Walk if you can crawl if you must just keep moving forward CDT Miles 424.6 to 643.9

When I arrived back at the Toaster House after posting my last blog entry another hiker had arrived. A German guy called Monster carrying a huge military surplus pack. He said he had started on the 29th and this was his 3rd trail and he would be a triple-crowner when he finished. Shortly after Dare-Bear made it in as well. The trail was getting sociable. We hung out and talked about our experiences thus far; they had both taken the high route on the Gila river trail and skipped almost all of the river crossings.

We compared notes on the next part of the trail to Grants NM and all came to the conclusion that we would have to hike the old route, now called the Cebolla alternate, since there was no water for nearly 100 miles on the newer one. Even with the old route it would be over 20 miles between water stops. But the first day would be an easy 16 mile hike out of Pie Town to a place called TLC ranch where according to our information the owners would let us drank from the spigot and camp in the yard. We all needed to go to Top of the World General Store and the Post Office before we left town as well. With a plan in place, everybody headed off to bed.

The next morning , the 17th, we awoke to snow. It was coming down hard and upon walking down the road and getting a phone signal I discovered the snow was to continue until the afternoon when it would turn into rain, then clear out for a sunny 65 degree day on the morrow. Armed with this information I decided to take the day off and stay at the Toaster House in Pie Town for another night. There was no point in hiking out into the storm. Monster and Dare-Bear decided to take the day as well and we all walked down to the post office to take care of our business. While there Nita (the owner of Toaster House) came in and offered us a ride to the store as it was three and a half miles away. We happily took her up on the offer. I was able to get the fuel I needed for my stove and snacks for the day.

Afterwards we went to The Gathering Place for breakfast and settled in for a long day of staying out of the weather and doing pretty much nothing.

After a lazy day of reading books and sitting around I was ready to get back to the trail. I awoke on Thursday the 18th ready to hike. I packed up my gear, cleaned up the room I had been using; and Monster told me everybody was going back to The Gathering Place for another breakfast. Thru-hikers love to eat. After breakfast I hiked out aiming for the TLC Ranch around 16 miles away at mile 440.5. Pie Town was 424.6.

It wasn’t long before Monster caught up with me and we hiked together for a while. The whole day was walking on a dirt road and we quickly made miles.

We made it to the ranch around 4 in the afternoon and were immediately invited into the house , given water, and bologna sandwiches. Tim and his wife said that their parents had gone to town but we were to make ourselves at home and that there would be homemade pizza later that evening. They said we were welcome to use one of the two campers in the yard if we liked.

Monster quickly discovered the tv with Netflix (he loves American TV) and settled in. I went outside and found a quiet spot to relax and read. A little while later Tim came out and said his dad had called and wanted to try smoking the pizzas in the smoker and needed Tim build a fire in it so it would be ready when he arrived. I had never heard of smoking pizzas but hey when in Rome. I got the fire going in the fire box and spent some time splitting wood. Before long we had it heating up and blowing smoke. It was about this time Dare-Bear arrived and she had brought friends. Somehow she had found Jangles and NightCrawler two other thru hikers. I had briefly met them way back at the Burro Homestead RV park a day or two out of Lordsburg. Suddenly there were hikers everywhere. The rvs were getting full so I set up my tent under some trees and continued to mind the smoker.

The owners Larry and Charity Von Tress came home to a full on hiker intrusion. They didn’t even blink but happily took it in stride. These awesome people simply said hello to everyone went into the kitchen and began making homemade pizzas for all the weirdos that had walked in from the desert. Larry came out and checked on the smoker and said he had never smoked pizza either but he had always wanted to try it. So we tried it of course it was getting late and it takes a long time to smoke anything so eventually we ended up putting the pizzas in the oven for a while but it was fun.

Then we all sat around 2 big dining room tables in the house and ate together. 5 hikers, Tim and his wife, Larry, Charity, Grandma and their other daughter.

After we ate Tim asked us how early we were planning on leaving the next morning cause he was making biscuits and elk gravy for everyone. Yea, amazing. We all agreed to eat at 7 am and sure enough the next morning, Friday the 19th, we alL met at 7 and he had biscuit and elk gravy for everyone.

