Friday May 31, 20.4mi/32.8km

Hummingbird Saddle (34.0/10,380ft) to W Fork Gila River (54.4/6560ft) (NM)

There was no wind last night, and it was surprisingly warmer than I thought it would be. I hiked out of camp in shorts in the warm sunny weather.

The trail was still great, and no blowdowns either. I was able to move along pretty quickly though I did pause to watch this snake slither across.

I could see the ridgeline up ahead that I would be hiking, leading to the summit of Mogollon Baldy peak.

As the peak got closer, I could see a little bit of snow still left on its Northern slopes.

Once I was at the top, I took a pretty long break to explore the buildings and chat with the caretakers.

Sandy invited me up to the tower (which is also their living quarters) to see some of the views.

It was pretty windy up there so they invited me in to chat, and we talked for awhile about all the local trails, mountains, and history of the area.

By now it was almost 1pm so I said goodbye and headed down the mountain.

I descended pretty much the rest of the day, all the way down to the west Fork Gila River. The terrain alternated between burned forest and meadow and regular forest. I think this area was called Snow Park.

Cool little stand of trees in a meadow.

At one point I heard a bunch of crashing in the brush, so I stopped and listened…and two Elk came running by!

Once I was further down, I entered the unburned forest which was also full of Lupine flowers.

It was nice to be hiking in the shade and out of the hot Sun.

I came to a trail junction and I noticed the strange names, Rawmeat Creek… Who named these things?

I finally finished my descent off the mountain and crossed White Creek, where I refilled my empty water bottles.

And for the last hour of the day I followed the West Fork Gila River, which I will be following all day tomorrow as well.

It also had a couple strange names at its trail junctions. Hell’s Hole?!

If you see a fork in the road, take it!

I thought it would be easy to find a camp spot in the pine forest that surrounds the river, but much of it was either slanty, or had poison ivy. Eventually I settled for a little spot amongst a copse of pine trees that seemed fine.

Thursday May 30, 18.5mi/29.8km

Mineral Creek TH (15.5/5440ft) to Hummingbird Saddle (34.0/10,380ft) (NM)

I started off the morning hiking up Mineral Creek for a few hours. It had a decent trail most of the way, though it did involve crossing the stream a few dozen times.

The rock there was very interesting, it was some volcanic tuff that eroded into canyons and slickrock areas.

It was highly enjoyable walking alongside that stream for a while.

I even passed by an old mining site, with lots of interesting old-timey things.

Given the flooding and devastation that happened here about 10 years ago, I was surprised to see such a well-traveled trail.

Someone had taken some boards from the mining site, and made some benches which looked like a perfect spot to take a break.

Sometimes the trail would squeeze between a boulder and a cliff…

… And other times it would just go straight up the creek.

After a few hours of that it was time to leave the canyon and hike steeply uphill.

It was a very nice trail, but it still climbed over a thousand feet in a mile. Pretty soon I had arrived at a trailhead along Bursum road, and I hiked the road the rest of the morning, and a few hours into the afternoon as well. It was a hot afternoon, so it took me awhile to climb the 2500ft up to Silver Creek Divide.

Up here at over 9,000 ft the forest was more burned, though I had pretty good views through the remaining trees.

The mountains around here are surprisingly big!

The road had a little scenic viewpoint called Sandy Point, where I stopped and had a nice break looking at all the landscapes I had hiked across the last few days. When I turned off onto a trail the first thing I noticed was a warning sign.

Fortunately, the trail must have undergone some maintenance because it was not difficult to find at all. And I was entering the Gila Wilderness!

Most of the pine trees had burned away in the fire, but this many years later, a bunch of Aspens had grown to take their place.

Once I got up to 10,000 feet elevation, I noticed the ground was still damp in some places and I even found a tiny patch of remaining snow!

I’m not sure what this plant is, but it seems to thrive in these conditions. I’ve seen it in other places, but it grows quite huge up here.

A lot of the burned dead trees had fallen over throughout the years, and the trail crews had done an amazing job at keeping the trail clear.

