Note: This post is delayed. I am currently in Silver City.

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they’ve got a second.

William James

Day 4: 4.8 Miles After Hachita

The remainder of Day 4 was lovely. Four of us rode with Radar back to the trail and met up with a fifth hiker at the trailhead. We walked in a pack for a while before spreading out, each of us going at our own pace. I walked alone for a while, planning to get close to the next water source before calling it a night. My left knee would twinge on the downhills, but otherwise felt okay. I knew my body needed to call the shots, but I also wanted close access to water in case the knee was worse in the morning.

I ran into a trio of hikers who had already made camp and were eating dinner. I stopped to talk to them, and ate granola out of a ziploc with my spoon while my food was cold soaking. They all did the PCT and we talked about how this desert might be easier for me emotionally as a first time thru-hiker than it would be for someone who has done the PCT. I have nothing to compare my experience to. Sure, this desert is hard, but I’m not experiencing it as harder/easier than anything else.

I eventually left them and made camp 0.2 miles from the next source. It was a mild night with a clear sky. I ate my dinner while looking up at the stars.

Day 5: 13.1 Miles

My plan was to let my knee call the shots. It was cold when I woke up; I broke camp, got water, and walked slowly until it warmed up some. The terrain was pretty flat and the trail was a dirt road so I played around with my gait some, trying to figure out what felt good for my knee and what didn’t. I noticed that the way I walked when I wasn’t using trekking poles caused no pain including when I walked downhill, but downhills with poles hurt. I set my foot slightly differently when I use poles compared to my natural gait. I started carrying both my poles in one hand, and only using them to steady myself on uneven terrain. My knee felt good so I started heading for the next water cache, hoping to make it there before the heat of the day.

I failed in that goal, but there was also no shade to stop under. I kept walking even though it was hot, figuring that I was either going to find shade ahead or at least not have to watch my water intake while I hid under my sun umbrella. About a half mile from the cache, I saw a trash can full of rocks with writing on it: “Trail magic 1 mile after cache. Cold drinks and shade”.

If you can’t find CDT hikers while playing hide and seek, just yell the word “shade” and watch them come running. Apple, a trail angel from Ohio, has a dome similar to the ones people use at Burning Man, and he sets it up alongside long distance trails to provide shade to thru-hikers. He also had a water gun to hose us off with, and ice cold Gatorades. He was set up smack in the middle of the most barren part of the Bootheel, and his shelter was a godsend. A group of us stayed there talking with him for hours to beat the desert heat, and he was great company. He has biked on many of the trails in Columbus that I walked on while getting ready for the CDT. He doesn’t know anyone on the CDT this year and hasn’t thru-hiked. He does this because he loves it and loves that other people are getting out on the trail in New Mexico. Before we left, we all signed his shelter.

The trail magic was definitely the highlight of my week. If he hadn’t been there, I would’ve been searching for shade for another several hours before finding anything good. This was the first day where the desert looked close to how I imagined it, a vast expanse of flat land with no tall plants. Still, so much was living all around me.

I kept going in the evening and filtered/treated water from a cattle trough for the first time. If it weren’t for the ranchers letting us use their troughs, the water carries would be absolutely brutal through the first section. It does taste a little strange, but not bad. I made camp in an open field, careful to position my tent so that it wouldn’t be thrown around by the wind, which was picking up. My knee gave me no problems in the last half of the day.

Day 6: 16.2 Miles

The wind was brutal in the morning. When it was going, it was hard to hear anything else. It’s been that way on and off, and one of the reasons I always set up the mesh part of my tent even though I haven’t been using my fly out here is that it keeps all the stuff inside my tent from blowing away overnight (I mainly use it because I want a barrier between me and the spiders). I broke camp and set out. There was a peak off in the distance that I looked at while eating second breakfast, Guthook/FarOut (the GPS app most of us use out here) showed that it was Pyramid Peak.

The trail designers were kind to us and did not make us go over it (we went south and west of it). I know they’ll send us over every peak in the vicinity of the geological divide in Colorado and I am so here for it, but I need to get my trail legs* first. It was cool to see where I was going from so far away. I lost the trail for a little bit and hiked vaguely in the direction of Pyramid. GPS said I was on trail or close to it, I just couldn’t find the signage or a beaten path. There was a lot of tall grass so the going was slow (I could charge through, but then I’d run the risk of stepping on a danger noodle and I am very attached to being alive so that’s a no from me), but the scenery was incredible.

