Day 9:
17 miles
We awake to birdsong and, surprisingly, the sun reaches our campspot in the wash so we dry all our gear out. Yard sale! Only there are no shoppers.
We feel like the first people to ever be in this little secluded alcove on the planet until out exploring Mark finds a tattered Mexican blanket with twine tied to its corners and I find a strange chrysalis hanging from a branch, which turns out to be only a tampon. Okay. I guess someone has been here before. Haha. Sort of ruins the mood.
While exploring Mark also finds a pool of water and we each take a liter to finish our hike down to the next for sure water at Twin Tanks.
We cross a few more seeps and pools as we traverse the washes on the way to lower elevations. My knee is only minimally hurting, but now my plantar fascia hurting. I tape it up. What a whiner I'm turning out to be. Mark, of course, is fine and walking strong. Yay. Somebody has to carry the stuff. Usually we split the weight by carrying an equal percentage of our body weight, but since I started gimping, he's carried more than his fair share.
We pass the 100 mile mark and realize we are 2 days behind our plan.
We finish our morning hike at muddy Twin Tanks at about 1 pm. It takes a while to filter 6 liters of water. We cook a lunch and each drink a liter. We each plan on carrying about 2 liters for the next 12 miles to Cienga Creek, which we won't make today, so we have to plan for coffee tomorrow morning. We have our priorities, ya know. We usually only need 1/2 liter for each 5 miles, as long as it's not too hot and we always drink at least a liter at each water source.
At Twin Tanks we talk to a couple of fisherman who are actually catching bass. What?! From this mud hole? Here is a photo of the tank, from a distance. The trail goes right to it. Our original plan had us camping here, I'm glad we are not.
Hiking on we get passed from a zippy bike rider with a cute bell. This section of trail is made for bikes (and fast walking which I can no longer do!). I snap a photo. See his blue jersey?
Slipping on the rocks I fall on my bottom and get baptized by cactus spines in the hand I caught myself with. Mark plucks them out with the pliers on his little knife. Then Mark snoops at a rodent nest, in what we endearingly call the sock monkey cactus, and he gets his first bite. The joys of the cholla! A whole section breaks off with all the spines stuck in his hand. He uses a comb to get it disconnected from him and hike on.
This is a cholla, but not the one that got Mark. See how it can look like a sock monkey?
We see lots of different cactus and wish we had a good book of Arizona plants, so we'd know all their names. We can name Ocotillo that looks like kelp and the cholla, prickly pear, barrel cactus, rainbow cactus with its pincushion look and this. What is this? I call it the eggs in a nest cactus. It is small.
There is lots of brush rabbits or what I call cottontails and lots of l. g.b.'s ( little grey birds).
My knee starts really hurting and it looks like we are hiking through nothing, and there are houses and power lines and I am done with this trail. Then the desert smiles beautifully as the sun heads toward the horizon and I snap some photos that look golden. I smile. I glow. I forget my darn knee and the miles glide by.
More bikers pass and we exchange warm greetings. We cross a road and go under a highway and are now camping in another dry wash without the rain fly so we can enjoy the stars tonight. It's 60 degrees!
The trail was easy today, only a few climbs in the canyons, the rest gently downhill to flat.
Today's Takeaway: keep your hands to yourself around cactus!
Tip: Combs have a dual purpose in the desert. Tweezers or a knife with pliers are useful too.
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