The Beautiful Slog

• Day:  30
• Start:  643
• End:  671
• Miles: 28 
• Hours:  13
• High temp:  72
• Low temp:  50
• People met:  2

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Yes that's the trail

Leaving Cuba with Old School this morning. A pleasant roadwalk for 8 miles followed by a 2000' climb in 3 miles. Cuba at 7000' is a high desert town and to the south are all the beautiful mesas and valleys, clearly desert.  What is fascinating is the north side of Cuba is bordered by mountains above 10,000'. The forest on the mountains is beautiful and reminds me the Sierras a little.  

A wonderful stream with 8" trout 

Incredibly, today is not a water carry or manage day as there is water everywhere. I don't even have to look for it as the water is a brook running right down the trail.  Plus as an added bonus, some of the meadows the trail crosses are about ankle deep in spring runoff. So it's a wet boots day. 

Flooding Not too bad here

Flooring worse here

This looks beautiful and it is, but it is also flooded all the way across

The scenery was just beautiful today, I hiked with a wet feet smile while in this section. The irony is I was so careful to avoid getting wet feet during all the water crossings while ascending, then came the meadows. 

Lots of Aspens today

Postholing 

Then came the patches of snow, sometimes it was possible to walk over the frozen crust, but as the day warmed postholing started to increase. Not only is this labor intensive, but the potential of twisting or even breaking a leg is possible.  The good news is there was only about a mile or so of snow. 

On to the next challenge of the day, blowdowns on the trail. 

Maybe about 3 miles of this fun

So after snaking around all the fallen trees the trail smoothed out and allowed a view. 

The trail continued to drop in altitude going through the different climates in the forest. Oaks began to appear then cacti turning the splendid mountain experience back to the normal New Mexico forest. I walked for miles in a soft pine needle carpeted trail, very pleasant. Oh my boots, well the late afternoon trail did not have flooding issues. I walk-dried my boots as much as possible then swapped fresh socks, my feet warmed and felt fine into the evening.