Two Hikers Nearly Die in Flash Flood

This morning when we woke up it was still pouring rain. I was very surprised that my tent hadn’t pooled any water inside of it because of how poorly it was set up last night. I did have a small puddle in the middle of my tent. But somehow I didn’t get any of my stuff wet and I was able to dry it up pretty easily.

Starting to walk along the sandy trail this morning.

We laid in our tents for an hour or so waiting for the rain to stop. It never fully stopped, but it did lighten significantly. When it was a little bit lighter, we all scrambled to pack up as quickly as we could before it started again. Syrup and I began walking with Sparkle and James just behind us. The rain was light enough so it wasn’t too bad.

Walking along the trail this morning, right by this huge cliff.

Those first two hours of the day it rained lightly continuously. But on a bright side, it wasn’t windy today. That meant that I could walk with my umbrella out and it kept me very dry.

The hardest part about yesterday was that when it was raining, the wind was really hard. Which meant I couldn’t use my umbrella at all. And rain gear really only does so much when it’s pouring rain. At least today while we walked my umbrella was keeping my body pretty dry.

After a while the rain cleared up as I walked along the trail.

After a couple of hours, the rain lightened up a bit and a rainbow in the distance. That was really cool to see. Plus we were walking past some incredible rock structures this morning. The scenery was unbelievable and drastically different from anything we’ve been seeing recently. We walked for hours and weren’t able to stop and take a break because of the rain. But after a while, we came to the next water source and there was a rock ledge nearby. It looked like it would provide some pretty good protection from the rain. So Syrup and I went and sat underneath. It perfectly covered us as the rain began to pick up. And for the first time in 10 miles we were able to sit and relax. That was really nice. One of the hardest parts about rain is that if it’s pouring, you really can’t stop walking.

Once the rain cleared we got to see this amazing rainbow!

I loved this rainbow that we saw today.

We sat for a while and waited for Sparkle and James to catch up. The rain was coming in and out periodically. I kept thinking we would actually get a break in the rain and be able to enjoy a real break. And eventually did! The rain lightened up and we had a brief opportunity with the sun out to dry our gear. My tent was soaking wet and covered in fine sand from last night. So when the sun finally broke through the clouds, we all laid our gear out to get it dry.

Some cool rock structures that we went past today.

The rest of the day was much nicer. It was such a relief to have dry gear too. Even if it rained all day, at least my tent and everything would be dry tonight. We stayed at that spot for a while before continuing on. Then walked a short ways down the trail and stopped again to fill up on water.

This section of New Mexico has been incredibly beautiful.

Considering how little elevation gain we have been doing lately, we still have gotten some great high point views.

After that break, we continued walking for another couple of hours. It didn’t rain again for the rest of the day, which was awesome. Syrup and I were up ahead and were making good time. Though around this time, the wind did pick up slightly. So we weren’t able to stop off for another break because the wind was so fast. But after a few more hours, we went past a really big boulder which was making for a fantastic windbreak. The two of us stopped off there to get out of the wind and enjoy another restful break.

Dark clouds beginning to roll in this evening.

While we sat there, I was expecting Sparkle and James to catch up to us. But they must’ve stopped off earlier someplace else because they never did. We sat there for maybe a half an hour or so before continuing on. But we still had miles to make so we had to keep moving. When we left that break spot, we walked for another couple of hours before stopping off again. There’s more forecast rain for this evening so we wanted to get to camp early as possible. If we could get to camp before the rain started, that would be awesome. Then we could keep all of our gear dry in our tents.

The sun began to set as the sky got dark with rain clouds.

After another couple of hours some more bad weather starting to roll in. We just kept moving, hoping to beat the rain. Off in the distance, thunder started and we got to watch some bright cracks of lightning across the mountains. It was so intense. I knew that we had to climb up that mountain and was a little bit concerned about the lightning. Originally, I had wanted to get up that mountain tonight, but it might not be a good idea with the lightning.

A gloomy sunset here in the desert.

As we continued to walk it became dark and we continued to move into the night. We had to cross two rivers, but they were fairly shallow which was good. But the water was very fast moving from all of the rainfall. Then we began walking along a dirt road briefly to come to our next source, which was a cow trough. This area wasn’t particularly low ground. It was actually slightly higher ground than the surrounding area and there were some trees nearby. So we wound up deciding to camp there because it seemed like a higher portion of land. That also meant we could also get water at the cow trough to carry for tomorrow morning.

