It was a little chilly this morning but the noisy windmill woke us up at 0500. I thanked Squirrel for the excellent campsite selection. We did quite a bit of road walking today but also got a good amount of on trail hiking.
We hiked an upper rim trail to the natural arch. The cliffs and views of El Malpais were great, the rock scramble at the end down a cliff was a little questionable. We took a break at the arch parking area and met back up with Holly. She was flying this morning and missed the turn off for the rim trail. Squirrel flagged down a truck to give her the message, "meet us at the arch". At the arch, I yogied some water and bananas.
We hiked an upper rim trail to the natural arch. The cliffs and views of El Malpais were great, the rock scramble at the end down a cliff was a little questionable. We took a break at the arch parking area and met back up with Holly. She was flying this morning and missed the turn off for the rim trail. Squirrel flagged down a truck to give her the message, "meet us at the arch". At the arch, I yogied some water and bananas.
We left and walked a couple miles along the asphalt to the Zuni-Acoma trailhead. There was a water cache there and we found some shade to eat lunch. Moss was already in the shade eating her lunch.
Around 1430 we left for out 8 mile trek across the ancient and heat absorbing lava flow. The first couple miles were amazing and beautiful. After that I wouldn't know because my eyes were focused about 3 inches in front of my feet. I still managed to destroy my shoes and side kick a cactus.
After what felt like an eternity walking on the hottest day of the trip we made it to the other side of the lava flow. We found a picnic table in some trees and set up camp. I hate camping near the road but the picnic table was too hard to pass up. There was a small chance of a water cache but we couldn't find anything - it ended up being across the road. So Squirrel went to the road with his empty water bottle and flagged down some cars for water. We all ended up taking ibuprofen for the foot pain and called it a night.