Kaze Uta Budo Kai Forum Archive

We left Oklahoma City at about 7:30am, stopping at McDonald’s on our way out of town for a bacon-egg-& cheese biscuit. We made pretty good time, aside from some construction in New Mexico that slowed things down significantly. We stopped at the Ranger Station in Pecos on our way in and asked about trail conditions, bears and any open hunting season. The nice girl at the station told us it had rained every afternoon and she had no real recent trail conditions report. Thus far, there had been no reports of bears on the trail all year. And we learned that archery season was open. Even worse, a hunter had gone missing in the wilderness and an active search & rescue operation was underway. These operations were based out of a different trailhead than we were hiking from. Nonetheless, it served as a potent reminder that Mother Nature, in all her beauty, is unforgiving.

Once we reached the trailhead, we made the final checks and adjustments to our packs and headed out. Both Chris and I were running about 35 pounds for this trip, mainly because the overnight lows were largely unknown. The forecast for Pecos, the nearest town situated at 6900 ft elevation, called for overnight lows in the mid 40’s. Lake Katherine was our target destination, sitting at 11,300.

I turned on my Garmin eTrex-H GPS, marked the location of the car and we launched our assault on the mountain. I was using the map and waypoints from our trip in June, and we were familiar with the terrain. We had great pictures of the first 9 kilometers of the trail, leaving only 3 kilometers of unknown terrain ahead of us.

The aspen trees were starting to change, with a brief hint of green starting to turn to yellow. I suspect in two to three weeks the area will be a magnificent palette of yellow and orange, standing against the whitish-grey trunks of the aspens, against a backdrop of evergreens.

We made excellent time along the trail. By 7 PM, we were 5 km into our assault. We passed a grand opportunity to refill our water stores at a spot 3 km into the trip. It was cool, though hiking at our pace we didn’t notice. Chris was probably halfway through his 3 liter Camelbak, while I was more like 2/3 of the way through mine. We dropped packs at a small stream crossing by where we camped last time.

The US Navy SEALs have a saying: two is one, one is none. Mission-critical gear demands backups. And what trip wouldn’t be complete without my dear old friend, Mr. Murphy. The SteriPEN is a battery-powered ultra-violet light system used to purify water. The UV light disrupts the DNA sequence of any virus or bacteria in the water. Since we were drinking from a running stream there was no sediment in the water. Water was pure & clear, and the SteriPEN provides a lightweight option to ensure it’s biologically safe.

Well… it seems that the units don’t like cool weather. It was in the 60’s, we had been hiking for two hours. Both units had been tested at home and worked perfectly – a phenomenon I had experienced before with my MSR MiniWorks EX filter. The units would turn on, but not function. New batteries made no difference whatsoever. Viewing the user’s manual, my unit was reporting a UV Lamp Failure less than 20 liters into its 10,000 liter lifespan. Shit.

It would seem that Murphy says two of the same device, bought at the same store on the same day, are the same as having one. And one had just turned into none. We had stoves, we could boil water to purify it. But, purifying water via boiling for 5 minutes left us facing a different problem – a lack of fuel. For dehydrated backpacking food, you simply bring 1 or 2 cups of water to a boil and dump it into the Ziploc bag. Purifying water means maintaining a boil for five minutes. My pot’s capacity is under a liter, meaning it would take 15 minutes of run-time on the stove once it reached boiling.

So, it’s 7:30PM. The trailhead is 5 kilometers away. It’s getting dark, you’re low on water with no means of purification. The forecast calls for rain. We chose to hit the abort button. I’m not entirely sure why Murphy is so opposed to us seeing Katherine Lake. In June, there was still snow on the ground and trails to Santa Fe Baldy peak, directly behind Katherine Lake, were impassable because of snow.

We began back down the mountain. We both hated to abort, but no need to be greedy in the wilderness.

In the name of reducing pack weight, I have minimized a lot of gear. For this trip, I left my AAA battery powered MiniMag flashlight at home. We don’t hike at night, a small LED light will be fine. Except now, we’re hiking at night, down the mountain. Thanks Murph.

Our progress was slow and tedious navigating the trail via LED lights. Steep descents were tedious. Rolling an ankle at this stage of the game would be exceedingly bad. Crossing steams was even more fun, especially when you have to balance on a log while shining your light to see where you’re going.

However, there was a supreme payoff. Once we crossed the stream the last time, we had to cross a large meadow. By this point, it is dark. And I do mean dark. Switching our lights off made each of us invisible to the other at a range of less than three feet. This maneuver also revealed stars the quantity of which I had not seen in some time. Camping at Stewart Lake was nice, though we had light pollution from the campfire and trees to obfuscate the view. Now, standing in a large open meadow, the view was amazing.

After taking in the splendor of the night sky for several minutes, we continued walking. A few minutes later, we could see lanterns providing light in the distance. Interestingly, in absolute darkness, light shines a very long way. It was much further to the lights at the group camp area of Holy Ghost campground than I would have thought. The folks were surprised to see people coming off the mountain so late. Believe me friend, we’d prefer not to.

Passing the group camp, we continued down the road. The camping for the trailhead is about 1 kilometer from the actual trail. This dedicated parking area makes it easier on people camping at the campground. As we approached the last bridge before the car, I caught some movement out of the corner of my eye. Remember, LED lights are not especially bright nor do they shine an exceptional distance. I changed from a slight zig-zag pattern to shine the light directly at where I saw the movement.

