Day 32 - El Morro and El Malpais

Camping in a Walmart parking lot stinks-- the bright lights blaze in constantly despite black out window coverings and cars pull in all night. Parking in the very back could've helped. Camping there did put me close to the big city of Albequerque where I got my first oil change after 5k miles in 30 days and allowed me to resupply food at Costco, securing a months food supply for my May in remote southern Utah.

Business done by noon, I drove two hours to El Morro. A whiteish towering cliff with a permanent deep watering hole, El Morro was a popular stopping point for settlers, soldiers and explorers heading West. 2,000 people inscribed their names and some petroglyphs on the rock face, the earliest inscription carved in 1609, making El Morro a unique historical landmark. Pics.

Still having three hours of the best time of day left, I drove 15 miles to the dirt road entrance of El Malpais National Monument's lava tubes. The dirt road was passable when dry but impassable when wet. With the skies darkening but likely staying dry, I set out down the lonely dirt road eight miles to the lava tubes. Lava tubes were formed by lava flowing from a fairly recently but ancient volcano eruption and going underground in tubes. Eroding over time, the top edge of the tubes have collapsed leaving wide channels of dried lava and caves. Hiking on this stuff is bizarre, resembling exploring a far off dark planet. You follow cairns, human built piles of lava rock that blend into the surroundings, around the lava tubes to certain viewpoints. It felt a bit unsafe being out there alone, getting lost as easy as missing a cairn, but I pushed on, stopping whenever i couldn't see a cairn and back tracking to the last cairn carefully, always checking my heading on my watch compass. I felt a bit lost at one point thinking in my head I should be going one way back to the car but having cairns go the opposite way. I left the cairns to check a pass over a lava tube, but not seeing more cairns went back to the cairn path and followed it back to safety. The parking lot this way sign was welcome relief. I drove back to El Morro campground and camped at their free campgrounds. I have a gps locator beacon for SOS at all times so I'm never in grave danger. Pics.

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Day 57 - Rocky Mountain National Park

Ever since I decided to go west for my big trip, I had dreamed of high mountain lakes with snowy peaks arching in every direction, with chilly air making every moment crisp, and with clear skies bringing all into perfect focus-- pure bliss. Today was the first of many great mountain lake days to come. Hiking here was far easier here than in the San Juans because the snow was packed down on the trail, but I brought my mini crampons for the downhill. I made it safely past a narrow ridge with narly black peaks across the gorge (pic 1), then up to Mills Lake (pic 2) then Jewel Lake then the Loch (pic 3) then down before the afternoon rain started falling. I hiked around some lower, more accessible lakes but the sky was now overcast and pictures no good. I drove up the open portion of the Ridge road amid a very light dusting of snow before heading back to camp for dinner and bedtime. I did manage to capture some fine Elk grazing in a meadows on the return trip and a g...

Day 54 - Great Sand Dunes

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Day 51 - Canyonlands Needles Pt 3

A deep connection to the nature surrounding you comes from the solitude of solo travel, but sometimes it is nice to have a companion! I ran into David, a retired telecom exec from Canada a few days ago on the Syncline Loop trail at Canyonlands Island in the Sky. Then I ran into him again halfway through my Chesler Park hike two days ago, then again later in the hike, finishing the last two miles together. David hiked his favorite trail, the Peekaboo trail yesterday, and said I could join him, but my heart was set on confluence trail, so we hiked separately. We did share a campsite though and exchanged travel stories. David was 55 and had retired at 50 from a high-level international job with Nortel and was now traveling full-time. We instantly bonded over our solo travel style. He outclassed me by leagues. He had trekked one month in Nepal, then another month in India, then some months in Asia. He had hiked and skied and adventured all over the western U.S. and Canada....

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