Rodeo 5, up Silver Peak

 A splendid, yet exhausting, day.  Our last hike in Arizona for this year.  Kind of an early birthday celebration for me, it’s still a few more days.  

Silver Peak is supposed to be a 4.5 mile trip in each direction. Our GPS recorded 5.45 going up and 10.4 miles round trip.  Plus 3000’ vertical rise to 8000’.  Some really great views and the 360 view from the top was incredible.   And it took us 7 hours.  The trail was rebuilt last year which explains the different length.  Like so many western trails this one is loaded with switchbacks which makes the task of getting up the mountain much less difficult.  Longer, but easier than the eastern method of just going straight up the slope no matter the pitch. 😩 And very little wind today, even on top. Temps in the 70s. 

We met 5 other people on the trail. 3 of them we spent some time on the summit.  One has a friend that now owns a house in this town, Portal.  The other two from WV have been coming here for a few years, trailering their horses back and forth.  Until last year they bought a place in Portal.  They’re headed back to WV on Sunday with the horses again.  

On the way back from the hike we stopped for take out food   Too tired to cook!

Heading east tomorrow   A little place east of El Paso   

The photos are not in any particular order  too tired for that   

Rusty’s RV Ranch, Rodeo NM 4

We got back to a nearly cloudless morning today, but cool at 39.The bright sun is quite welcome after 3 days of clouds and a bit of rain.  Not that everyone reading this hasn’t had worse.  It is March after all.

Mid morning we went hiking on the Ash Spring loop trail.  As the photos will show, it’s a rather spectacular trail for the views of the tall peaks around it.  Skye got some more water, albeit less than yesterday.

We got back in the early afternoon so I could do some resealing on the front edge of the camper roof.  I found 3 places where the sealant had broken contact with the camper roof and put a good layer on that.  Looks like this summer I’ll need to remove it all and do a complete resealing.  But with any luck this’ll get us home and into summer.  And I do have some luck.  Yesterday we had not noticed that Skye had lost her bell (we keep a bell on her when out hiking off leash, helps us keep track of her). So when I stopped and went to lean my hiking poles on something I looked down and there was her bell on the ground!  Just a random spot beside the trail!  of all the acres that she covers.  It was 2’ off the actual treadway, no reason to look there except I picked that spot to put down my poles.  Or did I just use up a huge chunk of my allotment of luck?  I’m not buying a lottery ticket, the leprechaun has left town.

Tonight’s sunset was pretty mellow, but was the best of the week!