Day 11: The Burro Mountain Traverse

May 1: When I woke up in the morning, I was a little surprised to find the temperature actually felt warmer than when I had fallen asleep the previous evening. It didn't bode well for the afternoon temperatures today!

But I had a plan for that. Today, I would pass over Burro Mountain which required climbing a couple of thousand feet up and temperatures at such high elevations would be cooler. Right? So that was my plan. I was going to go up Burro Mountain.

Some of the animals I spotted on the trail weren't particularly interesting....

It was a long, slow slog up the steep slopes. I moved slowly as temperatures seemed to soar. Evenstar seemed to struggle with it as well. We were in it together.

The vegetation changed as we climbed, eventually becoming a thick forest. Through gaps in the trees, we could see wonderful views. Except, perhaps, for an ugly open-pit mine toward the east. I wondered what they mined there. The logical guess would be silver since it was near Silver City, but for all I knew, the silver that Silver City was presumably named for could have been mined out years ago and now some other resource was being extracted. Later, when I got online and checked, it appeared that the main mineral they were mining now is copper.

Open pit mines are horrible eyesores, but I find them immensely fascinating and constantly wanted better views of the one to the east, but too many trees usually blocked the view!

It's an open-pit mine in the distance!

Just past the summit, the trail reached a wonderful overlook, so I stopped for a much needed rest. High in elevation, the temperature even got cool enough that I found myself craving the sun for warmth.

I wound up spending an hour or two at the viewpoint. I napped. I snacked. I checked email on my phone. Evenstar eventually caught up and took a short break as well, but she continued onward without me, saying that she knew I'd catch up later.

During my break, a couple of other thru-hikers passed by without even stopping to admire the views. I found this oddly weird. Why were they even out here if they weren't even interested in the views? Granted, I didn't expect them to stop for hours like I did, but it was the best view of the day by far. You'd think they might have stopped for five or ten minutes to enjoy the view. But I didn't worry about it too much. Not my problem. =)

Enjoying the view from Burro Mountain

Eventually I did pick up my pack and continue down the other side of Burro Mountain. Just as I was leaving, another thru-hiker arrived who introduced himself as Fugitive. When I introduced myself as Green Tortuga, he asked, "Did you hike the PNT in 2019?"

Well... yes, as a matter of fact. I did! How did he know this? I knew I hadn't met him on that trail. I met only one other thru-hiker that entire trail and I knew it wasn't him. He wasn't sure if he remembered me from trail registers or my posts on the PNT group on Facebook, but somewhere he had seen my name and remembered it. So we chatted about the PNT for a bit. Not my favorite trail--at all! But Fugitive said that he loved the bushwhacks. Definitely a crazy man! =) I usually didn't mention that I had thru-hiked the PNT since so few people have done it or are familiar with it. And there's probably a part of my brain that would prefer to forget that I ever did it.

The next reliable water source on the trail was Mud Spring which wasn't very far ahead, but it was located a bit off the trail and I walked by it without noticing. I had to backtrack several minutes to the spring when I realized my error, which annoyed me to no end. It was literally no more than a few minutes of backtracking, but any backtracking at all felt like pure torture.

This spring was also the last reliable water source that I knew about until I arrived in Silver City... two days from now. I wasn't even entirely sure how far away Silver City was located since I would have to follow reroutes around an area closed for prescribed burns. Not knowing for certain that there would be anymore water up ahead, I filled up with an astounding 7 liters of water. It was miserably heavy. Water weighs 2.2 pounds per liter, so that was an extra 15+ pounds of weight on my back. Despite the unpleasant name of Mud Spring, it was actually a pretty nice water source and the water wasn't really muddy at all.

Don't let the name fool you. Mud Spring actually had some pretty nice water.

I staggered down the trail under the extra weight. At least I hadn't planned to walk much further today. After cooking dinner and eating breakfast tomorrow morning, I'd knock at least a couple of liters off my back before tomorrow's hike.