Fording a river just before dark. The river bed was sandy so we took our shoes off to keep them dry.

The sun beginning to set on our day.

We set up camp around 7:30pm and all my stuff was nice and dry. I made some dinner and got situated for the night. Because of all the pooling of water in my tent last night, I wound up packing more of my gear into my backpack than I normally do. That way I could keep it nice and dry in case I got a little bit more pooling in my tent. Around this time, it started pouring rain intensely. It kept up for 1-2 hours and was really heavy. I was expecting some pools of water to form around my tent because of the dry desert ground.

Only 600 miles remain of the CDT!

More than anything, though, I was a little bit concerned about the lightning. Besides the couple of trees in the area, the desert is wide open. And the lightning was cracking so close to us. I couldn’t sleep so I was still awake around 9:30pm. But then I started to hear something weird. It was like the sound of flowing water nearby, but we were nowhere near any water besides the cow trough. I started looking out at my tent and realized there was a small pool of water forming away from my tent. That’s not abnormal though when water comes down as quickly as this. Then all the sudden I noticed that the water was starting to rise shockingly quickly. And just as I started to realize this, a literal wave of dark brown water hit the side of my tent. It was a foot higher than the ground, and immediately everything I owned was completely soaked.

Somehow, I acted incredibly fast and quickly unzipped my tent to grab my shoes and my backpack, which otherwise would’ve floated away in the water. I didn’t have time to grab my camp cup or my CNOC bag and water filter. But thankfully, I grabbed my shoes and my backpack.

A second later the water was a foot and a half above the ground, and filling my tent. I zipped myself in to save all of my gear. But I had a very vivid thought in that moment that zipping myself into my tent, could mean getting washed away and possibly drowning. It didn’t seem like the water levels were rising any further, so I made that decision to save my gear.

Right before it happened I was able to call out to Syrup and wake him up because he was fast asleep. Lucky for him that gave him a 30 second head start on me because he was downhill from me slightly. So he was able to save most of his gear as well and begin scrambling. There was a brief moment where I really didn’t know what to do or where to start. I was literally in waist deep water inside my tent and everything I owned was fully submerged in water.

My first move was to grab my phone to save that. Then I started packing everything into my backpack as quickly as I could. I wear contacts, but obviously didn’t have time to put them in. So I just put my glasses on and packed everything quickly. The water was so cold and I was soaking wet. That made it even harder to think.

In maybe five minutes I packed everything up and then broke down my tent and put that away as well. I was shocked that even with the fast moving water hitting my tent, my tent stakes stayed in the ground. That probably saved my life. Once everything was packed, I had to cross a 30 foot wide river to get back to the other side where the trail was. There had been no water here before that. The only water source was the cow trough. But now it was a deep river that I had to ford. All because the rainwater had washed down the side of a hill nearby and literally hit us. We weren’t even sleeping in a wash or at significantly low ground. But that just goes to show how easily flash flooding can happen in the desert.

Once I got over to where Syrup was, I could tell that he was panicking a bit. I told him to just pack his stuff as quickly as he could because we had to start moving. It was the middle of the night and we were freezing cold and soaking wet. The only thing that we could do was start walking to get our body heat going. At this point in time we had just finished walking 26 miles for the day. Now we had to start walking again all through the night. And we were 56 miles from Grants, the next available town. In this moment, I knew I would be walking all the way to Grants and I wouldn’t be stopping to sleep until I got there.

It was still raining as we began walking into the night. My glasses were very disorienting because it was foggy and rainy. It was very hard for me to see. Typically I hike with contacts, which is much more comfortable for me. Obviously in a life and death situation getting my contacts in was not top priority. Once we began, we continued for another hour or two before stopping. Up until that point we were far too cold and wet to stop. But after our couple hours of walking, we had slightly dried out. We were finally able to stop and take our first break to think about what just happened. I can’t believe we were in a flash flood. And we are so lucky to be alive.

Some more of the cool rock structures that we walked past today.

My favorite rock that we went past today.

This rock face was incredible.