On the stolen lands of the Chiricahua Apache and Pueblos peoples.

Note: This post is very delayed. I got giardia and got off trail. If you missed the original announcement, click here.

Note: This post is long. There wasn’t a good way to break it up. TLDR: The canyon was beautiful, the parasite was not.

Do you understand?  Nothing in space can imagine it.  No comet, no nebula, no ray of light can fathom the landscape of awe, the heat of shame.  The fingertips pulling the first gray hair and throwing it away.  “I can’t imagine it,” the stars say.  “Tell us again about goosebumps.  Tell us again about pain.“

Andrea Gibson, “Tincture”, Lord of the Butterflies

A Discussion About the Giardia

For those of you who don’t know what giardia is, I’ll save you the Google. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “infection of the intestine with a flagellate protozoan, which causes diarrhea and other symptoms”. It’s treated with an antibiotic/antiparasitic. I’m also not going to go into any more detail than the above definition when it comes to symptoms, so this post shouldn’t be any grosser than the usual. I’m going to write a second post to companion this one that will go into more detail about why this ended up being a hike-ending issue for me (in a lot of circumstances it wouldn’t be), and about the process of getting home. I’m hoping to keep this post at novella length for you all rather than full length novel.

Necessary Context

1. I was under the impression that giardiasis had a 14-day incubation period at minimum. In reality, giardiasis has an incubation period of 3-30ish days with an average incubation period of around 14 days. I thought giardiasis could not reasonably be the cause of my problems because the water sources I’d drank out of in the first week of my thru-hike were all incredibly unlikely to have giardia in them (it was largely potable water provided by the CDT, and some water from cattle troughs/tanks that I both filtered and treated. There are no beavers in the low desert.).
2. We did not have cell service at any point during this section. I had wifi access at Doc Campbell’s, and that was the only time apart from the saddle prior to the descent into the Gila River canyon where I had any internet access during the course of the entire Gila River Alternate. I couldn’t Google anything.
3. There were two wildfires later in the section (the Turkey Fire and the Mimbres Fire) which we were told by a ranger we would be shuttled around. We expected to hit them about 20 miles south of the end of the Gila River Alternate, or about 40 miles ahead of Doc Campbell’s (2-3 days). The fires were contained between when we left Doc Campbell’s and when we hit the possible closure area, so the USFS was no longer running shuttles.
4. I do not regret my repeated decisions to continue rather than backtracking based off the information I had at the time, and I do not regret bailing when I did. However, if I had suspected giardiasis, I would have bailed on the first day out of Doc Campbell’s. I did have an Oh no, what if it’s giardia moment on the first or second day, but it was quickly quashed by the logical side of my brain, coming in with the (inaccurate, see #1) facts. Turns out it’s not paranoia if the giardia is actually out to get you, but you know what they say about hindsight, and the part of my brain that tends to start sentences with Oh no, is wrong the vast majority of the time.
5. There were no good bailout points between Doc’s and the USFS shuttle (that turned out not to exist), and beyond that, Highway 12 which leads to Reserve, NM (90 miles beyond Doc’s). It was an incredibly remote section.
6. I was successful in walking with giardia for so long because I was in an area with frequent and reliable access to water. In any other part of the desert that is as remote as where we were, backtracking at the first sign of GI distress would’ve been the only reasonable choice. I thought I had a bug or super mild food poisoning, and it was reasonable to expect that either of those would run their course before we got out of the canyon. I also knew for a fact that I would have water access constantly for the rest of the canyon, and I thought I would be able to bail out with the forest service right after the end of the canyon on the off chance I hadn’t gotten better by then (see #3).

Let Me Introduce You to the Crew

I joined a group for this section for a couple reasons: 1) I was getting a little lonely and I really liked these people and 2) the river crossings through the Gila River south of Doc Campbell’s were sometimes a little on the scary end and, unsure of how bad they would be as we moved upstream, I wanted to be around other people.

