I’m in Grants, at the library, where you have to “read” seven pages
about the rules before you can get on the computer. We’re buying
tickets. Tickets home. Oh no, oh gosh. I’ll be flying to Las Vegas a
day before my birthday, then work three days later. Good thing that
“re-entry” is backpacking for me. Lost and I plan to finish November
4th at Crazy Cook. Then to El Paso, TX on the 5th and a flight out on
the 6th.

The past section was a little bit of a mixed bag. The first miles out
of Cuba were downright lame. It takes a lot to put me in a grumpy mood
while hiking. But that roadwalk on a paved road, sucked. Once on dirt
however, the hiking was great. Espcially after refilling water at a
nice spring. It was desert walking, true desert, not like the typical
High Desert forest that the rest of the state has been. We walked a
few dozen miles of newly caired trail. The first section was along the
top of a mesa, the second section wove along the bottom of mesas.
Really great walking. Especially the walking along the bottom of the
mesas. It was miles and miles of interesting rock formations. Lots of
spries, badlands and toadstools.

Then we climbed a major mesa and continued on barely used caired
routes to a LOOONG dirt road. After a climb to Mt. Taylor, we filled
up at a water cache and tried to night hike. We were again on new
trail. And this section simply disappeared after a few miles. Or we
got lost. We’re not sure. But we were following cairns and blazes with
no tread, then nada. No more blazes, no more cairns. Aint’ the CDT
great?

On to more road walking and a later than hoped for arrival yesterday
into Grants. Just as we sat down for dinner, we got a call from
Stretch inviting us to dine with the Grants trail angels. Oh man was
that great! Thanks so much Hugo and Carole! Definitely a highlight of
the trip. We really enjoyed the conversation about hiking, the
generous portions of dinner and ice cream and the whole experience.
They’re so fantastic that they are driving out and leaving water
caches in multiple locations for all of us parched hikers. Future
CDTers are likely going to rank Grants way higher on their favorite
town lists thanks to these two.

In other news…

I’ve got new socks.
I’ve got a full pack of food.
No magazines this leg, I’ve practically been spending too much time reading.