Eventually the trail stopped climbing, and I hiked along a ridge at like 10,500ft. Great views in all directions!

I noticed a significant part of this forest had been burned, which usually is quite limiting for camping opportunities. So, I decided to stop at one of the few unburned pockets of forest that I found. Hummingbird Saddle was flat and forested, and hopefully it doesn’t become windy later tonight. I did all my usual camp chores, and when I checked my inReach device, I noticed I had received quite a few new messages. Thanks to everyone who sent me a message sharing the good news!

Wednesday May 29, 15.5mi/24.9km

New Mexico State Line (0.0/5840ft) to Mineral Creek TH (15.5/5440ft) (NM)

I woke up to the sounds of mooing somewhere nearby. Yep, I must be in New Mexico. I had a nice easy 10-mile roadwalk into town, and pretty much all downhill too.

About halfway through the roadwalk, I passed by a junction that had a sign for “Sunflower Mesa”. It made me smile, for some reason the word sunflower is always coming up in random places.

I made it to the Alma store and grill just in time to catch breakfast, at 10:30am, or so I thought.

I had forgotten to change my watch to mountain time (Arizona is on Pacific time most of the year), so really it was 11:30am. So I ordered lunch, and then also milkshakes ensued. After lunch I went next door to the little market, and bought a few food items. I didn’t need to buy much, since I still had extra food from the previous section. Then I walked to the next building down the street, the Alma Guest House, which lets hikers shower and do laundry for a good price.

I was there for a couple of hours while the laundry machines worked their magic, and relaxed in the nice comfortable sitting room.

I met the owner and she was very nice, and I could tell from all the decor that she is also a rancher.

After the heat of the day had passed, I set off down the road at 4:30pm, and had a couple hours of roadwalking to get back into the mountains.

Fortunately it was mostly in the shade of some nearby hills, it’s quite warm down in this valley. I made it to the trailhead and decided to camp there, since camping prospects ahead were uncertain.

I felt like I had spent half the day eating and relaxing and getting cleaned up, and yet somehow I had still hiked 16 miles. Nice easy day!

My original plan was to connect the MRT to the GET (Grand Enchantment trail), and hike that to its end in Albuquerque, 400 miles away. But it’s getting very warm, so I will see how far I get before the season turns too hot. I’ll at least make it another 3 days, to Gila Hot Springs, which is on the CDT and an easy exit-point from the wilderness.

Tuesday May 28, 23.7mi/38.1km

Government Mesa (454.3/7080ft) (AZ) to New Mexico State Line (478.0/5840ft) (NM)

It seemed like an unusually warm night, given that I was camped at 7000 feet elevation. Which made leaving camp at 5:30am easier since it wasn’t very cold. My goal was to try and make up some miles from yesterday, and my first half of the morning was a nice downhill jaunt down a trail.

And then I followed Auger Canyon for a little while. It had some cool little mini slot canyons that I was able to easily hike around.

A few sections had deep pools of water where I had to scramble around the edge, since I didn’t want to wade through waist-deep water.

And then there were these interesting tracks in the sand, I’m guessing bear.

Some sections of the canyon had these little slickrock areas, which were easy to walk through since it was like a sidewalk.

I had to leave the canyon for a short distance to get around an impassible pour-off. I hiked up into the surrounding hills for a couple miles before dropping back down into the canyon. All the desert flora up there was blooming.

After I dropped back down into Auger Canyon, I took a break where it merged with another stream and I noticed a cabin nearby.

The inside of the cabin looked like an old-timey residence from a Western movie.

I was back in the canyon, following Little Blue Creek through a slot canyon system.

I walked through the shin-deep water for awhile and while it wasn’t fast progress, it was extremely enjoyable to walk through such a special area. Occasionally there was a gravel bar or sandbar and these all had animal tracks on them, which I suppose makes sense since it’s the only passage through this area.

The narrow section of the slot canyon was called Blue Box, and it was the coolest thing of this entire section, and maybe of the entire hike.

After a mile that slot canyon ended, and I was back in the normal wide stream corridor.