• Simple – a retired guy, originally from Ohio, who was keeping it simple on trail. He always had good life advice and good stories. He’d done several other long distance trails including the AT.
• Dogbite and Plus One – married couple, originally from Ohio. It’s their first thru and they were both doing so great out there. They always made me laugh and reminded me of home.
• Mr. Freeze – badass woman from Switzerland who’d previously done the PCT. She was a lot of fun and had a lot of really interesting insight about the US.
• Patches/Patchwork Pete – a quiet guy on his first thru. He, like me, spent the entire time between the border and Doc’s hiking mostly alone. We didn’t talk much but I enjoyed his company when we did.
• Tiempo – I met him at Doc’s, he’d done the AT and the PCT and was going for the Triple Crown. He had a lot of cool insights about the tech industry and many great stories.
• Longstride – I met Longstride back in Silver City, we hung out for a while during my zero. He’s a really cool guy, also going for his Triple Crown. He carried a Bluetooth keyboard and blogged from the trail, I still read his posts. He got to Doc’s the night before we left and caught up with us on our second day out of Doc’s.
• Chairman – named such because his luxury item was a collapsible chair. We didn’t talk much, but I enjoyed his humor. He joined us starting at camp our second night out of Doc’s, I don’t know if he ended up staying with the group after I left. As far as I know, (Largely from Longstride’s blog and from texting Longstride after I got home) everyone else stayed fairly close together until at least Pie Town.

Day 18 – 16.7 Miles

I woke up early, packed up, and left with Simple, Dogbite, Plus One, Mr. Freeze, and Patches. We did the road walk as the morning was warming up and I managed to take my puffy off without taking my pack off, a feat I was rather proud of. We decided we were all going to meet up at Jordan Hot Springs (A hot spring and waypoint on Guthook) for lunch. The guys went to go see the Cliff Dwellings, but Plus One, Mr. Freeze and I decided we didn’t want to add on the extra asphalt miles and went back toward the canyon. We took a section of the Gila High Route to cut off a mile and keep our feet dry for a little while longer, and then went through a narrower channel of the canyon to get back to the Gila River. It was stunning, but there was a lot of poison ivy.

The water crossings from this point on were much easier than the ones at the south end of the Gila. Most were ankle to knee deep, and all the high ones were high because of beaver dams and had almost no current. We crossed the river all. the. time. Sometimes 8-10 times in a mile. The air was so dry that my boots would get pretty much dry overnight, but the second we crossed the river the first time in the morning it was game over. We didn’t try to rock hop or not get wet, it was a losing battle. It sounds awful on paper but it really wasn’t that annoying, the only thing that sucked was how heavy my boots got from all the water.

We beat the guys to the hot spring and got in. A park ranger from up north who was vacationing and a couple of people from the Netherlands were already in the water. It was warm, but super cold when I got out. The ranger gave us some tips for hiking in grizzly country and we talked gear. Simple, Dogbite, and Patches rolled in and we all ate lunch together.

After lunch was when I started to feel sick. I was behind the group and decided not to backtrack. I didn’t feel that bad and I didn’t want the group to worry about where I was, and if it got worse, I wanted to be near people. We’d already done 14 miles and were only planning to do another 4. I’d eaten a bunch of random food at Doc’s the day before, I figured I’d just eaten something my body didn’t agree with or gotten a bug and that it would probably pass.

I ended up meeting up with the group when they were taking a break later. I told them what was going on and that I might bail in the morning, that I’d play it by ear. Tiempo and I tried to figure out how to send messages between our inReach devices (sat communicators), but neither of us could figure out how to find the device’s phone number so we gave up. It did remind Tiempo to send his mom a mother’s day message. We went on and hiked together for a while. Eventually I took an extra break and he went ahead, but I found the whole group at a campsite a few miles later. We were a bit short of our mileage goal, but the campsite was spectacular. We were surrounded by trees and the canyon walls in all direction, with an incredible view of the sky.

At camp Tiempo was sitting surrounded by what would be, in any other context, an absolutely insane number of bags. It was a very normal number of bags for a backpacker. He said that what we were actually doing on the CDT was getting a degree in bag management. You sleep in a bag. When you wake up, you take your sleeping bag and put it in a bag and then put it in a liner bag and then put the liner bag in a big bag, etc. Bags in bags on top of bags.

I went to bed grateful to be with people, and slept hard through the night.

