Day 20 : Snow Solo

22mi today

This morning I woke up with a long bearded hiker sleeping curled up with a pillow next to my bed on the hard wood floor with only my pillow. What a strange and wonderful place the Toaster House is. I also found that the smell of bacon is a staple in the mornings here, a few hikers were cooking up a big breakfast this time to share amongst last nights residents. At the table I met Lisa who hiked the CDT in 2005, who's was interviewed in one of the more well known guide books for this trail. An experienced trail celebrity of sorts. We were all picking her brain about the Colorado snow travel.

Once I finally left by myself, it actually snowed a good amount for the first part of the day. New Mexico is a surprising state, I wasn't expecting such a variety of conditions and landscapes, heat rash hot to freezing cold, mesa's to mountains. I crossed paths with a southbounding section hiker named Pie Man, or Lee. An older fellow who was doing a walk from Grants to Pie Town. He helped explain where to cut off the road walk coming up to Sand Canyon, which can be a junction that could be potentially missed. Some motorcycle tourers also stopped for a brief talk, they were riding along the "American Discovery" route apparently.

My day ended on the side of a dirt road not to far after a trail angel provided water source at Thomas Ranch. I chose my campsite shortly after stumbling upon, not on, what looked to be a dead cow that seemed to have melted in the desert heat somewhat recently. My water bottles froze this cold night.

Day 19: 0 x 2 = Pie

Decided to take another zero at the toaster house. I argued that this was the place to take two days off. Plus, the best pie shop in town, Pie-o-neer, was open later in the day. The owner insisted on all us hikers, which were around 8 of us, to go outside for a shot on the front steps. We all likely horfed down 2 slices with ice cream on top each. No shame.

Another chill party went on that night but I decided to hit the hay early for the hike out in the morning to get a little bit of a head start on this bubble of hikers on the trail.

CDT: Rough Cut #1

Compilation of video clips in a rough cut, no music, just raw audio. Everything here was shot between he towns of Lordsburg, NM & Pie Town, NM.

CDT: Crazy Cook to Lordsburg

Brief montage of the first section of the Continental Divide Trail from the Crazy Cook Monument at the Mexico border to the town of Lordsburg, NM where my first resupply was.

Day 18: Danger Zone

I woke up to the smell of bacon after sleeping on a short couch with my feet hanging over one of the arm rests. A hiker who goes by the name Stubbing, who visited a doctor in Albuquerque for something he had lodged in his foot, offered to drive to the nearby town of Datil to eat lunch at a restaurant and grab some snacks/dinner. I bought ground beef to grill burgers and share with others at the house. Heading back I suggested listening to "Danger Zone" by Kenny Loggins mostly know by me since it was in the movie Top Gun. I never realized that how many times the chorus, 'highway to the danger zone, ridin' to the danger zone', was said. It seemed hilariously excessive towards the end.

A whole new group of hikers showed up to the Toaster House in the afternoon. I thought the CDT was supposed to be pretty desolate. I was more or less yelled at for sitting on the stoop of the nearby RV park owner while snagging some of their self proclaimed free hiker wifi. It was surprising since the house looked like it was a lobby of sorts.

The burgers were delicious by the way, at the end of the day.

Day 17: Toasty at the Toaster House

Luckily it was a short road walk into Pie Town, less than 15 miles. It started sleeting about half way to town. So cold and windy, my umbrella nearly flipped in. About a mile before getting to Nita's Toaster House a local named Justin offered to drive me the rest of the way to town, I hopped in. Hitching into smaller towns is nice because every now and then you get a tour and a little bit of backstory to the drivers life. There was a cooler in the back of his pickup truck that I threw my pack into. He said to crack open a beer, and said that'd he'd give me a tour of Pie Town. The didn't have much it was essentially a tourist trap passing through kind of town, but it had such character. Dry and dusty and packed with Pie making bakeries along its main road. Justin has only been living here for the past year with his wife and kids, but loves it out here after moving from Alabama. We visited his "Man Cave" which was essentially just a tent he set up down a two track at the edge of town. He said it was a place to go when he wanted to get away from home. I explained to him how to fix the zipper on his Coleman tent. Justin explained to me that cheap trucks like his Isuzu only put power through the back right tires, and that Ford trucks didn't have that issue.

