The Chapter Before the Final Chapter: Grants to Silver City (Days 123-137)

MC: New Mexico is known for its road walking, and we’ve entered into the phase where that’s exactly what we’re doing. We had three days of road walking ahead of us before we would reach Pie Town from Grants, and two of those days involved all pavement walking. Walking on pavement is everyone’s least favorite mode of terrain travel because it’s unforgiving on the body; your feet start hurting early, your joints stiffen up, and in my case the tendon that connects my shin to my foot started hurting me. It almost gives off the feeling that maybe it’s shin splints, but that’s not what it was; it’s more like tendinitis, a dull ache that lasts all day. It’s been a nuisance of an “injury” given the fact that at the time we were only three weeks out from finishing. Luckily, a change in terrain has provided me some relief, and we’ve managed that pain well enough.

When we departed Pie Town, we faced one of the longest sections of the entire hike – an 8 day stretch to get to Silver City, home of our last zero day. This placed us on a combination of roads and trail, which eventually led to the famous Gila River Valley. The valley contains a beautiful canyon formed from the river that includes meadows, river crossings, and lots of wildlife. We were serenaded by the local coyote packs almost every night, our tarantula count increased to 11, and we enjoyed watching the Abert squirrel with its magnificent giant grey and white tail run from pine to pine.

New Mexico as a whole has been lovely, but we made a pretty critical error. We were naive to the coldness of its weather. We sent our 20 degree sleeping quilts home in Cuba, and received our 40 degree quilts to finish the trail; we then proceeded to have the coldest stretch of nights of the entire hike. This culminated with a 19 degree morning, with ice layering the inside of our tent from our condensation, and our isobutane fuel taking 15 minutes to boil a cup of water. Isobutane doesn’t work well at high altitude or low temperatures. Morale started to tank a bit, but then we learned of a little town called Pinos Altos, which was 7 miles from Silver City, and roughly 33 miles from where we had finished our time in the Gila River Valley. We devised a plan to walk 20 miles towards Pinos Altos and then try to hitch to the tiny town so that we could sleep at the Bear Creek Cabins and get out of the cold; the weather at this point was averaging in the mid 20s in the morning, and we were not sleeping because of these lows. We were ultimately successful in receiving a hitch from a lovely older couple, Bob and Mary, and their friend Mike, who proceeded to drive us the remaining 13 miles and then bought us dinner in the one fabulous restaurant in town! Such a blessing. The following morning we hitched back to the point where Bob and Mary picked us up, so we could continue our continuous footpath towards Mexico.

Our trail family has dissolved, most hitching further towards the border in order to finish the last sub 200 miles without having to walk on pavement that the CDT calls a trail. We will finish on 11 November, with a local trail angel named Tim picking us up from the border at roughly 4pm. My mom and Hannon’s mom will be in attendance at the border as Tim has agreed to allow them to ride with him, so that we may all celebrate the finish. At the time I’m writing this post, we are one week out from this becoming a reality. We are ready to be finished, to be back with friends and family, and not sleep in a tent for at least one month (we are going to Volcano National Park on the Big Island on Hawaii and will hike for 3 days and 2 nights in December, so I guess it’s not that long of a break from the tent!).

Here’s to lows in the 30s for the last week, water with not too many floaters in it, and for the Detroit Lions to stay in the win column each week moving forward.

HD: I watched amusingly through the window of our hotel this morning as large snowflakes fell outside. Our town day timing is impeccable recently!

We’ve walked over 300 miles through central New Mexico since departing from Grants two weeks ago. Now there are only 150 miles and 7 days separating us from the finish.

Grants to Pie Town was a three day road walk that was… fine. Road walks allow us to make good time, but the asphalt portions (compared to the gravel forest road portions) take a greater toll on the body. McKenzie was the bearer of this eventuality as her left extensor tendon (connects the tibia to the top of the foot) became angry towards the end of this section. We would worry and manage it for the remainder of our walk to Silver City.

Pie Town and its homemade pies (lard-based) were memorable (we ate three of them)- and the grand views, volcanic landscapes, and semi-desert environment continued for another three days as we transitioned Southwest from the mesas of central New Mexico to the Gila River valley.

The Gila was a much anticipated route that nearly all southbounders take due to the lack of water in the fall. It is longer,and more difficult, than the redline that many NOBOs take when they begin their hikes in April. There are two routes to choose from in the Gila; a high route along the canyon rim, and a low route that goes in (and through) the river. We started this 5 day section at the headwaters of the Gila. It’s fascinating to see how important a river is like this in a place where water is so scarce. The Gila is the 6th important river where we walked to the source on our hike (Snake, Green, Colorado, Arkansas, Rio Grande). This is never mentioned as part of the CDT hiking experience, and I have no idea why. All of my top hiking days involved traveling along these rivers at their source.

The nighttime temps have averaged 15 degrees colder than we expected in New Mexico. Perhaps it was a poor decision to trade our 20 degree bags out for the 40 degree ones!

This translated directly to our decision to only walk 1/3 of the Gila low route before taking the high route. Other more stubborn hikers stayed in the low route, with morning temps in the teens and 130 river crossings, with frozen shoes and sad faces. Enough of that!

The Gila Cliff Dwelling National Monument was a short 2 mile walk from the high route, and we detoured to see it. The “detour” involved getting a hitch on the back of a pickup truck bumper while holding on to the roof rack. It was certainly the most unique hitch of the hike!

The folks in New Mexico have been kind, and except for the nighttime temperatures, the walking is much better. The state continued to express.

Who knew there were so many trees in New Mexico! In addition to the Piñon pines, there are now Alligator Juniper and Jeffrey Pines. The bark of the juniper looks as the name implies – an alligator’s skin. The Jeffrey pines are similar to Ponderosa pines but larger. These giants are the most surprising feature in an area that I thought would hold much less plant life.

Wildlife has been consistent again – deer, elk, jackrabbits, and two coveys of quail that gave us heart attacks. Finally we saw an animal that I knew nothing about – the Javelina pig. These were “wild” pigs of the southwest that escaped from the Spanish in the 1500s. They look like a spiked potbelly pig; much smaller and less aggressive than the wild pigs that I grew up with. They’re almost cute.

We’ve still managed to keep a decent daily mileage count, and McKenzie’s leg is not a factor to finish anymore. I’m pretty certain that she would crawl to the border at this point if she had to.

We are once again hiking alone. Folks have skipped the road walk sections and are generally a couple of days ahead of us. Our planned finish date is Veterans Day – now that we’re finally veterans it seems fitting – and we will finish one day ahead of what we planned. Our moms are flying into Tucson and will meet us at the border (with a preplanned ride from a trail angel in an F-250). Then it is over.

We conducted our CDT After Action Review on one of our road walk days, 200 miles before we finished. We’ll close our final post with thoughts and lessons learned based on that talk.

Tomorrow we walk out from Silver City on our 6th and final pair of shoes. No more days off until we’re finished. The trail from here is mostly low desert, with little cover and not much elevation change.
The weather looks acceptable, with lows in the high 20s and no precipitation in the forecast. Fingers crossed!