2024-03-05 & 06 - Zoom in on the picture to see bloody pants!
Melanie drove me back to where I ended my walk yesterday. I headed out on the railroad tracks to avoid the heavily overgrown section we couldn't get thru in 2022. I had picked a spot to get back into the Carrizo Gorge earlier than we did in 2022 as it looked OK on satellite pictures. That actually turned out to be true BUT what you can't see on satellites are the boulder issues & how thick the brush actually is.
Two of the railroad tunnels on the tracks now have locked gates so I had to take the trails around them which added miles & used up time. After a very steep 1500 foot descent in the gorge with loose rocks I started to hike the gorge which is beautiful. However, after a while I ran into an area blocked by huge boulders with 20 to 30 foot drops. One had a slanting 20-foot drop into a deep pool so I didn't want to try it except as a last resort. After trying 3 others & not being able to get thru the thick brush I went back to the pool route. I put my phone in a zip lock bag & put it in my pack which I put in my lap & slid into the pool. Only butt deep so I lucked out although I lost 2 hours trying to get thru before. After that it was clear sailing until I got past where we had camped in 2022. There had been 2 places that could have been bad but someone had chopped a path.
Not good this year though as it was very overgrown. Doable for a while but slow. But then I ran out of luck and I could not go any further. I tried both sides, back-tracked & found a boulder to climb up on. There was a drop of about 10 feet into what looked like short fern-like bushes. I crashed thru a 3- or 4-foot-high plant that was worse than Alder. I landed on my back (fortunately) but could not move. I cursed myself for such a stupid decision. It took me 45 minutes just to get my pack off, break enough branches to extract myself , and stand up to put my pack back on. It had turned dark by then (6:30pm) so the rest of the day was by flashlight.
I finally found a way thru by hearing the frogs chirping in the creek & heading for that. I had long since run out of water so I got some more in the creek. By this time it was after 9pm so I wasn't going to make it out today. I then hiked as close to where a road starts as I could but gave up at 11:30pm (17 hours of the hardest hiking I have ever done.) Check out Melanie’s photos of my hiking pants all bloodied from the knees down. Above the knees spots of blood all over the thighs. That's from hidden Cat' Claw & cactus.
In the meantime our Starlink quit working so Melanie was freaking out because she didn’t know where I was. She drove back to Ocotillo to get WIFI & actually called 911 for help, which I have told her not to do - ever. I have a mini 2 & can ask for my own rescue if I deem it necessary. Fortunately, she got an old message I did not send that said Estimated Arrival 2 hours so she called the rescue off. Then she drove back to the jeep track and down the dirt road as far as she could & slept there. She got my All is Okay, in Camp message. I was hoping that she might drive in to meet me because I was so dehydrated that I could not eat & I saved one sip of water to take my morning meds.
So now I am behind schedule with a non-working Starlink system. At the very least I need a couple of days to recoup so I will skip the next section which is why we are now at Desert Ironwoods in a motel. I need rest, food, & sleep. We might even call off the hike if I can’t get the Starlink fixed. There may be other options but it’s a HUGE setback.
Yeti