This is proving to be an interesting and beautiful pilgrim route. I've made a point of asking the octogenarians I've met along the way if they had known of pilgrims using the route long ago. No, only hobos passing through along the railroad line. The trains stopped nearly 50 years ago, as did the hobos. No pilgrims. Nonetheless, modern residents have been wonderfully pilgrim-friendly and very encouraging.
It's funny how weather works - the warmest day so far is the one with snow, a few inches in Chama when I set out. Even with the temperature just above freezing most of the afternoon, the water in the flexible plastic bottle tucked between my back and my backpack still froze; as did the bananas I was given for my lunch today. Elk jerky can't really freeze and I've been given enough of it to last until the Santuario.
I've climbed up and out of the valleys I've been following and crossed the continental divide at 7,275 feet. The topography is broader and expansive and the climate much dryer. Spruce and lodgepole pine have given way to juniper and russian sage. The views today were pretty impressive, especially the far away San Juan mountains where I started the pilgrimage, but the phone-camera struggles to function in the cold, so if I don't take photos right when I start out in the morning, I can't seem to make it work. The elk and mule deer I've seen in abundance are too sly for my photographic skills anyway.
Here are a few shots of scenes along the Old Spanish Trail I managed to take in the past days:
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| Old Spanish Trail in the San Juan River Valley, Colorado |
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| Iglesia San Juan Bautista, Pagosa Junction, Colorado |
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| Further Upstream along the Navajo River across the New Mexico line |
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| Did the old wagon make it to its destination? near Lumberton, NM |
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