19 Miles
Lillian Lake
It was another night graced by the howl of coyotes. The rain ended about two hours after getting packed in and this morning was gray and dreary but it wasn't raining...yet. We headed out our normal time around eight and got to moving up with drizzle here and there. After we left the United States Sheep Research Station land I realized we should have headed down to the water and not up to the divide. Up at the top we checks our maps and realized it was the last on trail water for around thirteen miles. Now we had to scale down a quarter of a mile to the water so I dropped my pack, covered it with a rain shell and headed on down. Then it started raining. When we got to the spot there was no trail to be found or water either which meant I had a little under a liter for the next thirteen miles. As I sulked up the hill back to my pack I heard a grrrrr from behind the bushes near my pack. It scared the shit out of me but it was just a nobo named Puck who could't resist the opportunity. I thought it was pretty funny and we swapped info on upcoming trail stuff and I found out there were a few little lakes ontop of old open pit miles with mediocre (most likely heavy metal laden) water in four or five miles. What a relief sort of....
Spins and I got truckin on up the mountain and reached the first few pit mine lakes which were bone dry. We thought we were screwed eight more miles past here until water and I had a quarter of a liter. We accepted our fate and moseyed on upward until we saw two higher 'lakes' that were a grayish color. Two liters of metal laden mining water won't kill me so I tanked up. The rest of the hiking for the morning was slightly bland until we turned the corner up high on the Taylor mountains ridge and looked back:
The view was nice and dry but all around the mountain was flat arid land with a few reservoirs here and there. Th contrast between the mountains and the land in the distance made the Centennial Range stick out even more.
We ate lunch coming down this ridge and cruise to a spot where Pick said a cistern would be, I think. We didn't remember the exact details and were dehydrated as hell but the next water was only a couple miles ahead. We spent a solid half hour looking and snacking and didn't find it. That's when I saw an alternate up and over the next hill down to Blair Lake. Well when we took off huge storm clouds were thundering and growing behind and above us. Perfect time to climb to the top of a treeless hill. We made it up without any issue following old ATV track which was the old CDT at one point and the lost that trail coming down. We came to a cliff and the lake was far below down and the first thing in my head was 'when am I going to learn that alternates usually cost more time than the actual trail.' We found the track again after some maneuvering only to lose it again and find it again and eventually made it down to the lake. This was the first decent water all day and we were around seventeen miles in. We drank and tanked up and headed over down and up to Lillian Lake which is the start of the Mack's Inn cutoff. Eighteen miles from here there's a subway and twenty an ice cream parlor, tomorrow morning's going to be an early start.
No comments:
Post a Comment