Day 12 - The Devil’s Garden
Date: Mon April 29
Start Mile: 157.6
End Mile: Gila River Alternate Mile 9.7
Total Mileage: 21mi
Highlights: rivers, grass, and boulders
This morning we slinked out of town while it was still that pre-dawn dark … the sky just beginning to lighten, but the street lamps still glowing.
We weaved our way northward through town to rejoin the “trail”, which would begin with several miles of walking along a paved road before becoming several miles along a dirt road. These early morning hours were cold and it seemed to take quite a while before we were able to walk through a bit of sun.
Highway scenery. This feels like a trap.
Eventually, the trail left the dirt road and became… trail, actually, meandering gently through hillsides at fairly easy grades. Sometimes flat. It was a nice stretch of the hike. At one point Hot Mess said something like “Don’t you wish the whole hike could be like this?” Cue sinister laughing.
Eventually the trail dumped us into a gravel parking lot, where we posted up in the shade of some trees. It seemed to be a popular spot, as we’d seen one trail runner, a day hiker, and later a gravel biker.
Though we’d hiked around 13 miles (based on watch mileage, not trail map mileage - which do actually differ enough to make a distinction), it was still only around 10:30a, so we decided to carry on a bit further after the break before stopping for lunch.
This also marked the point where we would be leaving the official CDT route to take the Gila River Alternate - a route that most hikers opted to take - both for its beauty and the abundance of water, since you make many many river crossings along the route. In terms of our map, we moved from the “red line” (official route) to the “pink line” for the alternate.
There are actually many alternates though this area of the trail. In fact, while we took the official CDT route to this point, there was also a second option leaving town - the Walnut Creek Alternate (brown line). Soon we will be entering the Gila Wilderness, where - in addition to the Gila River Alternate we are taking, there is another alternate called the Gila High Route, as well as several connector trails between the two routes. So many options. As I said in one of the earlier blogs before we began the trail, the CDT is a bit of a choose-your-own adventure trail and we are just getting started.
We ended up hiking just two more miles down a very recently graded dirt road before stopping for our lunch break. So recently graded, in fact, that we saw the road grader go by twice while we took our lunch break.
After digging into our lunches, we dozed off for a short nap until we heard the crunch of footsteps nearing. New thru hiking faces! The hikers were Salt and McGuyver. They asked if we’d seen another hiker with a red backpack. We had not. They were the first two hikers we’d seen for the day. We chatted for a while about camping plans for the day, trail names, and other hiking stuffs before they set off to hike a bit more before their own lunch break. As they walked off, we noticed McGuyver’s pack had two googly eyes stuck to the back. I loved this.
A little after 1pm, we packed up to continue on. This next section would mostly be dirt road with twisted, steep, rocky inclines and equally steep, rutted, rocky declines - with this sequence on repeat for several miles. Real ankle sprain territory, though luckily we made it through unscathed.
Around 2:30pm, we made it to our first junction with Bear Creek - our first actual river of the entire trail. We had passed the tiniest of rivulets on the last section, though hardly anything I would refer to as a river. It was a beautiful thing, natural flowing water - and obviously trumped collecting water from cow troughs. We stopped for a break to collect and filter cold drinking water and splash some water on our faces.
Continuing along the route, we followed and crossed the river several more times - luckily each crossing aided by plenty of stones to hop our way across the river. The water was not deep by any means, but it’s nice to keep our feet dry while we still can. Once we hit the Gila River, that will no longer be an option.
About 17 miles into our day of hiking, we came across a great little spot by the river with some nice flat tent spaces. We plopped down and considered making it our home for the night, such a nice site and all, but since it was only 3:15ish, we decided to push on for a few more miles.
The most lush grass we’ve seen on the trail. Hot Mess lay down to make grass angels in excitement.
The final three miles brought us back onto trail - this time with a lot of climbing and rocky sections, though it topped out hiking us along the mountainside with a beautiful view of the valley below.
Oddly shaped stacked-boulder rock features were plopped down amidst the trees, looking a bit alien to the landscape, but a very interesting change of scenery. From the map, it looks like the area may be called the Devil’s Garden, which would certainly seem fitting. Even the trail had morphed into a path of rock steps and slab walkways.
Not too far up the trail, we hit another small stream crossing and found a spot to camp for the night. After setting up our tent, we returned to the river to collect water and soak our feet while we made dinner.
Here I discovered that I had a bit of a bumpy red rash over parts of my upper legs and ankles … unsure if it’s from something I brushed up against while hiking or maybe just heat rash, but I’m going to do the same thing that I do with most of my aches and pains on the trail: ignore it and hope it goes away. It doesn’t itch, so that’s good. I did soak my feet and rinse my legs off in the cool river water, which seemed to help a little bit.
While we ate our ramen dinners, Salt and McGuyver came by. We had passed them not long after our lunch breaks, when they were taking their own lunch break. Now they planned to hike just another mile or so further to see if tent could find a camping spot near the river a bit further on.
Not five minutes after they’d left, the hiker with the red backpack came up the trail. He had not yet run into Salt and McGuyver for the day, yet they were so close to each other. We told him they’d just been by. He laughed but stopped briefly anyway to collect some water and chat for a minute. Our red backpacked acquaintance was Dr Zoom. He had started the CDT on the same day as the other two and, since they had similar hiking paves, they had been hiking with/around each other since the beginning.
After he moved on, Hot Mess and I finished our dinner and water filtering and moved ourselves back to our tent. Our tent is set back a bit from a rocky ledge overlooking the valley. I can see the beautiful colors of sunset filtering through the trees from our tent, but am all tucked in and too tired to go take a look from the ledge. Zzzzzz.