It’s been an exhausting day.  We started at the Los Pinos trailhead 9 miles outside Cuba.  There was 4 inches of snow on the ground.  We ascended 2000 feet to San Pedro parks at 10,000 feet where we encountered a foot of new snow on top of older drifts up to 3 feet deep.  All day long we trudged in tracks made by a few brave and talented hikers.  How they could find the right route is amazing to me. They have my respect.

We postholed occasionally and I broke through into a creek at one point getting my foot soaked. After several miles the trail crossed a huge meadow. Out in the center you could see a gray color to the snow indicating it was thin and there was water underneath. I could see other hikers out there dealing with it and it looked pretty bad with lots of mud. I tried to go around, but the meadow went on too far, so I finally just went ahead and crossed where everyone else did. As we got closer some hikers yelled at us to adjust our path which we did. It didn’t help much. The snow became thinner and mushier and eventually we were up to our thighs in mud and water and snow and had to crawl to get out. As we came up the other side we saw a female sitting there crying. She was fine, but this trail gets to everyone sooner or later. We continued to meander through the trees and deep snow.

At one point we found a very small snow-free slope near the edge of the trees and stopped for a lunch break. Open joined us for a while before we all moved on. 

After 10 miles we descended the back side of the San Pedro mountains. There was a bit of mud and slippery trails but not too bad.  We found an awesome spring with crystal clear water bubbling up from the ground.  It just boiled up a couple inches above ground level before forming a creek and running down the valley. Shortly after we found a beautiful snow-free grassy campsite.