The white walrus floundering in the snow melt stream was Steve. He really wanted a deep hole. “It goes faster if you can soap up and submerge,” he explained.

“I don’t think I would recover from full immersion,” I said.

Scott had promised there’d be water to wash off at each day’s campsite. He hadn’t mentioned I’d be bathing in a stream running through open range. This first night I made do with a wash cloth bath. It did feel better than “sticking to yourself” as Steve kept saying.

At Flint Creek camp after our dehydrating day trip to Silver City, I allowed Steve to show me his swimming hole just off a bit of granite which did indeed afford the careful camper a chance to submerge. I became baptized in Flint Creek.

Spencer Reservoir> “Cow Pie Soup,” was Steve’s description of Spencer Reservoir, our second night’s camp site. Rising water had floated cattle residue. We drew our drinking and cooking water from this source. Even on cool, rainy Thursday, I drank nearly all the weater in my 100ml camel back. Today, I’d fill that same camelback and a bottle with water filtered with a ceramic filter pump.

Giradia. Perhaps. Scott says he’s experienced it. Lost 20 pounds but doesn’t recommend it as a weight loss program. But we had no choice. Water is essential for survival. On Sunday, I’d be dehydrated to the point of exhaustion. We felt better about filtering water out of the cold snow melt of Flint creek than from the still waters of Spencer reservoir but we didn’t fool ourselves about the need for filtering here either.

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