I followed Little Blue Creek all the way down to where it merges with the Blue River, which I had crossed two days ago. Once I was out of the canyon and on an open plain, all the desert vegetation had returned.

I had to wade across the Blue River a couple times, and then I stopped for lunch on the river bank in the shade of a cliff.

I had a little yard sale washing all the gravel out of my stuff and drying it out. It was very hot out, so I was in no hurry to leave my shaded spot, but the Sun was moving and my shade was disappearing. And now had to hike uphill 2500 feet, on an exposed and sunny trail.

The umbrella definitely came out for that!

As I got higher, I did have pretty amazing views to distract me from all the sweat.

It was a pretty decent trail and it switchbacked and weaved around a ridge system, and eventually I could look back down on the ridge that I had hiked up on.

Once I was back up higher again, I noticed that some of the greenery and trees had returned.

It was also cooler now, since the Sun was getting pretty low in the sky and everywhere was in shadow. Finally I hit the old road I had been anticipating for awhile, which meant that I was almost done.

It was getting pretty close to dark, but I didn’t mind as the temperatures were perfect and the road would be easy to follow in dim lighting. Finally at 7:30pm I made it to the gate which marks the border of Arizona and New Mexico.

Which meant that I had also finished the Mogollon Rim Trail! The guidebook says to “pass into New Mexico un-ceremoniously or otherwise”. I chose otherwise. There was a little bit of dancing and some singing of a Shakira song that I had stuck in my head all day. Ha! It was such a long day, but there were so many cool parts that I didn’t even mind how tired I was after hiking for 13 hours. Tomorrow I’ll still have to hike another 10 miles to get out to civilization, to Alma NM.

Monday May 27, 20.8mi/33.5km

Lanphier Canyon TH (434.3/5770ft) to Government Mesa (454.3/7080ft) (Arizona) +0.8mi to Devil’s Monument

I was packing up at my little camp spot at 6am and two guys walked by, they must have gotten an early start from somewhere! I was 5 minutes behind them, though I never saw them again. The trail started out really nice, as it gradually climbed through a lush green canyon.

With all the greenery, it also meant I had to be on the lookout for this plant.

The little canyon had the coolest little rock walls, it was like some sort of conglomerate rock.

After an hour of that, I climbed up more steeply and left the canyon. There was a little spring next to one of the switchbacks, and somebody had put a bucket underneath to catch the nice cold water.

I came to a junction where the Lanphier Canyon Trail ended, and I had to turn onto the Cow Flat trail.

The MRT turns left at that junction, and circumnavigates a big ridge system, using trails that don’t really exist on the ground. In hindsight, I should have turned right at that junction, and avoided all of the terrible and non-existent trails and also saved myself 8 miles of frustration. Anybody reading this who is thinking of doing the MRT in the future, this would be the one piece of advice to follow. I hiked on the Cow Flat trail for half an hour and it was quite nice.

Then I had to turn onto the Bonanza Bill trail, and it pretty quickly disappeared. Usually it’s worth the extra effort to try and stay on the GPS track, as the trail tread is the path of least resistance through the forest. But when there is no trail tread, it’s just easier to walk cross-country. I made it to Tige Spring and stopped there for lunch.

I refilled my water bottles and also cleaned up all the cow bones out of the stream. I think I had collected enough bones to build my own cow!

Next, I hiked through a burn area which was full of ferns and the occasional thorny plant.

In theory, there was a trail junction where I would have turned left to see the Devils Monument. In reality, because the trails didn’t really exist, the junction didn’t either, and I ended up hiking directly to the Devils monument. It was neat to see, but it added a mile to my already slow arduous day.

After seeing the monument, I backtracked to the theoretical junction, and I found this splinter nailed to a tree. Ha!

I spent the next hour hiking a very slow mile uphill, trying to follow switchbacks that didn’t exist. There was a view at the top, so that was nice.

I hiked along a ridgeline for a couple miles, following a fence, which allowed me to completely ignore any theoretical trail that was nearby.

I dropped off the ridgeline, and came to another trail junction, where I rejoined the Cow Flat trail.

