Day 12 – 5/4/13 – 11.3 mi (200.5)

It was a cold night. So cold the underwear I’d hung to dry after last night’s soak was frozen stiff as board. The only cure? Back in the hit springs, of course!

After the morning soak, we had a group breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and many cups of hot tea. The rest of the morning was relaxed as we slowly packed up to leave. We are headed into a six day stretch before our next resupply, so our packs are heavy with food.

Back on the road, we walked about 4 miles to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument visitor center. We stashed our packs and talked some tourists into giving us a ride the ~2 miles up the road to the actual dwellings. That might not seem like far out of the way for people on a 5 month hike to walk, but if it’s not “on trail miles” we don’t want to walk them!

The cliff dwellings were neat to see and a good detour. We got another ride back to our packs and continued on our way north, back to the to river. Today we saw some other, non-CDT hikers on the trails, the first of the entire trip.

Tonight we are camped by Jordan Hot Springs, a beautiful and undeveloped hot springs along the Gila. The highlight of tonight’s soak was the discovery of a glow worm!

The Daily Ninjup Report
Initially forgotten on this cold and lazy morning, Ninja put on a good show for us at the campground before we left.