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Scary night moments
Day 15
Date: 07.05.2022
CDT Mile: Mile 204.7
Miles hiked: 20.5 Miles / 33 km
After the well deserved zero day yesterday, we hiked out of Doc Campbell's early in the morning with new energy. Our group size expanded by 4 more hikers. So now it's Dogbite, PlusOne, Simple and me and new also Drugstore (previous Noodles?), Patchwork, Longstride and Tiempo. All american's, except me. It's a long way to the next town stop to Pie Town and we packed food for 7 days. However, I rather pack food for 7 days than carrying 5+ liters of water! And hiking in the Gila River means no water carry. It was still fresh outside, but as soon as the first sunshine hits you, it warms up immediately and you wish some cold breeze back. It's a 5 miles road walk, but it's a pleasant road walk. No cars and a beautiful landscape. We got to see more Vulture Birds (we see them nearly every day) and a Javelina (kind of a pig), however far in the distance, so I didn't really see it well. We hiked down the little bear canyon to get back to the Gila River. It was an amazing hike amongst dramatic cliffs as you get closer to the Gila River. A couple of miles later in the Gila River, we enjoyed our lunch at a beautiful natural hot spring. The water temperature was perfect: not too hot and really enjoyable. It was hard finding the motivation to leave the hot springs again! Specially if you have no towel and even so it was hot outside, I was still cold the first couple of minutes. Drying in this sun however takes no time. The afternoon hike in the Gila River continued to be epic! All the dramatic, narrow, steep and high (up to 80 meters) Canyon walls in its red colours reminded me a little of the Arches National Park. There were many river crossings, and apparently also poison oak, a poisend bush. Its leaves have some poison oil in them and once touched, it is very easy to spread it all over your body and clothes. And you will only find out if you touched the leaves a couple of hours later. Some bodies don't react very bad to the poison, others however react very bad. I have not yet made the experience with poison oak, so I don't know how I react and I prefer it to stay this way. Also it takes 14 days to heal, which is a damn long time if you are in pain! The mean thing is, that there are other bushes and trees they look alike posion oak and sometimes it is just inevitable to touch leave's, so you just gotta take the risk! I was lucky, I made it through without any signs of poison oak on my skin. But I collected many more scratches on my legs...
I absolutely love the Gila River, this is by sure my favourite stretch so far. I could take pictures at every turn. The walls change colour and forms. And this section is very different from the section before Doc Campbell's.
We decided to camp when we passed a big camp site. As it's now 8 of us, it can be a little harder to find a big and good enough camp site. Also, we hiked 20.5 miles today, which is a good day. At the campground we find bones and the guys collect them and try to place them right, in the middle of our campground. I don't really know if that's a great idea. If there are bones that means that a bigger animal killed and eat the deer (or whatever it is) right here a while ago! But there is 8 of us, sure no bear or mountain lion will come to visit us at night. We decided to cowboy camp. However, I woke up with a start by some big, heavy noise around 11pm. Not only I hear it. We try to spot the animal with our flash lights but can't find anything. I pitch my tent, feel safer with some walls around me😁 also we collect some stones for protection. While all this happend, Dogbite and PlusOne never woke up, even with us shining the lights straight on them! It must have been a bear we believe who got attracted by all the yummy and smelly food we all carry. I'm really greatful I was not camping alone down here tonight!
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