I was pretty worn out after yesterday's 16+ mile hike so I stopped at 4 when those storm clouds showed up. Unfortunately that meant I didn't reach the water. I had enough but was really counting on those hikers report of water in the canyon being correct.
It was apparently rather cold last night since all the dew that normally collects in my rain fly was frozen. I didn't notice in my nice new toasty warm 10 degree bag. I did get the chills but i blame that on the sunburn I got yesterday. I'm not sure how I got burnt since I was pretty liberal with the sunscreen. The only explanation I can find is that it's lost its effectiveness after only a year. Ah well that's why I have long pants and long sleeved shirt.
Today's hike started out rough. The water in the canyon was fantastic but it was a long 2 mile 1000 ft climb up the canyon to the CDT. Then once I got on the CDT it was another 2 mile 1000 ft climb to the top of burros peak at 8000 ft. The climb was tiring and the altitude kicked my ass but I eventually made it up there and had no real altitude issues other than being short of breath. The rest of the trail is all downhill from here, at least till I get back up to silver city. About halfway up the peak I ran into M80 and Trooper again. They were section hiking this stretch to give their dog a chance to heal. It seems she lost part of the padding on her paw and it needed longer time to heal.
From the peak and really for the rest of this stretch of trail my main concern was water. There was supposed to be a creek in 4 miles then a cow trough another 5 miles after that. I still had a liter after the climb up the mountain to making it down the next water source was not gonna be an issue. Turns out about a half mile before the water someone had left sine trail magic water at a road junction. So I drank a liter and a half then packed out another. This gave me 2.5 liters to make it to the cow trough. I only ended up needing one.
Turns out I wasn't thirsty enough to drink cow trough water yet. I still had 2 liters left and only 9 miles to the next water which was reportedly well water. The problem was there was no way I'd make it the tonight and I use a liter for dinner. I was pretty well hydrated but I grabbed a liter of the cow water just in case. I was really hoping that I wouldn't need it.
Since I was going to push to the next water source I decided a good camping spot would be my section of trail. It was 5 miles away but I made it there easy with only using a half liter of water. It helped that it was almost all downhill or flat and cool in the evening.
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