After we all ate it was picture time and then we had to say our goodbyes and get to hiking. It was 25 miles to the next water source.

It was a long walk on dirt roads baking in the sun. Monster left first and then me. I could see him in the distance for the first 10 miles and then he stopped for lunch. I came up to him and stopped as well, after lunch I hiked out and didn’t see him the rest of the way. A couple of people driving by stopped and gave me water along the way and I found the traveling anti weed prohibition church trailer that had water in it for hikers.

I got stuck in traffic when I had to wait on a cow to get out of the road and was laughed at by a couple of donkeys.

Not a bad day, for a road walk. Then I hit asphalt with no shoulder. The dirt road wasn’t great but there wasn’t a whole lot of traffic and it still felt like I was out in the wilds a bit. The asphalt was just hot, baking and bustling with automobiles. I made it to the water source, a solar well feeding a cow trough, sometime after 4 and drank my fill. I went ahead and cooked my dinner and ate trying to decide if I wanted to get in a few more miles or camp there. I nodded off and woke up around 530 and decided to hike on for a while. I got up and walked back to the highway and immediately ran into Monster who had just arrived looking for water. We got to talking and I decided to camp there after all. We got set up and right about sundown Dare-Bear, Nightcrawler, and Jangles hiked in. They said they had had loads of trail magic ( trail-magic is basically when people give you stuff or do stuff for you on the trail) and taken lots of breaks. Dare-Bear was having foot issues with large blisters and could barely walk. She had started the trail in boots that she had been hiking in for years and as she quickly learned that was a mistake. One of the first things thru-hikers learn is buy your shoes too big. Your feet swell at least one size sometimes 2 or 3 sizes when you are walking on them all day with a heavy pack. We all camped there at the watering hole.

The next morning Sat the 20th. I awoke early knowing it was 26 miles to the guaranteed water source at a gas station at the Interstate 40 crossing 6 miles before the town of Grants. I also knew they had a SubWay there. A little before 7am I hit the road; Dare-Bear had also gotten up and was already walking a little ways in front of me, the rest were still in their tents. I soon caught up with Dare-Bear and noticed she was hiking in flip flops with her boots tied on the back of her pack. “I can’t get them on”she exclaimed ” I have blisters the size of golf balls.” It was a 32 mile hike to town on hot asphalt so I looked at her questionably “I’m going to hitch with the first car I can get to stop she explained, I’ve ordered new boots with overnight shipping they’ll be there Monday.” We walked together for a couple of miles since it was early on a Saturday morning there weren’t many cars to try and hitch with. Soon she decided to just stop, eat, and wait for a ride. I figured she’d have better luck by herself and I knew her other friends would be along sooner or later to check on her if she hadn’t gotten a hitch by then, so I hiked on.

All day I hiked, there was pretty scenery. I walked through the Narrows and part of the

El Malpais National Monument. I saw the arch and met a couple of bicyclists on their way to Mexico. It was a long walk but I made it to the gas station and got a meatball sub. I hung out there for a while waiting to see if anybody else showed up. Nobody did so after an hour and a half I hiked on I wasn’t sure if I was going to camp or walk the rest of the way to town. I quickly discovered that camping wasn’t going to be an option as it was a road with barbwire fences running along each side and private property signs everywhere. I had to walk to town. I did the other 6 miles making it a 32 mile day.

I stayed at the Sands hotel in Grants off of Route 66. It was 40 bucks a night including tax. I had to stay two nights because it was Saturday and I had to wait for the post office to open on Monday. On Sunday the 21st I walked the mile and a half to Wal-Mart to get some socks to make do until I could get to an outdoors store since I had worn holes in all mine. I ended up buying a pair of Dr. Scholls and hoped for the best. I got some microwaveable pizzas and headed back to my room to rest up. Later that evening I walked a mile and a half to Taco Bell and ate dinner. Even on my day off I had walked over 6 miles but at least I didn’t have to carry my pack.

