August 4: Tooth of Time Ridge

This marked by far the most grueling day of our trip. First, it was the longest: twelve miles. Second, our camp for that night, Tooth of Time Ridge, was dry, so we had to haul in all our water. Making matters worse, we found out that all the springs on the mountain - Shaefer's Peak, Upper Clark's Fork, and Ponderosa Pines - had run dry. Our last water stop was therefore at Clark's Fork, at the bottom of a grueling 1800 foot climb. The hike from Cimarroncito to Clark's fork was quite easy and we arrived there fairly early. We then cooked our nominal 'dinner' and ate it well before noon; this is a common water conservation tactic for dry camps. We climbed to Shaefer's pass, where we met up with the Texans once again. A number of our faster hikers went ahead with them, while the rest of us stayed with Vee. The afternoon turned into quite an ordeal when a severe thunderstorm struck us while were were on the ridge. We had about a half our of torrential rains, howing winds, marble-sized hail, and too-close-for-comfort lightning strikes. We then spent two hours hiking along the ridge itself, cold and soaked to skin, until finally we made joint camp with our friends from Texas. The skies cleared and we were treated to a beautiful, peaceful evening, thankful to have gotten off the mountain unharmed. Unfortunately, due to the rain I was unable to bring out my camera for some of the best views of the trip, so you'll just have to trust me when I say that the views from the ridge were simply out-of-this-world.