Ticks galore
As we began to fall asleep last night, off in the distance on the ridge parallel to us we saw a coyote starring at us. Honestly, at first I thought it was a deer due to the size, but as it walked away the body length was much longer than its height. We toyed at the idea it was a wolf for a while, it was massive.
Shortly after, a bunch of coyotes started to howl and bark as they ran around the dusk light in search of food. Think they may have gotten a turkey as we heard some gobbling off in the distance.
We woke to the sun shining on our tents and had a very leisurely morning. We hung around, made coffee, had breakfast, and enjoyed the nice cool weather. The benefit of being out of shape is we don’t do many miles, so our days can be more relaxed. We did make 11.5 miles today, even though our bodies are reminding us we need to get back into shape.
The day grew hot, and there is little to no shade on the trail so far, so we covered up as best as possible while still trying to stay cool. But man, was it hot. The temperature only said 84, but in the harsh sunlight it had to have been more.
As we got to our water cache, where we had planned to camp, we noticed there wasn’t much shade, and we still had four hours of the harsh sun. We decided to sit off to the side beneath a tree while we rested and figured out where to post up.
Not 30 seconds later and we find two ticks on our packs. In the taller dry grass, and hot sun, these Dog Ticks thrive. And man are there a lot of them. We decided to walk up to the trail head on the side of the road to get some shade and find a better place to camp.
A trail sign with a map was the only reprieve from the sun we could find. About a four square foot bit of shade. We stood there for hours.
We set up our tents on the flat ground at the trail head, on the dirt away from the grass. And yet, I still find two ticks crawling on the outside of my tent. Fortunately, they’re big suckers. So I’m hoping it’s easy to feel it if on you. They don’t carry Lymes, but seem to carry Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever. So yay for that.
As the sun began to set, a few darker clouds rolled in with rain on the horizon. Thankfully, it blotted out the sun a bit earlier than sunset so we could cook our dinner and eat in the cool shade. It seems the rain is mostly passing by us tonight, but forecast for rain tomorrow, is near certain. Our tents are not in the best setup to be rained on (the ground is too hard to stake our tent flys down properly, so everything’s flapping in the wind) so we’re hoping to be in the clear tonight and hope for better camping tomorrow.
Off to bed now! A full tick sweep and everything seems to be a okay. Another day down on the Maah Daah Hey.