I was last out of camp but we managed to get all 7 of us up and hiking by 7:15. First up for our day was the river crossing. It was flowing as well as expected, if the Gila had been flowing like this there would have been no way I would have gone that route. As it was it was about mid-upper thigh on me with a pretty strong force. Oh and it was cold. This was water coming straight off the tops of these 10k+ mountains snow. Since it was early in the morning it was slightly lower flow but it was really cold. In the time it took me to walk across the river my legs got numb and tingly. The crossing wasn't bad, I actually had to employ the river crossing skills I picked up in Maine and cross properly for the first time since then. I did have a moment where I almost went down due to the rock I was bracing against moving but I had both my hiking poles firmly planted and was able to get my other foot secured and stable before I lost my footing. Fortunately we were at the bottom of a valley and had to hike up out of it so we quickly warmed up.
I don't recall much of that day but we covered about 23 miles with lots of beautiful mountain medows, pine and aspen forests everywhere, little to no mud(it was all bogs instead of mud), and we were able to walk at just the right pace to have the storms always raining ahead or behind us which was nice. We ended up camping at the next "River" in a really nice valley.
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