After my tour I met the owner Nita's at the Toaster House. A sweet welcoming lady who raised a family at the house long ago who now lives in a new home a few miles down the road. Everything was communal, open to hikers and bikers, donation only, and had two wood burners which made the home toasty. I talked with a town road trippers at "The Gathering Place", one of the pie bakeries/restaurants in town. They ended up gifting me a free blackberry pie without my knowledge. I was elated, and ended up sitting back down  and eating half before paying for my quesadilla and heading back to mingle at the Toaster House. Chris, now named Troad (a word he coined which merged the word trail and road which we all found funny) and I got bombarded with hail on the short walk back to the house.

Day 16: Fed a Bird a Frito

Woke to coyotes howling at Aragon Well and started on the final stretch to "Nita's Toaster House" in Pie Town, NM.

Met bikepacker and Ex-CDT hiker Og on the road after passing up a poor looking water source.

My left knee tweaked today which caught me off guard, and went the wrong way, only a half of a mile this time.

Fed a bird a Frito at a water pump at the last part of my day, after seeing the distant smoke from the Baca forest fire rising off a mountain west of the road walk.

Was grateful that a Rancher let us camp on his land despite him having no trespassing signs on the barbed wire fences that bordered every inch of road after feeding the bird a Frito at the water.

Day 15: Smoke is in the Air

Coldest night yet, I woke and packed my bag quick to find pockets of sun for he warm my bones. Chris and I talked of a self routed thru hike of every 14,000ft mountain in Colorado. We hiked today around 15 miles on 2 liters of water with a climb up to 9,000ft and realized we should have probably taken a more water accessible route through a canyon west of the trail that didn't lead to a terrible cow feces and mud filled pool of water near the end of the day. It had a similar look to diluted chocolate milk once put into one of my dirty water bottles. Luckily we were able to backtrack easily to a much cleaner pond of water called Lopez Tank.

Nearing the end of the day at Aragon Well I got whiffs of forest fire smoke from the dying Kerr forest fire nearby. The smoke in the sky off in the distance resulted in a wild almost fire like sunset.

Day 14: Snack Counting

4 days until Pie Town, NM and around 98 miles of distance to cover. Looking at my food bag looked like I'd be cutting it close. I had to do big miles now that I was out of the slow Gila section, around 25 miles per day to make it there on Tuesday before the pie shops closed for the day. Hilariously I fell after the very last crossing of the Gila after not falling once the 3 days I was along the river.

Following Snow Lake it was a fairly dry section, a big change after not having to worry about finding water walking along a river all day. Turkey Spring wasn't flowing next to the road like the water report said it would so had to push all the way to a cow trough near Cotter park in the middle of a vegetation-free pasture 5 miles further. Here I hiker named SPAM, who told stories about hating putt-putt golf with Arnold Palmer at a bar, and  meeting Joan River's in a men's bathroom.

Day 13: Get me out of the Gila

Early and long day today. Crossed the river several more times with hikers Chris, Fainting Goat, and Acorn today, beautiful out today. We pushed to Snow Lake which marked the last time we'd have to cross the Gila. Didn't make it there but ended up camping about 2 miles before the junction. The day consisted of many jokes about having to press the emergency button on what is called a Spot device, for completely unnecessary occasions, like getting stuck stepping under a wide galled tree trunk, or getting stuck sitting down after a sunny break on the river bank.