On Earth Day the 22nd I packed up my stuff shouldered my pack and headed for the post office. It was an exciting day because not only was I getting a resupply box it was also new shoe day! New shoes are a huge deal on the trail. Shoes are expensive so hikers try to make them last as long as possible but mine were falling apart on my feet, the 252 river crossings may have had some effect on them. I got my food box and my shoes and got ready to get outa town. As I was leaving the post office I ran into Dare Bear and she said she had hitched into town from 25 miles out on Saturday and was going to get her new shoes and get a ride back to where she had hitched from so she could make up the miles she had missed. I wished her luck and happy trails and followed my feet towards Canada. It was a road walk for a while and then the trail headed off into the desert there was a day use only sign up at the trail head but I figured with somewhere around 2600 miles left to go I could make it by dark.

It was a beautiful day as I climbed up towards Mount Taylor. The mountain wasn’t actually on the trail but was on an alternate that would add at least a mile and quite a bit of climbing so I had to make a decision. The mountain taunted me all day and when I reached the turnoff for the alternate at mile 551.8, I turned right towards the summit.

I walked a mile up the alternate to a cow trough, the first water since town and found the most disgusting looking water I had yet to drank on trail. I camped there for the night having made it just over 17 miles from the hotel back at mile 535 on the CDT.

As soon as I got the tent up it started to rain then sleet and snow. I fell asleep to the sounds of ice pelting the canvas walls of my sanctuary. In the morning I crawled out to an icy world and headed through a light snowfall towards the top 4 miles away and nearly 2000 feet higher at 11301 feet. My navigation app, guthooks, was acting wonky and I took a wrong turn and had to find my way cross country back to the trail but soon I was back on track. The snow on the ground accumulated as I ascended but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. Around 9 am it stopped snowing and a frozen fog settled in limiting my vision to 20 feet or less.

About mid morning I summited the mountain and felt the cold northern wind blasting over the peak.

I signed the logbook on the back of the sign and went looking for the trail that would take me down the northern mountain side. I quickly realized there would be no finding the trail as the north side of the mountain was buried under at least several feet of snow. As I tried to find a way down I was sinking to my waist with every step. I was looking at a steep snow covered slope that went down from the summit and I hoped flattened out somewhere below but I couldn’t walk on it so I did what any expert mountaineer would do; I sat down spread my weight and started sliding down the mountain on my butt. Whenever I got to going too fast I would aim for a rock or tree and slow myself down. Of course it was bitterly cold and snow was getting everywhere but I was making progress and eventually I hit flatter ground.

Of course since it was flatter I had to walk instead of slide and I was post holing with every step. At one point when trying to cross a drift I had sank in up to my waist and while trying to pull myself out the snow collapsed under my feet and I sank in up to my armpits with my arms thrown out to either side to stop myself from going deeper.

It’s times like this that I tend to reflect on my life and the first thought I had was man these wool lined water proof socks are awesome. My feet were still toasty warm in my snow filled trailrunners. Then I relaxed and really looked around. The frozen world that met my view was beyond words: the quiet and solitude absolutely stunning. It was lightly snowing again and I thought about what a tiny speck in the world I was; trapped up to my armpits in a snow drift 11000 feet up on the side of a dormant volcano. Such an amazing life.

Using my tracking poles and some very strategic maneuvering I clawed my way out of the drift, but I couldn’t stand up without sinking again so I crawled on my belly to firmer ground; yup whatever it takes to keep moving towards Canada.

After a bit of struggle and a few more miles of postholing I eventually made it down the mountain. I had ordered snow shoes but I wasn’t to pick them up until Chama near the Colorado border. Hopefully I wouldn’t encounter more deep snow until then.

I made it back to the official trail at mile 565.3 and walked a few more miles to 568.4 for a little over 17 miles for the day. I sat up my tent amongst some trees and it started to rain.