Yup, should have just stayed on that trail! Once I was back on the Cow Flat trail, it was easy to follow and I was able to turn off my brain and just stroll through the nice Ponderosa forest.

And of course the occasional meadow too.

Near the end of the day, I hiked down a little canyon called Bear Valley.

It had more of those cool conglomerate rock cliff walls. After a mile I left that neat little canyon, and I saw this sign at the junction which reminded me that New Mexico was only 6.5 miles in the opposite direction.

I turned up a side drainage, which led to a little plateau where I was able to camp. It was after 7pm which is really late for me to stop hiking.

Sunday May 26, 19.9mi/32.0km

Hannagan Meadow Lodge (415.6/9110ft) to Lanphier Canyon TH (434.3/5770ft) (Arizona) +1.2mi to Post Office

I slept in pretty late and then spent a while figuring out the logistics for my next hike, and buying new shoes. I packed up and went downstairs and talked to the staff for a while. Nina and Angel were really friendly and seemed curious about my hike across Arizona, it was really fun answering all the questions. I finally left the lodge just after 10am and we took a departing photo.

I walked along the highway for a couple minutes and noticed this neat little plaque.

The Coronado highway was built in the 1920s, and was an engineering feat for its time, traversing some extremely rough terrain. Pretty soon I turned off the highway and was back in the forest once again.

Within a mile I turned onto the trail that would take me down below the Mogollon Rim, and all the way down into the little town of Blue.

There were plenty of spots of burned forest in this area from the 2011 Bear Wallow fire.

Even though it was 13 years ago, for some reason not much had grown back in this spot except these little yellow wildflowers.

I passed by this shallow, tiny body of water which my map called a lake, ha! I wouldn’t even consider it a pond.

From there I started my long descent off the Mogollon Rim. Looking South through the thin forest, I could see the deep valley ahead of me.

Still going down.

I could tell I was getting lower in elevation, because I stopped seeing Aspen trees and started seeing cacti again.

I was gradually losing elevation.

And even more cacti!

I passed by the Red Saddles, some cool looking rocky outcrops.

I dropped down into Grant Creek, which I followed for a few more miles into Blue.

It was very lush and shaded along the creek and it was the perfect temperature for hiking.

And the trail was pretty nice the whole way down.

Just before the trail reached the blue River Road, I had to get across Blue Creek, which was a shallow ford.

Having made it to the road with wet feet, I walked a half mile to the post office. Of course it was closed on the weekend, but I had pre-arranged with the employee to leave my box out for me.

I didn’t want to sit on the side of the road in front of someone’s house (while repacking my backpack), so I carried the box back to the trailhead and unpacked it there. My parents had packed this resupply box, and it had all of the usual things plus…homemade cookies! Yum. I always say Cookie Monster is my spirit animal. While I was there, a local ranching couple passed by on their ATV to check on some cows, and we ended up chatting for a long time talking about this little valley, hiking, and life in general. Fun! I still had a couple hours of road walking to do to get to a legal spot to camp, so I said goodbye and continued on my way.

It was a nice relaxing roadwalk and not a single car went by, which wasn’t surprising given that the entire population of this valley is 42 people. The road doesn’t have any bridges, so it just fords the Blue Creek.

It’s only a couple inches deep, so it’s easy for cars but it meant I had wet feet again. I finally turned off the road, and got to Lanphier trailhead. The temperature is quite a bit warmer down here, since I am 3000 feet lower now, so it will be a warm night of camping.

Saturday May 25, 18.4mi/29.6km

Elk Tank (397.2/7860ft) to Hannagan Meadow Lodge (415.6/9110ft) (Arizona)

I didn’t hear any elk last night, but I did wake up to a squirrel dropping pine cones on my tent. Good morning? I started the day with a nice walk down another old abandoned road.

Then I connected to a trail which leads down into Bear Wallow Creek. The trail was in terrible shape, and had large trees fallen all over it and it was very difficult to follow.

As I descended further the trail was easier to follow with fewer trees blocking it.

I soon came to Bear Wallow Creek, which was a beautiful serene setting and a very lush environment.