Day 12: Hot Springs Round 2

I nero'd out of the Gila Hot Springs after enjoying a morning dip in the pools. I caught a hitch out of the springs to the Gila Cliff Dwellings national monument by a trail angel named Bush. I forgot my charging phone at Doc's, so we had to swing back around. The dwellings were rich in history and was able to get a brief tour by one of the volunteers there. The high route back to the Gila was about a mile down the road that lead there. Hiked with a hiker that goes by his name Tim Olsen, a ex Microsoft sales manager, and now conservationist who's saving rainforests down in Brazil.

Not too far after dropping down into the Gila river canyon again I was able to take yet another hot springs called, Jordan Hot Springs. Little cairns lined the natural pool made by its visitors. At the end of the day I camped with with hikers named Moist, Oppa, and Mac after enjoying a small camp fire next to the river.

Day 11: When in Doubt, Trail.

I figured out quickly that there is cairns that mark short trails between river crossings that follow the winding Gila. Every bend required 1-2 crossings. It was fairly chilly all day, the combination of crossings and cold helped the aches in my feet and legs.

After arriving at Doc Campbells shop I sorted through my maildrop food and bought a few extra snickers and payday bars for the long stretch to Pie Town, NM. There was a bit of a "bubble" of hikers here. We all conjugated at the Gila Hot Springs campground. After Carla, the grounds keeper,  showed us to the hiker area a miniature tent city formed of 10-15 hikers. In the hot springs we had a chance to chat with  Allen Campbell, the son of Doc Campbell.

Day 10: Getting it to the Gila

We left early and got a ride to where we started the slackpack just after a Monastery up the hill north of town. Hikers were slowly trickling out of the trailer. Acorn, Dion, and I left around 7:30am, and it was cold and raining today by the time we hit the trail. We walked on a weird sloped ATV trail for the first 10 miles. Slipped and fell on some marbled pebbles heading down hill at one point.

After not realizing I took a wrong turn, stopped and took moment to chat with two monks from that Monastery we passed, their names were Brother Lawrence & Phillip. They made it seem like they head to the monastery to study and never leave. They asked if I was hiking the CDT, and I said yes. I think they didn't realize that I had walked nearly 2 miles off trail in he wrong direction. Lawrence asked if I saw the rest of the monks, 20 of them, that were ahead of them on this sour trail. "Didn't see anyone.", I said. "Yeah us monks are illusive." Phillip said. After I was given a card their monastery, they told me I should visit. I had a feeling that road I was on was lead there. We walked off in opposite directions after that. It didn't take me long after that encounter until I realized I should turn around. I never saw them again or any other of the monks they mentioned before getting back to the trail.

Just after the first water source, overlooking a canyon, there was Shepa and a guy chatting. He did not look like a hiker. Sherpa got around to mentioning to this guy the "Gila (pronounced helah) Hermit". After a brief pause the main said, "Well I'm the Gila Hermit!", "I've been living behind those trees over there for 18 years." he said. His name was Doug. Doug gave us a tour of his retreat. He was apparently taking his one trip he makes every year in a week to fully resupply his food and any other goods for maintenance required for hermiting out in the hills of Silver City. No phone no TV, no radio, just lots of books and Tupperware full of beans and rice. The guy was talkative, might be a side effect of spending so much time alone. He walked us back to the trail to what he called his porch, which was some orange sandy rock that overlooked the valley. You could here a small waterfall off in he distance crashing.

I camped with three others just before the Gila, at Sapillo creek for the night readying ourselves for the many crossings of this river. Long awaited after having such a hot/dry first trail section in the New Mexican boot heel.

Day 9: Silver City Hiker Trailer

After check out at the Motel 6 around 11, I walked about a mile to where Dion and Acorn have renter a trailer. Super cheap ($15) for a bed. When I arrived everyone, Dion, Acorn, Fainting Goat, Chris were sitting on the couch and floor with a faded look in there eyes. Guess the road walk must have taken it out of them too. In the bedrooms backpacks were exploded onto each of the beds. Now was a good time to ship away gear that wasn't being used since there was a post office a couple blocks east of the trailer. We all wanted to try our sleeping setups, so we beg can inflating our mats and pillows in the living room and laying out like a open can of sardines. Kind of made me miss having my inflatable neoair. Dion was on the phone with someone outside concocting some slackpack back into town.

