Well, I made it here.
Here being Carrizo Gorge, the first leg of the Desert Trail. But just barely. Between a flight delay of two hours, an interminable boarding time (thanks to numerous helicopter parents insisting the huge car seats for their children absolutely had to fit into a tiny Frontier chair), the need to visit 4 sporting goods stores to get a gas canister and the closure of state highway 78–just for today–I didn’t get to the deAnza nudist colony at the head of Carrizo Gorge until 5:30. I paid $5 to park and was finally on my way, freed from the contingencies of the modern transportation system and now reliant solely on the most ancient and trustworthy system of all: walking.
Or rather scrambling. The Desert Trail is not a trail at all, but a route; a suggestion of where one might go if one wished to travel north through the Anza Borrego desert.
But in between the rocks there were little pocket meadows filled with little yellow flowers supplemented by Desert Canterbury Bells and a purple penstemon that is unfamiliar to me.
There was flowing water in Walker Canyon and I believe there is some here in Tule Canyon where I am camped next to its junction with Carrizo Gorge. The outburst of frog song at sunset makes this a reasonable inference.
I had hoped to make a few more miles today but the failing light and appearance of a flat sandy site big enough to roll out my quilt convinced me to stop.
Dinner was posole with homemade adobo sauce, a recipe I have been working on during the winter. The hominy remained a bit chewy after rehydration but the adobo was magnificent. I give myself an A+ for this dish.
Hoping tomorrow’s trail will be easier as I promised to meet brother Dave at Bow Willow CG, some 15 miles down the gorge. The first few miles look like a major bushwhack through spiny vegetation but then the canyon should open out and provide some fine walking.
Better trails ahead- that’s what we humans always tell ourselves, isn’t it?