Day 19 – 16.3 Miles

I woke up the next morning and was told I’d missed what was possibly a bear roaming around camp. Apparently some of the others heard something large move around near the campsite. They made noise and shined their headlamps around. They never saw anything, and the noise got further away after they responded. I slept through all of it. I still felt sick, but I didn’t feel any worse than the day before. I didn’t want to backtrack, I had plenty of meds, I had easy water access, and I was hoping what I was experiencing was going to be the worst of it. I decided to keep going.

I hiked alone through the morning. The stream crossings were frequent but generally tame. Partway through the morning I hit the only one that would make me fall. The water was approximately 6 inches deep, barely enough to soak my boots. The problem was that the water was flowing over a solid, smooth sheet of rock. There was nothing for my feet to grip to, and nothing my pole tips could bite into. I looked down river for a better place to cross, but there wasn’t one. It was impossible to move upstream without entering the water because of how the canyon wall was positioned. My gear was all in waterproof sacks so I went for it. I ice skated for about 2 steps and fell. I tried to stand and fell again. Because of my poles they were both gradual and gentle falls, but I had only managed to make it about halfway across the river and walking wasn’t working. I ended up crawling the rest of the way across, double checking to make sure nothing important had gotten wet, and moving on.

I was slower than the others, but met up with them for their morning break and for lunch. We hung out together, and Tiempo made coffee that we all shared. I got behind again later in the day, but Simple hung back to carry my pack across a particularly deep crossing so it wouldn’t get soaked. It was the deepest crossing I did during the entire alternate (over waist height) but had almost no current. I was really grateful that Simple waited, and touched by the gesture. People look out for each other out there, but it wasn’t something I expected nor took for granted.

Later, hiking just behind Simple, Longstride came up behind me. He’d already done something like 20 miles and was about ready to camp. He passed me (his name is apt and he’s a quick hiker), but I met up with him and the group later at a nice open campsite.

After we’d set up, a guy came rolling up along the trail and said hello. His name was Chairman, and he decided to camp with us for the night. We asked him if he was head of a council or something, and in response he pulled out a collapsible chair and sat down in it. He said he got used to being able to sit on his bear can on the PCT, and once the can was no longer required, he ditched it for a chair. We all hung out for a while before turning in.

Day 20 – 22.3 Miles

The next morning, I woke up and felt better than I had the days before. I thought I was getting over whatever the GI thing was. In the morning I hiked alone and ended up accidentally following the wrong creek for about half a mile and had to backtrack. I caught up with the group at Snow Lake, the end of the canyon section. We were back to the desert. We expected to hit the fire closure later that day, and I was planning to try to catch a ride off the trail with the forest service unless I felt amazing. There really wasn’t anywhere else to bail before then. Since we didn’t know exactly where the closure started, we planned our water carries as if the closure didn’t exist (good thing, too). The next 25 miles or so didn’t have anything crazy, but after that we were headed into 15-20 mile carries.

We walked into and through a wooded area. I took a couple of quick shade breaks but the temperature was very reasonable for the desert. On the other side of the woods was a hilly stretch where the tallest vegetation was the grass, and I met many a cow on the way to the water source where we planned to eat lunch.

The water source was an algae filled pond with solar panels next to it that were presumably there to power a pump. We all sat under them for lunch and tried not to hit our heads on them. I handed out some bandaids (one of many first aid supplies I handed out) and got my new trail name: “Drugstore” because I basically carried one. I felt pretty much fine, just a little weaker than normal. I still planned to bail just to let myself take a couple extra rest days, but I was no longer worried and figured I could just keep going to Reserve or Pie Town if for some reason USFS couldn’t give me a ride out.

We walked up to the top of one of hills after lunch and followed the trail to a dirt road that ran along the top of the hill. It was a vast, grassy expanse with almost no trees. Off in the distance we could see a forest, and off to the forest we went. I joined back up with Simple, Plus One, and Longstride and ended up hiking with Simple for a while. He told me about his life and about his experience on the AT. We walked into the forested area, expecting to hit the fire closure.

It never came. The fire had been contained in the area we were in and was no longer a threat to us. The forest service had left the area and they were no longer running a shuttle. Reserve was 40 miles away, but I still felt good. I figured I was probably over the bug and could wait to bail until then, or even continue with the others all the way to Pie Town depending on how I felt.

