Today we are making our last hike of the trek. This part was to be completed on Sunday, but was changed because of Julie’s accident, a real change of events. Jake drives for the first part and brings us to the beginning of our walk. Jessica, as first alternate, is taking Julie’s place today. It starts with an old jeep trail, easy to walk except that it does go up, up, up. I still have some difficulty when the altitude changes, but I love being out hiking again in the mountains.
Soon we have to leave the trail because we encounter some private land. It means bush-whacking through scrub oaks, junipers and spruce. The trees are so close together that if we are more than five feet from each other, we are we cannot be seen. We walk along the ridge for a while and then it is time to descend. The trees are still close together, the ground is slippery because the soil is very fertile dark and loose. I am very happy that I have chosen to wear jeans today, the bushes scratch, slap, poke and generally try to prevent any forward travel. Soon we come to some flatter open space only to discover that it is covered with very low lying cactus. It is hard to get around them because they seem to be everywhere. They jump up and grab on to the side of our pants, spear through to pierce our legs. Ouch.
The descent takes a couple of hours. We reach a ledge where we can see the highway but are still considerably high with no seeming route to use to get us safely down. We spot Jake who has climbed up at a difficult point that has even him sweating and huffing with heavy breathing. He did however see a route that would be safe for us to get down and to the cool creek bed. I am very glad that I decided to wear jeans for this hike, unlike any other time on the trip. Jan attest to the fact that his bare legs took a beating. We all let our tired and hot feet take a quick break in the cool water before we climb the last dead branch filled hill to cross the highway and pile into the Honda.