There were no fallen trees here, but the trail was extremely faint and I had to pay close attention to stay on it. I also had to stay focused on what vegetation I was walking through, as several of these itchy plants were lurking on the trailside.

I crossed and re-crossed the creek several times, but it was always an easy rock hop across and I never needed to get my feet wet.

Cool flower.

Sometimes the trail would climb a little above the creek and traverse on a sidehill…

… Before dropping back down creekside.

There was a massive wildfire here like 15 years ago, and some of the areas were extremely burned.

Since I was hiking upstream all morning, I was slowly gaining elevation and the lush environment started to transition to a pine forest.

I stopped at a trail junction for lunch, and noticed that the trail condition immediately improved.

The side trail must lead to an easy access point for trail maintenance crews to get here. After a couple more miles I finally climbed out of Bear Wallow Creek Canyon, and up higher the entire forest had been burned by that wildfire.

Just before I reached the trailhead, I passed by the backside of this sign, which meant I had been in a wilderness this entire time. Sweet.

Since Bear Wallow Creek was such slow hiking, I had only made it 13 miles by 3pm. But I was only 6 miles from my destination, so I pressed on down the next valley.

I passed by a very strange orange object. Even after exploring it I’m still not sure what it was.

I hiked down Double Cienega Creek, and it was much easier hiking.

After a few miles I turned off the creek, and hiked up a side creek and then some old roads which landed me at Hannagan Meadow.

Yep it sure looked like another alpine meadow.

I walked up to Hannigan Meadow Lodge expecting to get a shower and maybe a cold drink.

After I went inside the staff was very welcoming and even showed me around some of the rooms.

Since they had some cancellations they offered me a room and dinner for a reduced price, an offer which was difficult to decline. It had been such an energy intensive day, the high calorie meal was very welcomed and also tasted delicious.

Dinner was served at 7:00 and I must have eaten pretty quickly because I was done at 7:30 and went over to the sitting room to check out the maps. My favorite was this 3D map, which I spent a long time looking over to see where I had been, and where I was going to be hiking.

I went up to my room and got showered and sorted through my gear, and then went to bed.

Friday May 24, 22.4mi/36.1km

Home Creek Tank (375.3/8010ft) to Elk Tank (397.2/7860ft) (Arizona)

I was out of camp at 6:15 and continued my downhill trek into Home Creek valley.

It was a fun little XC jaunt through some meadows and alongside the stream. After a couple of miles I could see some buildings in the distance, and could tell I was getting closer to civilization when I saw an old concrete dam.

The dam looked like it could topple over at any second. I navigated around some private property and then found myself on a nice easy road.

The main attraction for the day was Black Creek Canyon. I navigated my way over to the East Fork of Black River, and crossed it on a road bridge which was under construction.

Usually I would take a break at the trailhead, but it was all torn up and had some construction vehicles parked in it so I just continued down the trail. The first mile of hiking along the river was easy, on a nice wide trail. After that, the East Fork of Black River merged with the West Fork and now it was just the main river. The GPS track showed that I should ford the river here, and then re-cross it again in less than half a mile. That seemed like a waste of time and energy, and all my maps showed that the trail just continued on this side of the river, but a little higher up the side of the canyon. So I followed some switchbacks up…and up. And I accidentally found myself on a plateau above the river.

It was beautiful and there were dozens of elk! I followed a pretty nice trail for almost a mile and then I left it to drop back down into the river canyon.

Now that I was back in the canyon, I was following the proper trail, which indeed was traversing a sidehill a little ways above the river.

A little while later I came across a pile of feathers blocking the trail and realized it was a dead bird. Poor guy. I wonder what would cause a large predatory bird to die here?

I walked a little ways above the river on that nice sidehill trail for an hour, just soaking in the views of the canyon ahead of me.

Eventually the trail dropped down to the river, and I had my first river ford of the day.

At this point, the river was quite shallow (only shin deep) and the water was moving slowly. But the rocks on the bottom were so slippery! Using my hiking pole, I was able to balance and slowly cross without incident. I was now soaking wet from the knees down, but it was a nice warm day so I didn’t care.