I have no recollection of exclaiming, “Oh fuck!” Chris says I did, and he knew something was horribly wrong based on my tone. He didn’t know exactly what that was yet. My tone was sufficient to trigger the release of adrenaline, the human body’s miracle drug. His visual acuity jumped. Audio processing went off the chart. Time lost all meaning.

Out of the bush along the road, not 20 feet ahead of us on the left, a skunk emerged. He began crossing the road, moving from left to right. We stood frozen, motionless. Then he turned, and began walking toward us. And then that walk turned into a run.

I began to step back, thinking about how badly this was going to suck. Was I about to have karmic retribution for the grizzly death of a skunk circa 1989?

Thoughts of being sprayed, then having to climb into my truck for the half hour drive to Santa Fe for a hotel did not appeal to me whatsoever. I briefly considered pulling the Springfield Armory XD .45ACP from Chris’s holster to dispatch the stinky spray machine that was less than 15 feet from us, and closing. But, being in a campground at night with an unknown, unlit backstop ruled this out immediately.

I backpedaled even faster, giving ground to the rodent. I had no conscious idea where the pavement was behind me or how far I had backed up. As I considered turning so that I could run, that decision would no longer matter. The skunk turned around as well.

Sometimes, things seem to occur in slow motion. The one thing I noted was the skunk’s tail was down as he turned around, and as long as it stayed that way we were safe. We gave more ground, noted the skunk’s departure on the right side of the road, and we waited.

After a few minutes and no further sign of our little friend, we continued walking toward the truck. About halfway to the truck we smelled the obvious discharge of a skunk. Were there multiple bogeys in the area?

We made it back to the truck at about 9:30PM. We had covered about 12 kilometers in five hours. We put the packs in the truck and drove to Santa Fe. This was enough fun for one night.


When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Over the hotel breakfast we reassessed our situation. My SteriPEN functioned normally in the hotel room on the original batteries, but still failed on the new batteries. We could not trust them to function. We decided small dayhikes were our best bet to salvage the trip. I had my 2 liter water bottle I take to the dojo, a one liter Nalgene bottle (things you find under the seat sometimes) and a one liter Aquafina bottle. We had 3 liter Camelbak bladders and a 1 liter Nalgene bottle on our packs. We could make this work.

At this point, I noticed that I had somehow forgotten to throw my Camelbak MULE daypack into the truck. Jeff Dunham, a funny comedian and ventriloquist, has a puppet named Walter. A crotchety old curmudgeon, Walter likes using the term dumb-ass. I hear Walter calling me a dumb-ass. How did I forget to put that in the truck?

We drove to Bandelier National Monument. We had visited this in 2008 after our trip to Colorado, though we had very few pictures. Well, we decided to fix that. I carried one liter of water, Chris carried the camera, and we hit the same route we took in 2008. The Main Loop Trail is 1.2 miles long, and we hit the Alcove House Trail which provides a half-mile walk to a 140 climb up four wooden ladders and carved stairs to a ceremonial cave site.

As we made our way back to the truck, thunderstorms loomed in the distance to the east. We debated what to do next. It was about 1:30 PM. We had thought about going to Mt. Wheeler, the highest peak in New Mexico near Taos. But, looking that direction showed lots of rain. We debated removing all camping gear from our backpacks and carrying only water, and launching another assault on Katherine Lake as a dayhike. But, my feet were not in the mood for about 25 kilometers in a single day. Ultimately, we chose to drive to Albuquerque and hole up for the night.

As we drove down I-25 into Albuquerque, we noticed an REI sporting goods store. Hell, why not shop. As I turned down the road for REI, I saw a sign for Sportsman’s Warehouse. We had one in Oklahoma City until about six months ago when the chain downsized in an effort to preserve cash. Oh, things were looking up.

After looking at the sales at both stores, we found a Hampton Inn and used the computer in the lobby to locate breakfast. Yeah, the hotel had a complimentary breakfast but I had something else in mind. In 2000 or 2001, I was introduced to what has to be the best breakfast burrito ever made. And it’s in Albuquerque. A chain that specializes in fried chicken and BBQ makes a killer breakfast burrito.

We made our way to Golden Pride, located on Juan Tabo on the east side of the city. The drive thru was about eight cars deep. When the lines are this long, you know the food is good. Menu item #9: scrambled eggs, hash browns, bacon, cheese and green chilies -- $3.89. Oh yes, give me two of those and a large coffee, two of those and large Diet Dr. Pepper for Chris, for the low low price of $19.99. No kidding.

The heft of the bag and the smell of fresh roasted New Mexico green chilies was pleasant. I found a parking lot, popped the lid on the coffee and set about on a trip down memory lane. I’ve tried to replicate this thing, unsuccessfully, several times. Maybe I wasn’t using enough green chilies. Maybe it was the freshly made tortillas that were the difference. I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m taking it all in, and enjoying every bite of it. These things are monsters too. Chris and I both had two of them, and 10 hours later we still weren’t especially hungry.

We made a couple of side stops before hitting the road back home. A large (sorry, Venti) Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks, a full tank of gas, and off to the races. The trip home was nice, lots of conversation about a variety of subjects. Things to improve for next time, different ideas & discussions about gear choices, backups, telling stories on ourselves. And, a day off work to write and catch up on domestic duties before saving Las Vegas from terrorists on Rainbow Six: Vegas Two.