In the afternoon I took a siesta with Hot Pocket under a big shade tree. We were on the same bus from Tucson to Lordsburg and have been leap frogging each other ever since. Both of us napped and then headed back toward the mountain once the heat was more reasonable.

I saw lightning in the distance. Afraid of a possible rain storm getting my down sleeping bag wet, I got up, threw my flip flops on, and put up my rain fly.

The evening miles were beautiful and came easily. Some kind of cactus spine had poked through the sole of my boot and kept stabbing the ball of my left foot. My boots (the ones that were too small) knew I was getting rid of them and decided to get in one last hurrah. My toes by this point were covered in Leukotape, and I was not confident about the status of two of the toenails on my left foot. I pulled out my headlamp and did surgery on the inside of my boot, but managed to only break the spine rather than getting it out. Defeated by the cactus spine but knowing I would get the last word, I kept hiking. I set up camp about 0.1 miles from the last water cache, ready to go into Lordsburg the next day. I got into my sleeping bag.

Day 7: 4.8 Miles

Day 7 was my first Nearo day (a day where nearly 0 trail miles are hiked). I woke up late and met another hiker from Ohio, 70lb Hammer, at the cache. There are a ton of us. I don’t know what it is about Ohio specifically that makes people flock to long distance trails, but I’ve met 4 Ohioans, 5 including Apple (the trail angel). The only other state I’ve seen more than one person from (not counting couples who are hiking together) is Washington.

I cruised on into Lordsburg and went straight to the Econolodge. They have a hiker rate and are well known on the CDT. The motel actually changed ownership between when I stayed there with Monk and Hot Pocket prior to starting the CDT and when I got back there a week later. The new staff were great (I had very little interaction with the previous staff, but they were also nice). I got my laundry done, took a shower for the first time since starting, washed things that can’t go in a machine washer (ankle braces, spoon, etc), and called home while I was waiting to get my clothes back. I had to wear my rain gear around because those were the only items of clothing that didn’t need washed, so I waited to walk to the post office until my clothes were done (if you want to spot a thru-hiker, go to a town adjacent to a long distance trail and look for people wearing rain clothes even though it’s sunny).

At the post office, I got my resupply, knee braces (which I am currently carrying most of the time rather than using), and the boots I had been dreaming about for a whole week. They are beautiful and fit perfectly. I have never been that excited for a pair of shoes in my whole life.

I bought some Cheetos and snickers bars from the store to add to the resupply and then met up with 5 other thru-hikers at McDonalds. Several were getting ready to leave Lordsburg to hike north, same as me. Two were going to start at the border the next day. It was the first time since the shuttle ride that I’d gotten to hang out with this large of a group of hikers at the same time, and it was so much fun. I went to bed that night planning to get up super early to head back to the trail.

Some Thoughts

I have spent most of my time hiking and being alone through this section, but I have really enjoyed the moments I get to spend with other hikers. While I have preferred hiking alone for the most part, spending breaks and shorter sections hiking with other people has been really lovely. I hope to continue to be able to find this mix of connection and solitude, as I continue.

This post contains a lot of action but discusses very little of the psychological journey. My headspace was very even keeled through this section and my focus was almost exclusively on meeting physical needs, paying attention to my surroundings, and looking ahead at what was to come on trail. It’s gone a bit like how learning to drive went for me: in the beginning, each movement required concious thought and I had to constantly make sure I wasn’t forgetting to do anything. After a while, it all became automatic. In the next section, as I got more comfortable with meeting the physical needs and had more time for reflection. Things have become more automatic.

* After the first few hundred miles of hiking, the body starts to turn into a hiking machine and two phenomenon occur: hiker hunger and trail legs. Hiker hunger has been described to me as there being no point at which you could not eat an entire XL pizza, including immediately after you have just eaten an entire XL pizza. Your legs also become capable of hiking previously thought to be insane distances. I will report back about what this feels like once it has happened to me.

Total Days	7
Miles walked	84.4
Bears seen	0
Moose seen	0
Mountain goats seen	0
Rattlesnakes seen	0
Lbs of peanut butter eaten	0
Showers taken	1
Pairs of boots worn out	0
Toenails lost	0
Rain storms	0
Zero days taken	0
Nearo days taken	1