Yesterday's Hike

Dave came down from ABQ to go on the hike. Like me, he wants to be fit and healthy again. We headed out and parked at the Water Canyon picnic area. From there it is about one mile to the trail head. The hike up Copper went amazingly better for me this week. Last week I required two hammock breaks on the ascent. Yesterday I blew through where I'd taken the first hammock break with no trouble. When I got to where I'd taken the second hammock break I could have kept going, but it seemed like an ok time to stop, so we took a hammock break there.

We pushed on and made it to the fork in the trail that we had encountered the previous week. Past that, we found another fork in the trail. The second fork we found was the fork marked on the map, so my distance guesses for the previous trip where short by maybe half a mile. I have no idea what the first fork is now. It is a real fork, with blazes and maintained trails, but there are no signs. Perhaps we shall have to hike it to find out where it goes.

I still felt good, so we moved on through the fork heading up towards trail 8. The final climb out of Copper Canyon was a bit brutal, but eventually we reached a point where we could look up and see sky instead of just seeing more mountain. One up on the ridge it was a wonderful treeless and grassy meadow with rock cairns to guide the way. We headed back roughly parallel to the trail we'd come up on trail 8, under the assumption that was the trail that would take us to the Langmuir road. It cut through the trees South of South Baldy. We encountered some hikers along the trail, and I asked them where the trail we were on went too. The guy feigned ignorance at knowing where he was, but did admit the trail we were on was in fact the trail we thought it was, and we were quite close to the end.

At the road, we headed down to the top of trail 11. At trail 11 I admired the tire tracks left through the meadow by people driving around in the grass, and then we showed my map to two hikers who were unable to locate the trail they were looking for. The trip down trail 11 was brutal. I'd felt pretty good up until this point, but I hadn't taken enough water, and I hadn't been adequately drinking the water I did have with me. Trail 11 is steep and hot. The sun was unrelenting. By the bottom of the trail I was seriously considering just collapsing.

Eventually we emerged onto the road. I was beat. And there was still a bit of road hiking to do. I hiked for a while, but eventually had to stop. I think we were still a mile or a mile and a half from the car. The people we had encountered on trail 8 came down the mountain, and I asked for a ride. They gave us one, which was good. All total, the GPS recorded about 15km of hiking and about 1150m of elevation gain.
The narrow canyon in the upper part of Copper played havoc with the GPS though, so it was probably a longer hike than that.

Back at my car I finished off the last sips of water I had, and drove to Socorro. At home I didn't really have any food. And I was so tired that I felt like I was on the verge of collapse. I'd taken food on the hike, and eaten it, but apparently it wasn't enough to keep me going. I ended up seeking out a ride to the Asian Gardens. Their soup is made from broth, and that kind of soup has always made me feel better after strenuous activity. All the other soups in town are thickened bowls of glop with more stuff in them then liquid, and that isn't fulfilling. The soup made me feel like I was dying anymore, which is good.

I'm sore today. And sunburned. The pictures aren't offloaded yet. Sometime today for sure.

Today's Tracklog

From 20090711

I'll post about it later, and upload some pictures. Hiked about 15km.

Copper Canyon

Headed back to Copper Canyon any minute now. The GPS is inside the pack, not clipped on to the outside of the pack. And I've upped my weight carried for this trip by adding my silnylon tarp, 100' of cord, a map, and 15 tent pegs. Though I may cut the tent pegs and cord down to a more reasonable amount carried before I set off to carry them.

Today should be good I hope. My toe is still purple, but not tender to the touch, so I'm hopeful I can wear a sock with it. If not, I have first aid supplies that will help me through.

Pictures From Copper Canyon

Pictures from Sunday going up Copper Canyon. The long white thing in the water is a giant worm.

GPS And Map Distance

I found my GPS. Long before this happened I'd commented on the Amazon product link warning that the belt clip on the GPS holder wasn't reliable. Now I have proof, not just suspicion about it.

I found my Cibola National Forest map. It appears to still be T/S/R style mapping, so the squares are 1 mile. It looks like I hiked almost exactly a mile from where I parked to the trail head. From there it looks like we headed West across one square, and Southwest across another to a fork marked on the map. We had stopped at a fork in the trail, both with blazes, that looks a lot like the fork on the map. So 1 + 1 + 1.4 = 3.4 miles one way, 6.8 miles both ways. That would explain why I'm so beat.

I have pictures, but none have been offloaded yet.

GPS Woes And Copper Canyon

This morning I clipped my GPS onto my backpack. I put the backpack into my car. I drove to pick someone up, drove to Supermart to buy some trail food, drove to Burger King to buy some breakfast, and drove to Water Canyon. At Water Canyon there was no GPS attached to my backpack. I can't find it in the car, and I can't find it at my house.

We hiked up Copper Canyon for quite a ways. I think it was a good day. But I have no distances, so I don't know for sure. A hiker with an altimeter said we had gained 1200' at our second rest stop. We hiked from the campground, not the trailhead, and we continued past that rest stop, so I'm guessing it was closer to 1600' elevation gained. The only landmark I really know was what appeared to be a fork in the trail. I'll try to find that on a map.

Water Canyon on July 2nd, 2009

From 20090702

Thursday after work I went out to Water Canyon alone. I headed West from the campground, up what used to be an old barely passable road. The entire area up there has been improved since I was last up that way. I'd noticed that camping was no longer allowed at the Water Canyon Campground, and the improvements are why. Just up a well made road is a camping area with firepits, latrines, trash cans, tent pads, and picnic tables. Even further along is a gated and fenced in group camping area with handicapped parking and a huge group of picnic tables. Just past the group camping area the road reverts to being in poor shape, though only for about 50 meters. It's a good road if you can get past that one bad part.

All total, I hiked about three miles I'd guess. The GPS batteries didn't make the entire trip with me, but they did the first half which is the track log you see above. I took a few pictures, which you can see below. Pulling times out of the GPS tracklogs I've made, I find that my batteries had been with me for about 14 hours before they died. I had used the lightweight and expensive lithium batteries. Amazon tells me that I should get 12 hours of operation on alkaline batteries. Customer comments tell me that 12 hours is unreasonably optimistic for it, and six is more like it. Perhaps I'll try some alkalines and see how long they last compared to the lithiums.