A slackpack is where you get a ride or hitch out ahead of where you are on the trail and walk back with minimal gear in your pack, like only carrying food or water on a non-rainy day. There was an extra seat open in the car riding out about 8 miles so I thought I'd take advantage of it. I was all walking on hard pavement anyway. You have to save you're legs, and it not like it was really trail anyway. The ride came from someone Dion met on the CDT another year staying in Silver City, super nice lady, but her car felt like it was riding on the rims the whole cruise. The hike took us 3 hours. Not much was seen except a bunch of locals living in their homes, a very dead rabbit, and some brief rain.

Returning to the trailer I found two new hikers, Bad Camper, Englishman who's trying to start his own backpacking company atom(ic) packs; and Dundee, who I met on the PCT near the beginning of the sierras, a small world or at least thru hiking world. We all made our own food and shared at night, one made an entire tray of cheesy nachos, another made a steak, pudding, an old plate of potatoes and eggs from earlier that morning, I had a tray of veggies with ranch dressing. I ate so much I crashed early for an early out in the morning. Everyone else hung in the living room chatting while I went through my pictures dosed off.

Day 8: The Accordian Man

Didn't sleep all that well last night. Felt pretty stiff in my feet, legs felt fine. Not like 20 miles of road walking was going help much. I took it slow though and made sure I wasn't clomping too much into Silver City. Taking Tyrone road all the way to Highway 90 wasn't bad, all dirt, and only families leaving the Burro Homestead RV park were leaving for home, likely due to it being a Sunday. Turning onto 90 I was greeted by a peloton of cyclists saying, "have a nice hike!" while heading out of town. I caught them on the way back heading into town, everyone waved from behind on the way in. I had to stop underneath a train overpass and take a breather. Walking on pavement feels like someone is taking a hammer to your foot with each step.

Several audiobook chapters later I came across a man in a burgundy van about to pull out onto 90, after I reached the outer edge of town. He asked if I needed a ride anywhere, i told him anywhere around the Motel 6. He seemed friendly enough. His name was Canuto, claimed he was an accordian player and Silver City was his hometown. The topic quickly detoured into "Gods War is Coming SOON.", "Be ready." I didn't really know what to say in reply to all his preaching, thought it was best to just let him speak. He drove slow I think so he could get his spiel out before he had to drop me off. He told me not to get tattoos because, "Your body is Gods creation, and if someone did he would go to hell" He proceeded to show me a tiny tattoo on his forearm. Looked almost like someone took a marker across it. Good thing he didn't see any of mine under my long sleeve shirt. He eventually left me with a little nugget of knowledge, "Don't get into drugs." I was like YES, NEVER. We pulled into a gas station next to the Motel 6. I thanked him saying "Gracias, gracias!" I've made it finally.

Once I checked in and washed up, I made my way to McDonalds and the resupplied at Albertsons. Dion somehow contacted me on social media and let me know that they rented a trailer for two nights. I told them I would swing by tomorrow after I checked out of the motel...

Day 7: I Dream of Genie

Had a run in with two new hikers early in the day, Dion and Acorn. They had gotten a ride from Lordsburg to 25 miles north on the trail to a parking lot where I was filling up from a convenient water cache stowed under a tree. They were friends from Denver, Acorn is going for the triple crown as well, Dion a triple crowner and father of "Buddy Backpacker" the soon to be youngest triple crowner having already finished the AT & PCT at the age of 8.

