After over a month of hiking, Britta and I have setting up the tent down to an art form. Find a flat spot, spread out our groundcloth, snap the poles up, stick in the stakes, and boom. Home sweet home. Sometimes there is no perfectly flat space, so we have to make do with slightly bumpy ground or a bit of a slope. It was bumpy ground we ran into the night after our descent of Mt. Taylor. Clumps of grass dotted the dirt as far as we could see, ensuring we’d have some bumps under our tent. At least they’d be uniform bumps. We’d just finished setting the tent up when I noticed a rather large bulge under the tent floor. I went to punch it down like we usually did. Only this time when I slammed my hand down, it was not met with the usual crunch of grass, but with something hard…and spiny. I yelped in surprise and pain. Peeling up the edge of the tent revealed what I already knew: we’d set our tent up over a cactus. “Britta!”

She turned towards me, laughing when she realized what had happened. “How did we miss that?”

The cactus was the same color and size as all the clumps of grass, but that wasn’t much consolation. We’d somehow both missed seeing an entire cactus plant. “Help me move the tent,” I said.

“It probably went through the tent,” said Britta. “And now we have holes in both the groundcloth and the bottom.”

“Of course it went through,” I groused. “I have holes in my HAND.”

Britta couldn’t stop laughing as we moved the tent and I sat with tweezers trying to get every last needle out of my hand. “What a fool. You shouldn’t have punched it so hard.”

“How was I supposed to know?” I narrowed my eyes. “You know, the cactus was on the side of the tent that you set up. You should have been the one to flatten the bumps like you usually do, but you didn’t this time. Is there something you want to tell me?”

Britta just laughed. Eventually I got all the needles out, and the rest of the night ended up being much more comfortable.

In the following days we enjoyed some incredibly gorgeous views of mountains and mesas. The trail often climbed up to run along the tops of the mesas, which made for steep, windy, but also beautiful hiking.

We came across some more fantastic trail magic – a water cache with some candy and Poptarts – and also happened to run into the Trujillo​ family (who maintains the cache) which was super cool. Thanks Trujillo family!

I’ll end the post with Britta, never one to pass up a good photo op.