The next morning on the 24th I awoke to a completely frozen tent and the sun peaking over the horizon. I decided to wait on the sun to come up and dry everything out a bit so I just hung out till after 9 am then packed up and got moving. When I hit the trail I could see where a couple of people had recently walked by. I assumed it was Monster and Jangles, I figured they were hiking together since Jangles’ usual hiking buddy, NightCrawler, had gotten off trail in Grants. I followed their footprints most of the day. The only water stop was up around mile 17 so I made my water last till then. The water was off trail down in the bottom of a canyon. I climbed down, filled up and climbed back out. I continued on and hoped to stop with around 20 miles for the day but I hit the 20 mile mark and everything was rocks and scrub with no where to pitch a tent. I ended up walking another 6 miles before I found a flat patch of mud big enough to lay down on. I camped at mile 594.4 for a 26 mile day.

The 25th started with beautiful views and a steep descent back down to 6300 feet and back into the desert.

I was used to the one water stop every 25 miles or so by now and my stop came early that day at the 3.5 mile mark. The water was in a fence under some tin.

After that it was walking through the desert. It was back to burning sand and jagged rocks, with huge canyon walls stretching out to the horizons.

I made it to mile 618.5 for a 24.4 mile day. I had a hard time finding a spot I could camp again but finally stumbled on a flat spot in the dirt. It had been over 20 miles since my last water stop at and it was slightly over 9 miles to the next one. I had enough on me to make it though and got moving early the next morning on the 26th.

I started hiking at 7 and it was a day of ups and downs. Climbing cliffs and in and out or arroyos. I made the 9 miles in good time to the water stop and it was a really cool place in a pocket canyon.

I ate a quick lunch there drank a bunch of water and hiked on. The town of Cuba was 15.4 miles away and I hadn’t decided if I was going to head into town or camp and go in on the following day. The trail headed straight towards a huge plateau hundreds of feet high and then almost vertically up the side of it to the top and back to an elevation over 7300 feet. It was a tough climb but once I made it to the top I was walking down this huge plateau a few hundred feet wide that dropped

away on both sides.

That’s when the clouds started rolling in and I could hear the thunder. A storm was brewing on both sides of the plateau and I was hiking down the middle. The lightning was huge and the thunder vibrated my bones. I tried to outrun the storm for a while but it kept getting more ominous so I decided to stop and hunker down in my tent till it passed. I got everything unpacked but before I could get the tent set up the world exploded. Suddenly there was a deluge and the dry desert dirt turned into mud that jumped with every spiky raindrop being driven into the soil. The wind howled and lighting split the sky in as the two storms had hit right over my head. I got the tent up but of course everything was already soaked and covered in mud. After I climbed in I heard a snap and one side of the tent collapsed. One of the poles had broken. Suddenly just as quick as it struck the storm was gone and the sun returned leaving me and all my belongings a sodden muddy mess. I packed it all up mud and all and struck off for town still 10 miles away. It wasn’t my happiest moment on trail but I took it in stride and though my pack felt like it weighed a couple of tons I hiked on. The trail hit the highway at mile 638.1 and it was 5 miles to Cuba from there. That was a long 5 miles I never wanted to hitch a ride so bad in my life but since it was a part of the trail I had to walk it so I did. I made it to town and felt better after eating a cheeseburger at the Del Prato Cafe. I then walked another mile and a half to the other side of town to a place where hikers stay called the Rebel’s Roost. I met the owner Vince and he told me I could sleep in the old school bus for 15 bucks, the house for 30 or put a tent in the yard for 10. I chose the bus. A 5 dollar shower and 5 dollar load of laundry later and I was doing ok. Monster was there and another hiker called Widesky. Jangles has apparently gotten off trail. So had PoohBear, Dallas, and Moonshine Pete, they were the only hikers in front of us and now we were the front of the 2019 CDT pack and nobody knows what we are going to do when we hit Colorado.

We made a fire and hung out and I stayed again on the 27th. I’m at mile 643.9 on the trail and Colorado’s somewhere around 800 so there’s definitely no hurry at this point. We’re all killing time hoping somehow the snow will melt and the rivers will drop but we also know it’s not to be and we’ll have to face it, all too soon but for tonight I’ll hang out here at the Rebel’s Roost listen to the guitar pickers, relax in my school bus and just enjoy a quiet night. Oh and Monster got a ride to REI in Albuquerque today and I gave him money so he got me a sleeve to fix my tent pole for now, so alls well on this insane trail known as the CDT.