We were hiking by 7:30 on a very nice trail with a couple of serious climbs onto a mesa.  We played hopscotch with Caroline, Raps, Open, and some other hikers I don’t know. The wind blew like crazy most of the day, but what a beautiful and remote place!

We refilled water at Fuertes spring which was awesome – straight from a pipe stuck in the ground a short ways uphill. We caught up with Open here who had done this section before. He had some great advice on a small bushwhack to regain the trail and cut off some road walking (which we took).

At around 6:00 after doing 19 miles I caught up with Carmen SanDiego (Sarah Dhooma) and we crossed the Chama river over Skull bridge together.

Pat and I are camped next to the Rio Chama on a small terrace under the stars.  The river is roaring away not more than 30 feet from me.  My own sound machine.  This is really nice.  I hope it doesn’t get too cold being right next to the river and all, but this is totally worth it. Dang! A huge bat just swooped me while I was typing this in bed! I managed to get a couple new blisters on my feet.  I think it was from all that snow BS yesterday.  Other hikers had similar issues. Good night.