Mostly I was hiking above the river, on trail that was easy to follow. I knew there were lots more river fords coming up, but for now I was just enjoying the trail.

I stopped for lunch at a fork in the trail. This was a decision point, do I continue down the river canyon on a trail that was expected to deteriorate, and with dozens more river fords? Fortunately my Luna bar had the answer.

There were a couple options to leave the Black River Canyon, escaping up to the rim on either side and taking some roads to rejoin the trail later. But I decided to stick with the river. As expected, the trail did have quite a few more river fords further downstream. Usually getting to the river involved pushing through some willow bushes.

Surprisingly, it was mostly still a nice trail.

Usually when trails are this remote, they don’t see much foot traffic and the tread begins to fade away. And trail crews have a hard time accessing them for maintenance. There were a few times where I lost the faint trail, but it was easy to find again with all of the cairns. As I got closer to the trailhead for the bottom end of the canyon, the trail improved again.

I even saw signs for a trail junction, which was a little surprising because I had not seen any signs since I left the paved road this morning.

After the fish Creek junction I knew I had just over a mile to go, and now the trail was easy to follow again. I made it to the trailhead and exited the Black River Canyon, and it was 4pm. Those last few miles were pretty slow, but I expected that, given there were about 27 river fords. I left the canyon, hiking uphill on a dirt road, and it felt good to move quickly.

I enjoyed not having to focus on navigating, and for an hour I listened to a podcast while I hiked on the road. Then, the route abruptly left the road and dropped into Snake River Canyon. It was incredibly steep down to the creek, but it was a good water source and it really was the only way across to the plateau.

I hiked straight back up the other side, and since there’s no trail here, I just chose my own route through the open forest. Eventually I emerged onto an old dirt road which was nice walking for the last part of the day.

Because the Black River Canyon miles were so slow, I decided to hike a little later to make up some distance. Just before 7pm I stopped to camp in a nice big flat area near elk tank/pond. Hopefully I will hear some elk tonight.

Thursday May 23, 21.7mi/34.9km

Burro Mountain Saddle (355.4/9680ft) to Home Creek Tank (375.3/8010ft) (Arizona) +1.8mi to Big Lake CG

My campsite in the trees was pretty ideal for blocking the wind, but even so it was a pretty cold night. It was the highest elevation I’ve slept at on this trail and I definitely noticed. I started hiking in a bunch of layers and slowly removed them as the sun came up higher. I was also descending lower.

One of the old dirt roads was descending pretty steeply, so I had to watch my footing and I almost missed this good view of Mount Baldy.

Eventually the old road turned in a different direction and I kept going straight, crossing this meadow in whatever direction felt right.

I had dropped all the way down to the West Fork Black River, and while it was still windy here it was much warmer. I followed along the river for an hour, it definitely kept me entertained. They had built these little waterfalls to purposely keep out invasive fish, so only the native Arizona trout could get upstream.

This gate seemed kind of ridiculous, especially with its sign scolding “please close the gate”, given that there was no fence connecting to either side of the gate.

It was mostly just good views and the relaxing sound of the river next to me.

I came around the corner to this old dog just laying there napping in the sun. We were both very surprised to see each other, though a minute later I ran into his humans, who were fly fishing in the stream.

As I continued downstream, the river became less turbulent and calmer as it passed through some meadows.

Finally, in order to leave this canyon I had to cross the river. The crossing was called Deadman’s Ford, sounds like it’s a safe place to cross.

It was an easy crossing, since the water was only shin deep but it was so frigid. After 5 minutes my feet bones finally warmed back up and I could start hiking uphill again to leave the canyon. An hour later I was at the trailhead which had one of these neat carved maps.

I had heard this area had been burned pretty severely a few years ago but I didn’t notice anything near the trail.

Just before noon, I arrived at a junction with an optional turn-off to Big Lake Campground. I decided to hike the quarter-mile off route to go fill my water bottles and have lunch at a picnic table. I explored around the campground, looking for the one bathroom that had the showers, since I hadn’t gotten clean in 5 days. I finally found it, there was a whole separate building basically apart from the campground, and I gladly paid them the $8 to take an unlimited hot shower. The view from there was pretty good too.

