Day 32 – 5/24/13 – 22.9 mi (581.1)

We left reasonably on time this morning after Ninja, Stryder and I made a quick stop by the nurse’s station to weigh ourselves and our packs. We had a little trouble finding the right trail out of Ghost Ranch, as we were going by the waypoints on our GPS, which were considerably off. To cope with this frustration, we decided to try push-ups with our packs on. This was a great way to kill 5 minutes.

Wired and Sweetfish caught up to us and we all found the way out of the canyon. After a lot of climbing, we took a fairly steep cross country route up to a jeep road. A few minutes after reaching the top and sitting for a break, LoveNote showed up wondering why we didn’t just take the trail. Oops! (Maybe…there mayor may not have actually been a trail.)

The rest of the day was a lot more of the mix between following old faint jeep roads that disappeared mixed with short segments of cross country walking. Even after we rejoined the official CDT, the route required constant vigilance to follow. It’s very easy to put your head down when following a road and miss your turn off, especially in this area where there is little to no signage.

At the end of the day, all of us except LoveNote, who was a little behind, missed a turn and ended up on a logging road on the wrong side of a peak. Sweetfish opted to continue on the road and bushwhack back to the trail around the north side of the mountain, the rest of us opted to somewhat retrace our steps and bushwhack across the south side of the mountain where the terrain looked less steep. LoveNote, of course, went the right way the first try. In the end, we all made it to camp for a lovely sunset and moonrise.

The Daily Ninjup Report
Ninja did her push-ups in the Ghost Ranch Welcome Center this morning while the rest of us procrastinated leaving by playing with our smartphones on the wifi.