Leaving town after a leisurely breakfast, we had not even walked to the end of town when our waitress from the other night, Cindy, saw us, turned around to pick us up and decided to take a drive to Cumbres pass to drop us off!
At the pass there was a confusion of train development and man-made changes to the landscape, but no clear path to the trail. We found the trail head after some poking around and a sign which indicated that the trail (further up) was closed and a detour route would be marked in white. So we started off keeping eyes open for changes to the route.
A couple …
We are definitely in cow country! We woke up this morning to cows of many mooing sounds greeting the sun rise, not unlike the cockadoodledoo of roosters. One cow, in particular, was howling like a lion, or more accurately like a “howler monkey”. He was deep in the valley below us but responses to his howls came from other cows on the plateau, all with different wailing sounds. What could all the chatter be about? Is the grass really greener on the other side?
A hungry clan of coyotes answered the cows’ calls – is the beef always tastier on the other side?
Biting flys and mossies attacked all day, …
We started the bushwhack up Placer canyon thinking the bluffs too high to hold a trail. Not wanting to get blocked out by cliffs we dropped into the canyon and navigated the boulders up the creek for a short ways, only to discover faint trail coming in from the cliffs above.
Placer canyon led into broader and easier to navigate Long canyon and eventually to a crossing of Highway 64. Heading north the trail parallells the highway for several miles along old roads so faint that the are almost indistinguishable from natural ground disturbance. With patches of forest and fields and few distinguishing landmarks we moved slowly, …
We continued our walk along FS road 274, passing an old RV trailer with no one home but a horse and an underfed and overly friendly dog. Likely a shepherd’s camp. The dog, a puppy really, follows us for over a half mile wanting companionship or food or both, but we finally convince it to return to it’s vacant camp.
The road was a roller coaster walk keeping at the 9,500 to 10,000 foot level for the first 8 miles. One section was cross country cutting off a big, unnecessary loop in the road. It was rough with a lot of brush and downed trees as well as a small ravine. …
A long ridge walk, along jeep roads fading back into fields of grass and wildflowers. The route followed a ridgeline most all day defined by Mogote Mountain rolling along mostly around 9,000. We drifted along the trail as it generally followed the ridge sometimes in open fields someties in stands of Aspen or forests of pine.
Like a sailor who has set sights on a distant shore and been blown a little off course by ill winds, we also a couple times drifted off course on one of the many unmarked crossroads and needed to make some cross country “course corections or adjustments”. This added a couple …