After eating lunch, showering, and charging my phone, I realized that a couple hours had passed and it was time to get back to the trail. This part of the trail was in a burn section but thousands of young Aspens were growing amongst the charred trees.

I passed by the most unique spring I ever saw, there was a little pipe coming out of the ground filling a hollowed-out log.

And then for like a mile I saw all these little orange cylinders dotting the sides of the trail, it was such a curious sight.

I looked inside one of them and then realized their purpose, they are protecting the young trees that have been planted to replace the burned forest.

The last couple hours of the day were easy hiking on old roads through some nice unburned forest.

I saw that I was about to exit the forest into an extensive meadow, so I decided to stop and camp, while I still had good terrain to camp in. I can hear animals walking around the forest in this area, I’m guessing it’s elk since I had seen so many of them today.

Wednesday May 22, 23.4mi/37.7km

Start of Railroad Grade Trail (337.2/9180ft) to Burro Mountain Saddle (355.4/9680ft) (Arizona) +5.2mi Greer resupply

I watched the sunrise from my camp spot hidden amongst the trees, and I felt the warmth as soon as it hit the tent.

I spent the morning walking on the Railroad Grade Trail through a bunch of alpine meadows.

There were even a couple spots on some north-facing slopes that the snow hadn’t quite fully melted away yet.

I also noticed that some of the puddles had a thin skin of ice on top of them. It clearly had gotten much colder out here in the open meadow than it had in the forest where I camped.

And for some reason, I saw not one, but two bathtubs along the side of the trail today.

And I would occasionally see meltwater ponds on either side of the trail, with the railroad grade cutting right down in the middle.

What was unexpected though, was when the grade had been washed out, and one pond was draining into another…very rapidly.

I took off my shoes and waded across the rushing frigid water. Brrr. The rest of the morning was less exciting, and was a relaxing stroll amongst the aspens.

There was even a neat little trestle bridge to hike over.

I departed the Railroad Grade Trail at a forestry road and then followed that for a little while. There was a turn off point, with a two and a half mile detour to get to the town of Greer. I turned off to the detour to go to town since I had mailed myself a box of food to the post office, and I could also stop at a diner for lunch. After almost an hour of downhill hiking I was in town!

It’s a very small town with only one main street, but they had this nice little walkway.

The post office was at the other end of town which didn’t take long since that was only half a mile away.

The woman working at the post office was very nice, but seemed to have made up her own rules. She said they only accept General Delivery boxes if you register ahead of time but she accepted this one as a “one-time courtesy”. I have been hiking for 10 years and have mailboxes to probably 100 post offices and no other PO has that rule. Oh well. I moved on to the diner, which even smelled delicious from the outside.

It was a nice little place, and they kept bringing me cold drinks which was much appreciated. I must be getting close to New Mexico, because I was able to order my elk burger smothered in red and green chile sauce.

After letting my food digest for a bit and charging my phone, I walked out of town and headed back up the hill. Once I rejoined the route, I followed a nice trail through another aspen forest.

There was a little snake hiding out in the grass on the ground. He seemed much friendlier than that rattler I had seen a couple weeks ago.

Eventually the train opened back up to an alpine meadow.

And soon after that I entered the Mount Baldy Wilderness!

It had been a while since I’ve hiked in a wilderness area on this trail. There were forested sections…

… And meadow sections too.

Even though Mount Baldy is like 11,000 ft, I couldn’t get a good glimpse of it from where I was hiking, it was kind of hidden behind the hills and the trees. So I just enjoyed the view hiking thru the wilderness.

It was around 6pm so I started looking for a place to camp, that was not in a meadow. I was intently focused on my search so I didn’t even notice when this herd came out from behind a little hill and surprised me.

We kind of scared each other, because they started sprinting away in a panic, and I just yelled out “ungulates!” I continued on, and it took me another half an hour to find a spot to camp that was in a forested area. The rising full moon was quite a sight to see!

I set up my tent in the trees, away from the wind, and the cold and condensation that typically accompanies meadows.