About 15 minutes later, I saw movement to my left out of the corner of my eye and looked in that direction where I spotted something that looked red like a fox, the size of a beaver and a large, bushy trail as long as its body. It was running away, however, so I couldn't see its face and I only got the shortest of glimpses. I wasn't sure if red foxes were out in the wild here, but I knew about Coatimundis and thought it could very well have been one of them. Did I see a coatimundi?! I wished I had been able to see it's face clearly and made a positive identification, but if it wasn't a coatimundi, it must have been a red fox. From what I could find online, though, it appeared that this section of trail was a bit outside of their territory, so I'm leaning toward coatimundi.

Anyhow, excited about seeing a probable coatimundi, I continued onward, eventually catching up with Evenstar again. She was sitting next to a dry creek bed and informed me that there was a horrible, muddy puddle of water a bit upstream, but that the spring was dry.

I didn't much care--I already had 7 liters of water on my back. Didn't she get water at Mud Spring as well? Turns out no, she had missed it. In fact, she had thought that the muddy puddle she found up the dry creek was Mud Spring.

No, I told her, it was a couple of miles back. Evenstar hiked with a GPS, but it wasn't attached to any maps, and the devices that had maps of the trail wasn't attached to any GPSes. She had all the tools every other hiker on the trail had, but they were on two different devices which made using them together impossible, which is how she ended up here not even realizing that she had passed Mud Spring miles earlier without even realizing it.

And her GPS had some strange ideas of its own anyhow which just muddied the proverbial waters even further. Her GPS would report that we covered 25+ miles on a daily basis even though we actually only covered about 15 miles. One day, it reported over 30 miles. It had become something of an ongoing joke at the end of each night for me to guess how much her GPS reported that we had walked. ("At this pace, we'll be done with the trail in a couple of weeks!") Which all helps explain how Evenstar had blown past Mud Spring by a couple of miles without realizing it.

Note about trail closures ahead due to prescribed burns

But unlike me who only had to backtrack a few minutes to the spring, she was already a couple of miles beyond it--definitely more backtracking than she wanted to do. And she definitely didn't have enough water to get to Silver City.

I would have shared some of my water with her, except if there was no more water before Silver City, I would probably be running out by the time I arrived in town myself. I really didn't have enough to share.

That was, of course, assuming that there were no water sources before reaching town. Just because I didn't know of any reliable water sources doesn't mean that there weren't any.

But we formulated a plan B for her. And a plan C. There was a road crossing ahead that had Guthook comments about a water cache being there. At least there was water there a week earlier. Hopefully there was still water at the cache and she could just fill up. That was plan B. (Guthook is an app that takes  the entire set of tools needed for thru-hiking—a map, compass, guidebook, and water reports—and consolidates them into a single virtual location. It has become the go-to app for thru-hikers.)

If the water cache was empty (or gone), the next option was to hike out to the Old Burro Homestead for water, a mile or two down the gravel road. It actually sounded pretty nice, where hikers could take showers, buy food that they hadn't carried on their backs and so forth. We were trying to stick to the "red line" as much as possible--the main CDT route on the Guthook app was marked with a red line so we often called the main CDT the red line route--but the homestead was off on an alternate. Then, she could either backtrack back to the red line from the homestead or follow the alternate all the way through to Silver City by following Tyrone Road to Highway 90 and road-walking the rest of the way into town. 

That was plan C. There would definitely be water for Evenstar at the homestead, though, so we didn't make a plan D. 

This water cache was just before the climb up Burro Mountain. Evenstar was hoping to find another one a bit further up the trail which would allow her to stay on the red line a bit longer.

 

We continued onward, eventually reaching the gravel road with the possible water cache but found no water. I set down my pack and searched behind random trees in the area for hidden water, but came up empty. There was no water. It was down to plan C--Evenstar had to go to the homestead.

I was still inclined to stay on the red line as long as possible, though, so we parted ways here promising to meet up again in Silver City. I said, "Let's do lunch in Silver City," a throwback to my having said that about Lordsburg when we ended up spending 6 hours with Pez and Addie for lunch. Then jokingly added, "Last one to Silver City has to pay."

I was joking, and Evenstar laughed, but the alternate she was taking was probably shorter than the route I'd be taking so there was a good chance that she'd beat me into town and I wondered idly if I was now going to be on the hook for buying her lunch. She was disappointed about taking the alternate, however, wanting to continue on the red line like I was.

