WalkingCarrot

We awoke to clear skies, packed up and continued our walk across the rolling plateau of San Pedro Park. It’s good to be back in the highlands again. The trail crosses the head of
Rio Puerco in an area of shallow marshy grass. There are posts to guide the way but no actual trail through the wetlands. “Wetlands”, something that has been non existant, except for the Gila river canyons, so far on our walk through New Mexico. We relish the experience, wet feet and all.

The CDT uses a series of existing trails in the San Pedro Wilderness. One of these is the “Vaca” trail. Sure enough, before long we come across a herd of vaca. They do like vaca do and run away. Cows at a full gallop always look like the are going to fall over. Their hind legs just don’t seem to be able to take a full stride. Ungainly animals, obviously bred for the dinner plate and not athletic endeavors. Rounding the next bend we come across a herd of Elk. Magnificent, graceful animals; they run with speed and agility, especially obvious when compared to the cows one meadow away.

We continue up the valley following the “Rio Vaca”. It’s bad enough having to share the wilderness with cows, but it seems very odd that they’ve taken over the place names too, as if the cows are the predominate feature of which to be proud.

Rolling on to the high point of the tree covered plateau, the views are limited by the abundance of aspen, subalpine fir and Engleman spruce. We’re happy to have the trees and lush green grasses. And delighted to see another herd of Elk.

We decend on newer trail and come to an unexpected spring. We linger over lunch at the rare treat of water, cold and clear. Then it takes awhile to sort out where the trail goes, with no markings and several possibilities. We find it and drop down to the rolling rocky bottomlands, still in trees!

Afternoon thunderheads buildup, again, and we forge ahead among occasional spritzes of rain. Partly on new trail tread and partly on the older roadwalk route we take the long climb back up to another high plateau. Bands of multi-colored rock form cliffs from midway to the top. Trees continue to dominate the landscape. After reaching the rim we start a long, gradual descent down a small river vally and camp under a large ponderosa.

21 miles