Sunday, August 24, 2014

Day 42 Taylor Lake to "Seasonal" non-existent spring

Friday, August 15, 2014
Mileage: 19 miles 

Brr... Cold bone chilling night. We had to squeeze our tents in between fluffs of three foot high bushes. Little critters had dug some mole holes on the only level part of the ground . So naturally we placed our ground cover and tent right smack in the middle of those mole holes. 

So...as we got settled in our warm and cozily snuggled tent and sleeping cocoons, Zippy announces " I think there is a little scampering animal trying to get back into his mole house.. ". Pippy bring her perfectly in control yogi self, replies, " it will be okay., just go with it.. It's part of the adventure...". Whew! What would one do with out Pippy?
Here are our tents smothered between the brush . Good thing we put our tents in this area as the winds were brrr cold.
Ahhh.. The morning happy Mr sunshine arrived !! It will be the start of a beautiful day as we make our final decent toward our final destination of charming Durango🌺 happy sad.
Zippy launches a picture of herself near Taylor lake before we head out. 
Not am angry cloud on the sky anywhere!!
Airing out our Colorado Ricky Moutain high condo.
As we leave Taylor lake, we excitedly chatter Iike mischievous chippies of what the next 24 hours will be like.. Our hike is almost over. Unfortunately our favorite "Dr. Nooo" had to leave us . He only had a handful of mashed potatoes to eat for the day. He high tailed it down the trail for his final 22 miles... With out us! We will te connect in two dsys for that famous free beer from carvers .
One final gasping of oh my gosh views of these tremendously awesome and beautiful mountain ranges scope our memory bank for ever .
So excited!!! Less than 20 miles until Durango!! 
Sparkle behind the perfect Pippy meandering down from our 11,000 plus relevation. It's all down hill from here.
As we get closer to tree line.  The terrain becomes rocky.
Pretty waterfall trickling aside the rock cliff..we thought for sure we would be able to find a water stream near our "proposed" camp site.., WRONG!!! 

As were talking about how hungry we all were we  plopped down in the middle of the trail and started woofing down our delicious dry trail bars... Needing water very soon, and it was getting late.. We sipped our last to least filtered water and started on the trail..

 Up ahead was a line of bellowing wean off's.. Omg. It would mean a long night of moo-ing . Being that el torro Pippy and Zippy were raised with animalsπŸ‚πŸ“, it seemed quite fitting that they start to herd them cows away and off the trail. A whistle and a " hep, hep " and they retreated in orderly fashion.

Up on the slope side of the trail was a group of "hikers " reroute to denver.,going the opposite way . Not sure what to say to them as they were big eyed and frozen with a confused look as we ooshed the cattle away. They told us they had been waiting along the ridge for the cattle to leave.. Haha.. Fat chance. Cattle will always go the opposite way you want them to go. πŸ‚

We saved them.. They looked so fresh and clean. Not a broken in thru hiker look. But then again, they had just started their trek.

Eyeing them up with larger than needed packs, fake aloha shirts and NO hiking poles. We wished them well bad off we went in search of water.

We'll, well.. The beautiful little tiny meandering stream that was designated  as the LAST reliable water source from our CT hiker bible, was a stream of dark green cow S H I T.  Or  poop. Same difference. Try filtering water in that with the sneaky jittery wean offs trying to butt head you. Not happening. 
πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚πŸ‚


Soooo, what are 3 very thirsty and tired ( trail hungry) girls suppose to do?? Yes , that's right . We put on our Girl Scout thinking caps and unanimously voted to hike 5/6 more miles to the so called seasonal ( non existent stream... Hello). No big deal ... I mean we just hiked 14 miles .It's 5:40 PM and it will be dark as can be in a few bear hours.. We need to find water.

Bad words flew from our Girl Scout mouths.. We booked it down the trail . Head lamps on, eyes open for bears and shiny eyed things. 8:35pm. No steam!!! Sparkle spies an old water trough full of greasy rain water . That will have to do. 

The ground next to the trough is of course bumpy with not so dried up cow s h i t... What the beep ?? We throw down out  ground cover, set up our tent for the very last time and boil the bejesus out of that lovely trough water and mix into our mashed potatoes and homemade dehydrated mushroom burgundy ... The finale meal . Quite gourmet for trail food. We saved it for that night. 

Sparkle had her tent camped out next to ours . We exchanged a pile of "oh my gosh momments " of these past 480 some odd miles of hiking . We discussed how the trail had made us all become aware of the greatest things in life . Our family, silly puns, new found friends, and knowing that we can do without material must haves.. We are going all clean out our closets and simplify our lives. 

There is a new meaning to the word "backpacking"...it had been embraced .

"Good night Soarkle and Sir Harrison ", " Good night Pippy and zippy " !













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