So we parted ways, and I continued on a few more miles before stopping near another crossing of a gravel road. It wasn't a particularly scenic or inspiring site and was surrounded with cow patties, but it would work.

And that was the end of another day!

Day 10: Nasty water! Naked hikers!

April 30: The strong winds from the day before had died down by morning, but it didn't last. By afternoon, the strong winds would resume. It seemed a little baffling to me that there weren't more wind farms in New Mexico given how constant and regular the winds seemed to be, or maybe they just aren't located particularly near the trail.

I could still get service on my phone and got updates from Addie and Pez that they both planned to resume their hikes today, and I texted Addie to watch out for the naked hikers hiking southbound toward Lordsburg. There were no naked hikers, but I felt certain that looking for naked hikers on the trail would give her something to... not look forward to per se, but something to make her day a little more interesting.

I told Evenstar about the prank, just in case Addie texted her with questions about the naked hikers. "Just play along, I told her. They allegedly passed by our campsite at 7:00 this morning."

We spent the better part of an hour on our phones trying to figure out where the reroutes ahead were. I found information about reroutes frustratingly difficult to find. Authorities knew that there were hundreds of thru-hikers passing through--you'd think they would want to provide clear information about how to get around fire closures. We had heard of a closure somewhere between Lordsburg and Silver City, but even the walking directions for it appeared to use two different routes depending on whether one was walking southbound or northbound. And it referenced landmarks and roads that I couldn't find on my maps. Argh! And there was absolutely no information about water sources or campsites along the reroutes. It was very frustrating for us. But ultimately, it wasn't something that we had to figure out today. The reroutes wouldn't affect us for another day or two.

The morning started cool, but by afternoon, the higher temperatures had resumed. Perhaps not as high as it was south of Lordsburg since the trail ascended to 6600 feet (2000 m) above sea level and we left the largely desert areas into an area filled with oak trees rather than cactus. The trail became a bit rougher and steeper as well.

A few miles after leaving camp, I reached Engineer's Well, the first reliable water source since leaving Lordsburg and I definitely needed to pick up some more water by this point. It was a little disappointing to see a dead mouse floating in the water when I arrived there, however. Nothing ruins beautiful, cold water like a dead mouse floating in it.

Yum, dead mouse water. My favorite.

There was a float in the water which, when it went down, was supposed to release water from a pump into the tank, so I pushed the float down but no fresh water came. It appeared to be broken as far as I could tell--an enormous disappointment since it meant that the only water available for taking was the dead mouse water. Yum. I'll definitely be treating this water!

Somewhere during the morning, we passed the official 100-mile marker of the trail. Well, more of an unofficial marker. And there were two or three of them as different hikers created different unofficial markers. A hundred miles down! Just another 3,000 or so left to go....

One of the 100-mile markers on the trail

A few hours into the day's hike, I spotted a javelina on the trail ahead, and this one stopped on the trail long enough for me to get a recognizable photo of it. Yes!!! Evenstar was hiking not far behind me, probably not more than about 5 minutes behind me at the time, and she missed it completely.

Javelina on the trail!

Near where the trail crossed Highway 90, there was a nice, shady trailhead with a bunch of gallon-sized water bottles tied together. Evenstar and I stopped for a rest here, a long break since we had no plans to do more than about 15 miles. We had time for long breaks.

While there, we were passed by Eagle Eye and Sweat Tea, and later passed by Kaleidoscope who reported starting the trail just four days earlier. He was doing big miles every day so I doubted that I'd ever see him again. (And I never did.)

Evenstar eventually got up to keep hiking, but I lingered back for a bit longer to hide a letterbox. I wasn't more than about 10 minutes behind Evenstar when I finished up and started hiking down the gravel road to where it crosses Highway 90 when a car pulled off of the highway and stopped next to me. A woman sat behind the driver's seat and rolled down the passenger side window to talk to me.

Evenstar takes a break in the shade at the water cache.

She told me that she maintains the water cache here and has some McDonald's fries--fresh from the Lordsburg McDonald's, a cold Coke (from a can, not from McDonald's), and some tangerines if I was interested. 

"Well, sure!" I was interested.

