What an odd day. We have cellphone signal from the Mesas and could see the weather forecast showing thunderstorms coming our way tomorrow, or tonight. But until about 4 pm it was sunny and hot. The entire day consisted of going up a Mesa walking a few miles on it, going down the Mesa, walking to the next one and repeat. It was nice. The climbs up the Mesas wasn't too bad and the trail was well marked. I still lost it a few time but nobody else did. Thankfully the phones GPS and maps made getting back on trail quick and painless.
The day started out nice and cool and we got up and moving early to try get as far as we could before it got warm. We had planned the day before to hit a water source 3 miles from where we camped but it was dry. The sign at the water from the blm said the next source was 20 miles away. I was worried. I only had a liter and it was going to be sunny with no shade. The maps said there was a water source in 8 more miles but there were some conflicting reports as to its location. The next 8 miles wasn't difficult but we went up a Mesa and could see these huge cow ponds down below and I was bitching and moaning about the trails design and poor water choices. It was obvious that the cow ponds were in private land and I probably wouldn't have drank from them but the fact that I was low on water and there was so much around but out of reach bothered me. Thankfully the maps were right and it was 8 miles away. I was worried when I got close since there was a big cow pond right by the water source and the map said it was a piped spring. But the GPS said I had .2 miles to go to get there. I decided to hike the .2 and backtrack if needed since the cow water looked nasty. It was a nice piped well fed by the spring. I had 15 miles to the next water. Supposidly there shouldn't be anymore water concerns until Wyoming. I'll believe it when I see it.
The rest of the morning and early afternoon was uneventful and beautiful hiking. There was almost no road walking with great views from the Mesas. Around 4 pm the thunderstorms started to roll in but they were hitting the mountains still and leaving us alone on the Mesas. When we got to the next water source around 5, another nice spring that was labeled polluted on the map but nobody knows why, we debated what to do next. The storms were getting closer and were getting nastier looking. I wanted to do 2 more miles and camp since that would be a marathon for me. Focus wanted to do 5 more and camp up on the Mesa. The rest didn't think that was a great idea in the storm. Sure we'd be below tree line but we'd also be 400 ft higher and the ground up there isn't great for staking down tents. We ended up doing 2.5 and camping below the Mesa and boy were we glad we did. Those were some nasty thunderstorms which lit up the Mesa with lightning. I found out in town there was a hiker up on the Mesa who made it just fine but it looked sketchy to me. I found out that the three little holes in my tent do need to be patched after all since they do leak in a big rainstorm. After getting woken up by a drop of water on my face I threw my rain jacket up there to redirect the water away from me and slept through the storm til morning.
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