This post is not delayed. Your girl is caught up! We’ll see if I can make it last.

Day 8: 14.8 Miles

I woke up early and knocked out the road walk out of town while it was getting light. After the road walk was a section of “trail” where I could not find a beaten footpath or signage for the CDT. At one point I found two signs that were perpendicular to where GPS said the trail was, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out where the physical trail was supposed to go. At one point I stopped for second breakfast (Cheetos and granola, the second breakfast of champions) and took this picture of Pyramid Peak, which I passed two days earlier.

I stayed close to where GPS said I should be and kept a look out. A handful of miles later I found the trail and the signage for it became consistent. I stopped for a nap, and took these pictures of wildflowers after I got up. This stretch was incredibly barren when it came to trees, but there were lots of flowers.

I kept hiking. The heat of the day was brutal, and beat down on me. In the evening, I had a moment when I realized that even if I wanted to turn around, I was 10 miles into a 15 mile water carry and did not have the water stores to do so. I wanted to keep going, but knowing I couldn’t go back felt isolating. I was alone, and it was the first time I really felt lonely. I kept going after dark, listening to an audiobook (You’d Be Home Now by Kathleen Glasgow) that I’d really wanted to read to try and boost my mood. I crossed into the Gila National Forest right at sunset. The last several miles were on loose sand, which is one of the harder surfaces to hike on. It was dark and starting to get cold. I was exhausted and felt defeated, but I did make it within a few tenths of a mile of the water source before I made camp. Sometimes walking is the hardest thing.

Day 9: 15.1 Miles

I woke up in an entirely different landscape than the one I had seen before dark the night before. I could tell based on shadows that the plant life had changed and I knew I’d been hiking uphill, but it was a much more drastic change than what I could see from the light of my headlamp. There were trees and shrubs everywhere, it was the shade that had been filling my dreams since the beginning of the Bootheel.

I went to the next water source and ran into another hiker there, my first human since the night before I left Lordsburg. My mood had lifted with the sunrise and I was ready to go. I had a blister on the pad of my right foot from wearing my camp shoes around Lordsburg, and had to stop repeatedly to re-dress it. This was the first day with big hills, and I took it slow. Throughout the day I met and hung out with several other hikers. The community that I had missed so much the day before was brought back to me, and I felt back in my element.

I thought a lot about how sometimes walking is the easiest thing and sometimes walking is the hardest thing and sometimes it’s both simultaneously. Getting out of the forest by any means other than walking would be difficult, so walking is the obvious thing. And it’s so simple: one foot in front of the other. But sometimes I’m exhausted and that simple, simple act becomes so difficult. It is the easiest thing and the hardest thing.

I hit Mile 100 early in the day. It didn’t feel like anything, it just felt like walking. 100 miles still feels like an incomprehensible distance, even having done it. I don’t let myself look that big. I just look at the next day, the number of miles to the next water source, and the number of expected days to the next town. Anything beyond that is too big. I think often of the saying, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” This trip is an elephant if I’ve ever seen one.

At one point after dark, I heard the unmistakeable sound of chewing near the trail. I panned my headlamp over the wash that was near me and saw a very large set of legs that definitely belonged to a cow. It gave me a good scare, but it was just a cow living its best life. I got to a confusing road crossing in the dark and it was windy. I made camp a few miles short of my goal so that I could figure it out in the light.

Day 10: 11.9 Miles

The CDT decided we might be getting a little too comfortable, and threw the first real climb at us. I got up late for my usual so that I could figure out the weird road crossing, and ended up screwing myself when it came to the climb. It was a 2,000 foot climb, and I ended up hitting the hardest part of the climb in the middle of the day. Fortunately there was a lot of shade. I struggled through the climb and took a ton of breaks, but I made it.

The descent was difficult for different reasons. While ascents are difficult from a cardio perspective, it is very easy to injure yourself on a descent because of the increased impact your joints tend to take. Form matters a lot, and I have to go slow every time.

I stopped at Burro Mountain Homestead in the afternoon. They had ice cream, free showers, and free water. I also bought Cheetos because I was almost out. The people there were so excited to see me and the other hikers, and were incredibly kind and hospitable. It was an amazing respite after a rough morning, and it was only 0.8 miles off trail. The stretch to the next water source was 22 miles. I hung out with Hot Pocket and another hiker for a while to ride out the heat and let my clothes dry before hiking on. My knee started to twinge on a road walk, so I threw my braces on and quickly found a place to camp for the night.

Day 11: 17.1 Miles

I woke up early, gunning for the next water source, which was still 17 miles away. It would make for a long day, but I wanted to make it into Silver City, and that meant going for it. I was alone for the morning, but a hiker named Enigma rolled up during my break and we ended up walking together for the afternoon. I’ve generally been hiking alone, but it was nice to hike with another person. We talked a lot about bears and rattlesnakes, and other trail risks. He said that thru-hikers invariably cover 3 topics when they talk to each other: town food, gear, and pooping. This has invariably been true for me.

In the evening, I leap frogged with Enigma. After dark, I hiked alone, still headed for the last water source. I struggled through the last several miles, the trail was in a dry riverbed and while the scenery was stunning, the sand made for slow miles.

For those who have not night hiked, headlamps tenf to reflect light off of eyes, causing you to constantly see glowing eyes in the dark. Often it’s spiders or birds, but it’s really disconcerting when the eyes are significantly taller than you. In cow country, sometimes you just see these giant, tall eyes moving through the darkness, but the light isn’t bright enough for you to see what the eyes belong to. I saw something large and lumbering that I thought was a bear off to the side of the trail. It was walking, and did not seem remotely interested in me. I kept looking at it as I walked, banging my trekking poles together and hoping it would not follow. It didn’t. A few minutes later I saw a heard of cattle and realized that what I had seen may not have been a bear at all, but a cow. I still don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure it was a cow. Enigma swears it must’ve been a cowbear, although he was not with me at the time and did not see it.

I got to the water source, crawled through a barbed wire fence, and filtered. There was probably an opening in the fence somewhere for us since it was a water source hikers were allowed to use, but I didn’t have the time or energy to go looking for an opening or gate. I kept going a little after the source and made camp, making sure I was far enough away that I wasn’t keeping the cattle from accessing their water, and made camp. I set my alarm for 3:30am.

Day 12: 14.3 Miles

I woke up at 3:30am and was walking by around 4:30am. I had 2 miles to walk before hitting the road. Loose sand transitioned to loose gravel, which made it a relatively slow walk. I made it to the road a little after 5am and started walking. It was a close to 13 mile walk on asphalt, and it was exhausting. Hiking boots are not made with asphalt in mind, so walking on the asphalt was rough on the feet. I was still struggling with the blister I got in Lordsburg, and the beating of my foot on the asphalt did not help things. I ended up with a blister under my original blister. I will spare you pictures of the blisterception.

I finished the road walk and got to the hostel around 12:30. Check in wasn’t until 2pm, so I swung by a coffee shop and ran into a group of hikers there. I hung out with them for a while before heading back to the hostel. The shower was, as always, euphoric.

Total Days	12
Miles walked	157.1
Bears seen	0?
Moose seen	0
Mountain goats seen	0
Rattlesnakes seen	0
Lbs of peanut butter eaten	0
Showers taken	3
Pairs of boots worn out	0
Toenails lost	0
Rain storms	0
Zero days taken	0
Nearo days taken	2