Up trail strange chalk marking started popping up, little blue dots on rocks, trail marker, trees. Then notes began denoting "connect the dot's for magic", "make the connections", I eventually came across a genie bottle with a note inside congratulating hikers to making it through the boot heel of New Mexico, that little extra chunk of land at the bottom of the state. The dots and cryptic messages continued for miles, it obviously was a sign for trail magic coming up, which is actually something that I wasn't expecting on the CDT. 5 miles later I finally ran into the Genie, an older lady, greyed with tattoos on her calves, said, "Hi I'm Genie!" Followed by the same gesture that the old classic TV show Genie does folding her hands and bobbing her head once. I told her I admired her creativity, and she exclaimed that she had lots of cold drinks and food up ahead. I couldn't stop smiling after she continued on in the opposite direction down the trail. People like that make the trail life much more like a storybook.

Once at the magic Chris, has already made it there, the Acorn, and Dion soon followed. We all had our own descriptions on our encounters with the genie, all began with that same arm fold head bob. We sat an munched. A new hiker, Fainting Goat, strolled in and did not hesitate in making a pb&j sandwich. I thought it was funny how they, while sitting cross legged, balanced the two slices of bread one on each knee and smeared the two speads on as if there was a table in front. Dion surprisingly pulled out a miniature drone from his backpack and began unfolding it. It had to be the first time I've seen anyone carrying one of those on a thru hike. I had a chance to fly it too, it brought me back to when I used to tinker with RC cars down in my basement when I was a kid, except there was a camera attached to the car and I could view what the car was seeing through the controller, and of course as if the car flew.

We all gradually dispersed from the little trail magic oasis up Burro mountain, the first substantial climb on a trail, not a road, on the CDT. I ended my day just outside the Burro Mountain homestead near water. Where I treated my blisters and audiobook'd as the sun set. Tomorrow I road walk 20 miles into Silver City, NM.

Day 6: Apocalypse Prepping ​

Took me awhile to get out of town. Might have been because I said to myself yesterday that I need to finish my bag of Fritos flavor twists and two avocados I bought for town snacks. I did it though, proud of myself. On the way out on the 3 mile road walk on the highway before the trail jutted off via sky blue spray painted stakes. I was chased down by hiker/carpenter named "Numbskull" not to far out, he was taking a zero because of his girlfriend bruised her foot from doing a road walk alternate from the beginning. We got to talking about how many rounds of ammunition you would need for a shotgun to survive the first wave in a zombie apocalypse, which was somewhere around 500 rounds.

The hike out got pretty hot, really could have used an extra liter. I survived though, my umbrella came in handy, the water I chugged before I left (aka cameling up) also did, and some controlled nose breathing keeps you from exerting yourself too much and also losing too much moisture from mouth breathing. Despite the feeling of minor dehydration I noticed that about 3/4 of the sandy climb up to the next water source, I notice a classic "100" spelled out on the ground. I made it through 100 miles on the CDT, now I just have to do that 31 more times...

At the water I met back up with Swami and a new friend named Chris, who doesn't have a trail name yet, but has good potential. The water source had a spigot underneath a windmill, nice quality water. Apparently you can purchase a ford econoline van chassis, send it in unfinished to Airstream for them to finish it in the same style as there iconic trailer homes.

I had to camp somewhere else that night because the windmill made a terrible squawking noise every time the wind blew. I continued on about two more miles and stealth camped out on a hill off-trail. The moon isn't even full yet and I can see my shadow in the middle of the night.

Day 5: Oh Lordy

Had about 10 miles into the on-trail Lordsburg, NM today. I woke up and boy was it windy, gusts were probably getting up to 20 mph maybe more. Probably could have picked a more protected camp spot. It was comical how long it took me to pack my gear up in the wind, I swear I spent more time chasing stuff  that was blowing away than stuffing things into my pack.

