Monday, May 23, 2011

Day 8...Rest...Day 9 Cliff Dwellings A sign of Enchantment.

Started my next day the way I ended it...More beer but I did visit the Cliff Dwellings. I came away with two observations 1) What a strategic advantage this was to live up here 2) Why so isolated and not more of them located in the area? It seems to me this was a very small clan and I'm not sure why there are not 1000 more of these dwellings. Then again who's to say there weren't more.

I'm going to post on here multiple pics of the Dwellings and really had an un-eventful day but interesting evening. I was enjoying more conversations with David before he left back to Silver City. I also met a father and son from TX who were very nice and we talked about ultralight backpacking.

As evening fell our conversations turned to New Mexico and how really I was not thrilled with my trip so far. While this was no doubt the wrong thing to say; it was sadly the truth. I had not seen one thing except the Dwellings that I could not see in AZ.

Then the conversation turned to Jordan Canyon, The Meadows (which had burned) and other points on the map. Though I wanted to go home at that point I decided considering these hikes over the next week or so. After all I had enough supplies to last me another 8-10days maybe longer. Still I was not sure of my next move. I wanted "WOW" and was getting none of it. I wanted "Serenity" and only got that briefly before the hell of the campgrounds broke loose. So I was very reluctant at this point to continue.

With David now gone and the others making dinner I went down to the river to see if I could spot some beavers who clearly built a dam nearby. No such luck but there were some deer and when they took off suddenly I was curious to why. Night was taking over fast and I looked across the river to see a very dark shadow figure with four legs. At first I just thought it was a baby doe, but soon realized he had two friends slightly lighter in color . I tried to take pictures but when the flash went off it was followed by a low almost grunting warning. These were three Mexican Grey Wolfs I believe. I was in no danger but felt a bit uneasy just to see their silhouettes. Crossing the nearby road back to camp I took this as an obvious sign to continue on.

That night in my bivy, I looked very hard over the map. I decided to start at Woody's coral and head a long way around TR-160 to see if I could confirm any Wolfs. I had no clue how the next two days would end up being the most tiresome and yet breath taking of my trip to date... Till tomorrow all... Bangarang!

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