascade of hot water that came out of the hillside.
The plan for tomorrow is to take a quick soak before we head in for resupply and enjoy a restful day.