Some days you just wake up and all you want to do is stay in your tent. Today was that day. Both Triple-Z and I are tired! Yes, the dynamic duo is just about spent. We are getting so close to the end but we still have work to do. So o’dark thirty we were on the trail like clockwork. It is much different on the south end of the San Juan’s. The mountains are red with clay trails and corn flowers growing like weeds. I never get tired of the scenery, I just get tired. I’ve been having a hard time eating so I’m not getting the fuel I need to get me up the trail. Usually it’s the complete opposite and you have hiker hunger. All you want to do is eat, eat, eat but for some reason my belly is not happy and I can barely get food down. That’s a problem! We are back in the trees again with lush green landscape, deers grazing and squirrels squeaking! Triple-Z has finally zoned in on what the chirping sound that we constantly hear from pikas and marmots. It sounds just like the alarm in your smoke detector when you need to change the batteries. Sometimes it’s really loud while others are just a gentle chirp. We are still holding out on finding the rare white weasel but haven’t seen one yet.We climbed up a pass and found a perfect red rock to sit upon. I pulled out my yellow closed-cell foam insulated pad and relaxed. During our lunch we watched a very accomplished mountain biker come up the trail and negotiate the tightest turn around a rock like it was nothing at all. Darn mountain bikers are so much faster than us!After lunch we finished the climb and headed down into a valley that looked like Zion National Park. Okay, I’ve never been there before but I’ve seen pictures and it has all the similarities. Red rock formations, red mountains and red clay trails. I came around a bend and this deer was standing just off the trail. She looked right at me and had no care that I was there. Sometimes they’re so skid dish while others just hangout. We filled up with water at Cascade Creek and yep, hiked up another 1000′ to our not-so-flat piece of earth. We are up on a ridge line and sometimes you get graced with a flat piece of real estate, but not tonight. I’m doing my best to barricade myself from sliding sideways and downhill but it’s a poor attempt. The consolation prize, I’m so tired that it probably won’t matter. Looking at our guidebook, tomorrow will be more downhill than uphill. Hallelujah! God has more in store for you than you can even imagine.

Ephesians 3:20