Day 2: The Hail, the Hail

April 12th
Today’s mileage: 18
CDT mile 32

Today there was no proper path and the only dirt service roads we had were at the end of the day. (We would actually prefer to bushwhack over service roads, although the gullies are time-consuming.) It was odd and the miles were quite slow at first, as we went up and down small gullies throughout the day, searching for infrequent sign posts. Frequently we had to rely on navigational aids. There simply was no trail.

As you can see, our ultralight shelters don’t provide much in the way of privacy.

Yours truly descending a small gully. Photo courtesy of Six-2.

We ate lunch at the 2nd water cache of the week. The shadow cast by these cache boxes often provided the only respite from the Sun. Today was an exception, hah!

We could tell that inclement weather was coming, and could even see lightning in the far-off distance. We pushed hard to avoid it, but got caught in a heavy hail storm for 15 minutes. At the time, I was miffed to be so wet and cold, but funny how just two days later on trail, I was wishing for another hail storm. It’s also the first time that we’ve ever had our umbrellas out for hail/rain and then just kept it up because the transition to sun/heat was so fast.

If interested, here is what the hail storm looked like. Video courtesy of Six-2.