Category: Hike

Justin is a great cook.

He bought burgers for dinner and sausage & eggs for breakfast. However because I get up so early we had sausage on scrambled eggs with cheese on toasted rolls for dinner. My oh my it was tasty!

Dry, treeless, and desolate high plains. Together we drove to a high-point where we got cellphone service.

A panoramic picture as we sit and call family, send text messages, read email, and post on this blog.

After three days in the wilderness Justin and I found each other in the wilderness as planned. As I was hiking I saw something high on a hill far away. Initially I wondered if it was a stick or marker but the next time I looked it had moved. It was a person. And then as I got closer I saw it was him. I was so relieved! It was early in the morning and he had come down the trail to find me. We hiked back to the Jeep and I collapsed into a chair, and he got me a Coca Cola, yum!

All is well. I got water, food, a shower, laundry, and especially human company – all of it somewhere in the wilderness. Now he’s driven to where we’ve got cell signal. This is luxury hiking at its finest.

In the past three days I’ve met no one. As I hike I watch the trail ahead and I see other footprints in the sand. They look old and nothing like my own print which is precise and defined. No one has been here in days.

At various points you have to cross from one person’s land to another’s. To do that you need to open gates and close them after you’re through. Here is one where I just crossed through, turned around and saw these distant snow covered mountains along with the brilliant morning sun.

I’ve been hiking part of the historic Oregon and California trails. I think about all those people whose only means to get there was to come by wagon train and walking through this inhospitable high desert (elevation 8700 feet). I now truly understand viscerally what that journey was like.

Well I got up early and headed out, but I didn’t do my homework and hiked north about 5 miles when I should have hiked south.

Call me wrong way Joe!

Although it looked threatening and I put up my tent, no rain fell. I got up at 5 AM

It was 21 miles to Cuba NM. I had been doing 21 miles for the past few days to insure on my last day I’d get to Cuba today. My water stop was in 6.6 miles – piece of cake. I was on trail hiking at 6 AM. That’s a little late, but today I sat and ate my Clif Bar and Granola Bar while enjoying my MIO Energy (with caffeine). I thought that should give me a little energy boost and brighten my spirit.

As I typically do I calculate the time it takes to complete some mileage using 25 minutes/mile. My water stop should be in 2 hours and 45 minutes or 8:45 AM. So off I went. I can do this.

The trail goes from mesa to mesa. Between them you typically hike down to a saddle and back up to the next. I thought I was making good progress, but I wasn’t. My thoughts kept drifting to quitting. I was pushing to get to the water yet it wasn’t necessary. I had already decided to end my hike so why was I pushing. Then I kept thinking about all the miles after the water stop that would take me hours and hours. I realized I was done, kaput. It was the end. I just couldn’t push any more. Maybe I could get to a road and hitch into Cuba. I had hit my wall.

At 9:15 AM I finally got to the spring. I filtered one bottle, added Crystal Light Lemonade flavoring, shook it and chugged it down. Bliss. Then two guys wander into the spring. I say hi, but they don’t look like hikers. They have small backpacks and are carrying shovels and other tools. I come to learn they are the trail maintenance crew for this section and they have come to work on the heavily-silted spring’s trough. Hmmm, that means they’ve driven here and their truck is nearby. I ask if I can catch a ride to Cuba and they say sure after they do their work here and some more trail work somewhere else.

Then I realize that this is how my adventure will end. Today will be my last hiking day. Right here I can relax. I am done. It is officially over.

Over the next two hours I try to help them shovel muck, silt, sand, and make the spring’s trough good for hikers for another 10 years. Their names are Charlie and David. Around lunch time we are done so we pack up and leave. At the truck Charlie says he’ll drive me to Cuba while David stays behind to eat his lunch. The truck is small and the cab fits only two people. So off we go and Charlie drive me into Cuba, drops me at a motel, and heads off.

I am sad, but the pressure is off to make those daily big miles. I contact my friends and family to tell them where I am. As I do it hits me. I miss those special people who have helped me in this journey. I need them so much. My voice breaks and a tear forms. It really is over. All the months to prepare. All the gear I bought. All the energy expended to get to the start. And most of all my long distance hiking is over. The end of a part of my life.

Most of the day I was on trails which were up high and on the edge of a mesa. I had great views.

This morning when I hoisted my pack my back screamed. It was all the deep chest coughing I did at night that aggravated it. It almost brought tears to my eyes. All I could do was ignore it and hike. This is not fun.

The only good water was 13 miles later. It would take me until after lunch to get there. Although I had enough water to get me there I was dreaming about chugging one of my 0.7L SmartWater bottles with lemonade. Then with a mile to go someone put 15 gallon jugs of fresh pure water under a bush for us CDT hikers. No need to filter. I guzzled down two bottles of lemonade and one of MIO. Then I filled everything up and hiked on. That was amazing, the best! It couldn’t come at a better time.

Finally a sad note… The trail has beaten me. I will be ending my hike when I get to Ghost Ranch and meet up with Cornell and Mary. My sickness and pains has made hiking too difficult. I’m making my miles, but I not having any fun. I did this as a physical challenge and as of now the brutality of this trail has beaten me. I just don’t feel like going on. So once I get to Ghost Ranch and then to Cornell’s I’ll buy a plane ticket and return home.

P.S. Met Shortcut who chatted with me while I lay in my tent. I told him to stay away because of the pestilence that I have. I never saw his face. He told me Masshole, Stummy, and Halfmile were behind me. I haven’t seen anyone for the last four days.