Life-threatening injured+infected and clearly painful right leg - perhaps originally caused by fishing line? Could not put weight on the leg nor move it enough to take off, although its wings worked well enough.

Update 1/13: Saw it again at 3:00 pm, slightly further up the trail, but couldn't find it at 7:00 (dark). Going to look tomorrow morning.

Update 1/14, dawn: No sign of this pelican, though three others faked me out for a while.

Thanks to Wildlife Emergency Services (http://www.wildlifeservices.org/) for their dedication and efforts to locate this bird in distress.