[Day 10] Lowell Observatory

Giving myself a later start this morning, I strolled the first couple miles, eating on a deli sandwich I packed out for dinner last night, but had passed on eating. Engrossed in the final bites of ham and salami, I noticed I made a wrong turn. Instead of going back the four tenths of a mile, I decided to cut up a hillside to trail. I quickly found myself in the thickets of thorns. I battled through to trail, wasting a bit of blood and more time than retracing my steps. With all the prickly plants, my days of off-trail and cross-country routes are soon to be null once off the Colorado Plateau.

I rolled along through the pine and juniper forests amidst the breeze and foliage of Fall. Marshy wetlands dotted the side of trail every five miles or so. In the afternoon, I passed by the Lowell Observatory, a highly precise astronomical telescopic interferometer — quite the mouthful. Unlike a conventional telescope, a circular array of six mirrors direct light towards a singular sensor, providing extreme precision and resolution. This telescope can differentiate pairs of stars so close together that they appear as a single star in a conventional telescope. Why is this telescope here? I’d have to guess minimal light pollution, clear skies, and solid, flat volcanic bedrock.

I walked on to Horse Lake, my last water source for sometime until tomorrow. It took time to collect water since the shoreline was marshy. My heels have open blisters, so I avoided wading into the lake to collect cleaner water. Instead, I scooped from the marshy shore, pre-filtered through my bandana to remove the worms, algae, and other little floaters, and finally pushed it through my filter. Carrying four liters, I headed off expecting only a few more miles.

Before crossing Highway 3, I ran into a couple bikepackers. They gave me hope that things would warm up once I am off the Colorado Plateau. Of the many bikepackers I’ve crossed, we’ve both been surprised by each other. I’m surprised that they are often only manage 30 miles a day biking, and they are surprised I somehow manage 30 miles a day hiking. These guys were headed for the Grand Canyon, expecting to hike through the canyon shouldering their full-suspension mountain bikes on their backs. I wouldn’t wish such evil upon anyone.

After crossing Highway 3, I ran into a dilemma. I reached a prescribed burn area that had been torched about a week ago. The burn area was said to last about four miles. To hike through it, or to not hike through it was the question. I took the not-hike-through-it approach initially, but the paralleling highway miles were unappetizing. I decided anyway to cut to the highway, but ended up making my own cross country route south somewhere between the highway and the official trail. I zigzagged in the forests between trail and Highway 3 for a while, only to find all of it burned out as well. I compromised, finding a dirt road in the forests more direct than the trail that would link back up tomorrow. I came across many hot spots still smolder — a few even flaming.

After three miles of sooty, smoky walking, I made it out of the burn, pitched my tent, and called it a night. Finding my cook pot to be quite disgusting from lack of cleaning (and also using it as a scoop in the marshes of Horse Lake), I skipped a warm dinner instead for peanut butter and Hershey’s chocolate.

Signing off,

Zeppelin

“Freak on a Leash”