She got out of the car and popped open the trunk where all the goodies were stashed. The trunk was mostly filled with full-gallon water containers, but she gave me a bag with the McDonald's fries, the Coke and a tangerine.

I went back to the trailhead to the shade and sat down to eat the fries and drink the Coke right then. The tangerine I put in my pack to eat later. That would be fine storing at room temperature. I wanted to eat the fries while they were still warm and drink the Coke while it was still cold. Those had to be consumed immediately. *nodding*

An hour or so later, I caught up with Evenstar and told her about the trail magic. "Fries! A cold Coke! It was wonderful!" I exclaimed.

She retorted that she got some pretty nice food at a taco truck at the last road crossing. The thing was, I knew there was no taco truck at the last road crossing. There weren't any road crossings since Highway 90. And I suddenly realized--she didn't believe me. She thought I was yanking her chain.

"You don't believe me, do you?" I asked.

"About as much as I believe there are naked hikers heading southbound. I know you're a prankster!"

That was fair. She wasn't wrong about my being somewhat of a prankster, but the trail magic was real and I had proof: trash.

The trail angel had driven off immediately after giving me the fries, Coke and tangerine, so I had to carry the trash including the McDonald's bag that the fries came in, the empty Coke can, and the still uneaten tangerine.

Proof! Proof that the trail magic was real!

I dropped my pack and pulled it all out, saying that I had planned to share the tangerine with her, but now.... maybe not. She didn't think it was real, after all. =)

She apologized for not believing me and wanted to eat the tangerine then and there. "You can't blame me for not believing you. After all, you did convince Addie to spend the whole day looking for naked hikers on the trail!"

"Well.... you do make an excellent point, and while I might joke about naked hikers, I'd never joke about something as serious as trail magic," I said with a straight face. "Even I have some standards." Okay, I might have had trouble keeping a straight face when I said that last part. =)

I peeled off the skin of the tangerine and handed half if over to Evenstar to enjoy, then we continued hiking.

At the end of the day, Evenstar and I camped near another water source, a solar-powered well, located a short bit off the main trail. I didn't go to the actual water since I carried plenty from the water cache, but Evenstar described the water as "chewy." It didn't sound appetizing.

And that was the end of our 10th day on the trail.....

I also enjoyed the break by the water cache! =)

Day 9: The Long Walk Out of Lordsburg

April 29: After I finished fixing the last known problem on Atlas Quest, I finally packed up, checked out of the motel, and continued my adventures! It was, perhaps, 10:00am and temperatures were cool and comfortable.

Evenstar checks out a board with information about the CDT on our way out of Lordsburg.

 

Before leaving the motel, I knocked on Pez's door and gave him a bag of popcorn that I had trouble fitting into my pack. Him and Addie decided to both take an extra day off, but I had already had a double zero and wasn't anxious for a third consecutive zero day. Not this early in the hike, at least!

I had barely started my hike when I heard Evenstar shout out to me from the other side of the road. She was just leaving Kranberry's after picking up a giant cinnamon roll. She gave me a small piece of it to taste and I gave it two thumbs up. Delicious!

We walked together to the post office, both of us wanting to mail our laptops ahead to the next trail town. Mine was already packed up and ready to go, but Evenstar hadn't picked up a box beforehand so she'd just pack it up at the post office, coping the address I used on my own box for the Silver City post office.

Then we headed out of town together. We hadn't planned to leave town at the same time, but I was pleased with the happy accident to have company for a bit. I knew later on the trail, I'd be so very lonely. No reason to rush into that any sooner than necessary!

The trail followed paved roads for several miles out of town, but we missed the turnoff and walked an extra 5 or 10 minutes past it before I looked at my GPS and realized we had veered off-trail. We backtracked to the turnoff and immediately saw why we missed it. It was essentially unmarked and blocked with a barbed-wire fence we'd have to get through. The official CDT required us to jump, crawl through, or crawl under a barbed-wire fence. There was no stile or gate to help. It was an easy turn to miss, and we missed it.

The trail followed this highway out of town for several miles.

 

We crawled under the fence and from there, the trail went cross-country across a flat, open field. There was no distinct trail to follow and we relied largely on my GPS to make sure we were going in the correct direction. How did people hike this trail before the age of GPSes?!

