It rained all night last night and was still raining when I woke up. I waited around for it to stop, but finally gave up and broke camp in the rain. I slogged through 5 miles of muddy dirt road to rejoin Hwy 117. I’m pretty sure Smackdown and Doubledown are in front of me – I keep seeing their footprints sliding around in the mud. It’s difficult to know when you are going to slip or get traction. I spent a lot of time studying the mud to try to determine when I was going to slip and gave up. There is some microscopic difference in the clay or the angle of my legs or something. The end result is that it is just exhausting because you always need to be prepared to slip. And a pound of mud on each foot doesn’t help either.
After reaching the highway the miles crawled along as it continued to rain. There was no shelter, no trees, nothing but road, rain, and cars and trucks speeding by at 70 mph. I finally made it to the Narrows Rim trailhead where there was an awesome bathroom and an awning over a picnic bench. I could finally get out of the rain and reconnoiter my options. As I sat there Doubledown showed up and talked with me for a bit. She and Smackdown were going to skip the Narrows Rim trail because they thought the rain would obscure the views and the climb back down at the end of the 2 mile trail is supposed to be a bit sketchy. I stubbornly decided to do it anyway and was glad I did. The views were awesome!
The weather cleared just enough to provide some incredible views of the El Malpais badlands. The trail itself was really fun without too much mud, although I did manage to slip and land on my side. It was somewhat tricky to find the cairns that showed the route back down to the highway and it was extremely steep. There were some nice views of Ventana Arch though.
I then continued road walking Hwy 117 to the intersection of the Acoma Zuni trail. It took a while but I finally found the excellent water cache here and stocked up. It was near 6 o clock and I was exhausted so I made camp a quarter mile along the Acoma Zuni trail. And yes, it was still raining.
The rain finally stopped about an hour ago – 9:00 PM. Everything I have is damp or outright wet but I’m warm in my sleeping bag. Good night.