The road I camped next to was apparently one of the main access roads into the basin for the oil workers or something. There was a fair amount of traffic (maybe 10 trucks) that came roaring by first thing in the morning. I was camped a fair ways off the road so it wasn’t a big deal, but the racket got me up a bit earlier than I wanted. This just reinforces my general rule to not camp near roads or where you can be seen.
A couple miles after leaving camp I stopped at a spring near Crooks Creek. Cold, crystal clear water flows from a pipe near a 2 foot diameter culvert sticking vertically out of the ground a few feet. This provides just enough shade that you can hide from the morning sun and just relax for a bit while listening to the water gurgle from the pipe. Cows would wander down to get their morning drink. There was a trail log hidden in the top of the culvert which I read for a while. I guess Gaucho didn’t find it because I saw no entry for him.
Most of the hiking today was on various dirt roads in sometimes very deep and soft sand. This really slows me down and is hell on my bad ankle.
About midday I saw some cows by a tire. This was the water source I had been counting on. Guthooks said it had an electric pump and the water comes out of a pipe, but it was a fair ways off trail. I hiked the quarter mile to the tire only to find it bone dry. What were the stupid cows doing there? I found the breaker switch for the pump which was off, but I didn’t want to mess with the ranchers stuff so I left and hoped the next water source would be better.
3 miles later I arrived at one of the most awesome water sources in the basin. It was another tire with an electric pump, but this one was working! A huge flow of clear cold water gushed from the end of a 2 inch pipe into the tire. A corral partially enclosed the tire so the cows couldn’t get to a portion around it. There was a Nobo Frenchman there named Moonkid. While he was getting water his phone fell into the tire and got wet. We spent the next hour eating lunch and visiting while he tried to get his phone working again to no avail. Eventually I wanted to get going so I let him borrow my phone to try to memorize as much of the coming section as he could. It really sucks to be without navigation out here where the water is so scarce. I hope he did ok.
A couple miles further on the terrain looked strangely familiar to me. I soon realized that this was near Baroil where Pat and I had cached some food and water months ago! I even found the exact spot where we hid it. Of course we had already retrieved it when we got rained out so long ago, but it was still fun for me to be coming back through here and remembering our earlier attempt. I was smiling as I sent Pat a text letting him know where I was.
Moonkid warned me that the next water was Bull Springs in 16 miles and it was very bad. Cows had gotten to it and shit all over the place. He was so right! Hikers often exaggerate how bad the water sources are, but this one lived up to the hype. I arrived after dark and all I could see was a mess of mud, cow shit, and smelly, oily water. I’m camping tonight on the liter and a half that I brought from the last spot, but I need to save some for tomorrow. If I don’t get water here, the next source is in 8 more miles. I will see how bad this source is tomorrow in the light of day. I did 28 miles today and I’m sore and exhausted. I know I camped last night at “Bull Springs” but that was a different one. It’s just a popular name around here.