30mi
I woke to a combination of the sounds of coyotes and crazy cows. Beautiful morning walking through the cow pasture. The cows fled from me and comically kept stopping right where the trail passed through. I jokingly apologized every time for interrupting their breakfast. I saw lots of critters today though aside from the cows, elk, a coyote, and strangely a moose. I didn't think they lived this far south. It must be because I'm in a Carson National Forest. Also on every fallen aspen tree on trail I noticed that elk were eating bark off trees.
About halfway through the day I met hiker named Bowleg. It was a strange encounter when he whistled down to me from a seemingly empty car I passed parked on a road. He told me this story of getting lost in this next section and spending the night in an outhouse somewhere and getting rescued by a ranger and spent the night in town 12mi down from a road crossing. I showed him my maps and how the trail just kind of rode a topo line until some lakes before going up over a ridge. He seemed bewildered and didn't seem to remember any of it. I was skeptical when he asked to hike with me, especially since the trail has been well blazed. I kept going not at a grueling pace so he could get his pack out of the car he got a ride from. He never caught me until later in the day when I took lunch. I felt kind of like an ass for not hiking with him, but I have been enjoying not hiking with anyone.
My day ended crossing a sketch log bridge over an overflowing river. Everything seems wet the further north I get. A nice change from southern NM. However my feet rarely are dry from walking the soggy marsh-like areas the trail passes over. Today was a good day, fairly flat, so I put in a 30 mile day in for the hell of it.
