Day 14 – 5/6/13 – 24.4 mi (246.6)

After all the bear talk last night I had trouble sleeping despite my exhaustion. In my head, every noise I heard became a bear in search of my toothpaste not strung up in the tree. Of course everything was fine and there was no evidence of any bear activity.
It also rained overnight, but finally stopped around wake up time. It remained cool (high in the 50s) and cloudy all day, with a few very light scatterred showers. By mid morning we arrived at Snow Lake, the end of our walk along the Gila River. It was nice to finally be done with wet feet, especially with today’s cooler temperatures. But leaving the river also meant leaving our water source, and we were instantly thrown back into 25 mile long water carries.

It’s amazing how quickly the landscape can change. By lunchtime we were walking across vast and barren hills. We took a long break to dry out our wet gear.

The afternoon miles took us along forest service roads and cross country through a mix of high desert and pine tree stands. I’m camped tonight with Ninja, Love Note, and R. Dirty. We’ve now been walking 2 full weeks, and while we’ve taken several short days into or out of towns, we’ve not yet taken a full rest day, or “zero”. All of us are eager to get to our next stop, Pie Town, for a much needed break. Unfortunately, we are still about 70 miles away. Boy is that pie going to taste good.

The Daily Ninjup Report
While the rest of the group stretched out for a rest at lunch, Ninja had to make up for the push-ups she didn’t do this morning on account of the wet ground. Eight Ninjups today.