It was the longest dirt road walk of my life. I like dirt and gravel road walks generally; they make for super easy miles. There is too much of a good thing though, and they will eat your feet. This road walk combined with the silt that was still in my socks from the river crossings put a hole in my sock and in both of my insoles. I had to stop 3 or 4 times to tape hot spots, and ended up with some blisters on the pads of my feet. Otherwise, I felt good. I kept going to the water source we planned to camp near and eventually caught up with the group as they fished water from the tank and trough.

We walked a ways away from the trough so as to not disturb the cattle, and made a tent circle Oregon Trail wagon style. We all ate dinner in the center of the circle as a group. I did not know it would be my last night on trail. I was so grateful to be there, laughing, watching the sunset with the others while stripping my boots and socks off and eating cold oatmeal out of a Nalgene surrounded by an open expanse with hills and mountains in the distance. It was unbelievably beautiful. I was proud of my joints for feeling no worse after 22 miles than they had after 13 on the first day. My trail legs were coming in, and everything was looking up. I sat under the universe, staring at the stars. There was nowhere else I wanted to be more in that moment than exactly where I was sitting.

Day 21 – 9.5 Miles

Note: I did not take any pictures on this day.

I woke up and still felt good. I stopped to tape the hole in my insoles and ended up behind the group. It was still a road walk, but we were now headed uphill to summit a 9000ft nameless (according to Guthook) peak. Just before the peak was Dutchman Spring, the last confirmed water source before a 20 mile stretch. We were pretty sure there was a water source at about the 8 mile mark after Dutchman, but I was a little nervous about relying on it because there weren’t very many comments about it in Guthook. What was left of my oatmeal had frozen overnight so I ate some granola instead.

As I started to walk up the hill I started to feel weak. I stopped, ate the rest of my oatmeal, took electrolytes, drank water, and felt temporarily better. I kept going, but started to feel bad again about a mile from the water source. I took a quick shade break and then made a beeline for the water source.

I met up with Dogbite, Patches, and Plus One at the water source. I figured I’d just gotten a little behind on water. The others headed out shortly after I got there, all of us assuming I’d be fine in half an hour and right behind them. I sat down in the shade and did all the things you’re supposed to do: I drank water, ate some food, and took electrolytes.

I felt worse after doing all those things than I had before, and alarm bells started going off in my head. The trail left the road we’d been following in a mile and a half. Highway 12 (where I could catch a ride to Reserve) was around 20 miles away and the rest of the stretch was on dirt trail rather than the logging road we’d been on. If I needed help in that section, I was not going to be able to get it easily. I didn’t know how to budget water for 20 miles with the additional variable of GI problems added into the mix, and it was starting to become evident that whatever my problem was, it wasn’t going away on its own.

I didn’t have cell service, but Guthook said there was service at the top of the peak that was 2 miles away. I was pretty sure I could swing 2 miles if I went slow, and it was only half a mile off the road. If I realized I couldn’t do the 2 miles, I could use my inReach to text someone back home and have them call USFS.

To be clear, my inReach has an SOS button. I could have opted to use it, but I didn’t feel bad enough to where I felt it was necessary, and they tend to pull out all the steps (helicopters, etc) when you hit it. I was in that weird zone where I wasn’t healthy enough to safely continue but wasn’t sick enough to need more than a pick-up truck and a doctor’s appointment, so I figured calling the rangers would be my best bet.

I sent word ahead with another hiker who showed up at the water source who I hoped would pass someone from my group, and left in search of cell service. Not five minutes later, a pick up truck with the USFS logo rolled up behind me. I flagged them down, explained the situation, and asked for a ride. They offered to take me to the clinic in Reserve, and I was so grateful. They told me that I was the sixth hiker to bail out in the last week for the same issue, and that 3 of them had had to be removed from the forest by ambulances. They asked me what water sources I’d touched and/or drank from and told me it was almost definitely giardia. They dropped me off at the clinic in Reserve.

Total Days	21
Miles walked	270
Bears seen	0
Moose seen	0
Mountain goats seen	0
Rattlesnakes seen	0
Lbs of peanut butter eaten	1
Showers taken	5
Pairs of boots worn out	0
Toenails lost	0
Rain storms	0
Zero days taken	1
Nearo days taken	4