The path leading onto the road into Lordsburg was neatly bordered with stones and it looked like a trail crew was about to go do some with tools laying around. I got a room at the motel 6 first. Upon reserving another hiker, named Sherpa, was telling me how he had to skip ahead to town because he was showing signs of dehydration, but he sounded like he was doing 30 mile days already. I imagine it being fairly hard to do in the desert, unless if you're night hiking. My pack exploded all over one of the two beds in my room and quickly got to cleaning everything in the bathtub. A rich brown haze filled the hot water. After putting back on squeezed dry clothes I went to the kranbrerry family diner and had some enchiladas and journaled. Next on my to do list was resupply at Saucedos grocery. It had a surprising amount of good hiker food for such a small place. In the produce isle checking avocados for ripeness two of the workers were muttering something in Spanish and laughing towards me. Yeah I guess I probably look a little odd wearing windpants, trail runners, a long sleeved collard shirt, and a hat. Not to mention being lightly reddened from the desert sun.

Back at the room I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was national Star Wars day, May the 4th, and there was a marathon on the television. I watched that as I sorted my food and went through my pictures and video from the past 5 days. I'll sleep good tonight.

I hope to set sail for the Silver City, NM tomorrow for a "Nero" day, or a near zero mile day. Hoping it will take me 3-ish day until I do this all over again. It'll probably take a few tries until I perfect my resupply efficiency level... Not to sound too nerdy.

Day 4: Where's the Beef?

Long day today, felt pretty good aside from my blisters feeling sore. 25-ish miles covered. Today was HOT, especially with a longgg flat shameless crossing of a plain. I tried to push through the whole thing but had to stop 3/4 of the way through at some partial shade with cow poop and flies everywhere. I didn't stay all hat long. I guess today really didn't have much shade at all sunset it was too winding to windy to open my umbrella up.

I found a spot where there was supposed to be a water trough but I suppose the rancher must have moved it somewhere else out here, forcing me to go a few more miles comeletely dry. Towards the end of the day around mile 20 I must have slipped into a daze and passed the water source off trail, which squeezed the last 5 miles out of me since I didn't want to sleep without any water. THAT water I finally made it to was called "Pyramid Peak". The water trough belonged to a herd of cows Big and small in the large pasture it was in. The most cows I've seen yet. The baby cows were hilarious because they sounded like someone was being murdered with every bleat they made. I couldn't stop laughing. I camped nearby and out of earshot of them so I didn't wake up thinking a crime was being committed.

With the miles I did today I should be able to get to my first resupply point in Lordsburg, NM.

Day 3: Hello?

First day where I haven't seen anyone. Not unless if you consider cars on the highway or the two Air Force helicopters that flew overhead mid-day. I heard two explosions west of trail shortly after. There must be training grounds nearby? I'm starting to realize that the footprints of hikers I do see are layered in nearly the same order as when I started. Is it weird that I also can name most of the models of shoes they're from?

On my Jonathan Ley maps I saw a note on an ghost town called Old Hachita. Wasn't too far off trail so I did some cross country walking. It was super neat, cluster of clay brick houses that were nearly all caved in and cans, hundreds of food cans strewn all over, wooden floors also collapsed. Took some cool shots of everything though, it looks so surreal against the landscape. I can understand why the town ghosted there was nearly no wind here and the sun was hotter without it. I'm sure there is more to its story.

My siesta for the day was at a another well, this time with an electric pump that I had to operate myself. It had a trapezoidal oil well like scaffolding that rose up from where the underground pump must have been. After flipping the switch it took about a minute for water to come pouring out of a pipe into what looked to be a bran spanking new silver trough. I took the opportunity to wash up a bit, soak my clothes clean my socks, etc.

I stopped for the night at what looked to be an oasis at a water tank a top a short hill. It had an abnormally large amount of vegetation surrounding it. I cowboy camped on its shaded grassy patch after using it to do some much needed stretching. Low and behold, everything was green of the fact that this tank pumped water in the middle of the night. If full the tank likely didn't have a shutoff valve, only a timer. So the excess water leaked out, precisely where I was resting. Guess the oasis makes sense now.