The wind blew strongly throughout the day, and with clouds often blocking the sun overhead, it turned out to be quite cool throughout the day. I had carried a boatload of water out of town but wasn't drinking it very quickly and eventually realized that I had way more than necessary. At one point, I stopped and dumped out 10 pounds of water. It seemed like something that should have been a criminal offense in a desert, but I just didn't need much water today. I was barely drinking anything--it was by far the coolest day of the hike so far.

Evenstar and I took a short break at the bottom of a dry creek bed to help escape the wind, and it was a nice place for a lunch break. She did a little blister maintenance. I did not, however, since there weren't any for me to deal with.

Evenstar checks out the blisters on her foot while taking a rest at the bottom of a dry riverbed.

Later in the afternoon, we started spotting markers marking the trail, and eventually reached a point where an actual trail was visible once again. Evenstar was still limping from her blistered feet but moved remarkably quickly. I think the two days off-trail helped her immensely, even if she was still feeling the pain.

And we ended up hiking about 4 miles beyond my original plan, covering about 14.4 miles according to my GPS. Later in the day, when it was clear that we were far ahead of schedule and making such good time, we decided to shoot for the next water source, but we wound up coming up a couple of miles short as the sun was about to set. It wasn't a big problem, however, since I hadn't planned to reach it tonight to begin with and even after dumping 10 pounds of water, I still had plenty of water left to cook dinner and eat breakfast the next day. Dry camping would not be a problem.

Evenstar and I eventually stopped to camp at the bottom of another dry creek bed to help avoid the wind. It wasn't entirely successful, but at least it was a bit more protected than in the open.

And that was the end of another day of hiking.

Sunset from our campsite!

The trail passed under this railroad through this pedestrian tunnel under the bridge while leaving Lordsburg.

Evenstar checks out the barbed-wire fence that we had to get over, through or under. In this case, we decided to go under.

No sign of an actual trail through this desolate terrain!

Now this barbed-wire fence had a gate for us to pass through. Much easier!

The trail had been largely flat all day, but we knew we'd be heading into those mountains in the north...eventually! Tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow.

It was a gruesome discovery....

The hunt for a campsite is on!

Days 7-8: Zeroing in Lordsburg

April 27: There's not really a whole lot to report. I took the day off. I did walk to the post office to pick up a package, then walked out to the Interstate 10 rest area a mile or two west of town to look for a letterbox. (Found it!)

Evenstar scheduled an appointment to see a doctor about her blisters, but he didn't have any suggestions except to say that he felt she shouldn't be walking. Ha! What a quack. Has he never treated a thru-hiker before? Unless there's a loss of a limb involved, most hikers aren't going to stop walking because of blisters, even if they are enormous and ugly. 

Evenstar's feet were particularly sensitive since she had had foot surgery several months earlier and had done pretty much no walking or training before hitting the trail. And she complained that her shoes didn't seem to fit properly, but as there were no shoe stores nearby, she'd deal with that problem another day.

Evenstar and I planned to meet for lunch after she finished her doctor's visit.

When I entered the motel lobby to check out the hiker box, I found Addie checking into the motel. Addie! She looked more sunburned and weathered since I last saw her several days before, but definitely still recognizable. =)

I invited her to join Evenstar and I for lunch. She was just checking in, though, and I said it was fine if she wanted to shower or clean up first. That, she told me, could wait, but she did go to her room to settle in and drop off her stuff. And maybe she did take a shower. I'm not entirely sure, but I think she skipped it for now.

We headed to Kranberry's since it was right across the street. Evenstar didn't want to go far because of her blisters. I couldn't blame her--she had some of the worst blisters I've ever seen any anyone. I was amazed at her strength and perseverance to keep pushing herself despite the pain, but today was a zero day for her as well and she certainly wasn't going to spend any effort walking that wasn't absolutely necessary.

Addie had her own foot trouble with blisters, but they didn't look anything near as bad as Evenstar's blisters. Still, I took photos of both because, well, that's what I do. =)

Addie had her own blister trouble. Her big toe was definitely a lot bigger than it should have been!

 

We asked Addie about Pez and she said he was planning to get into town today as well and thought he was ahead of her and already made it into town. Really? Well, we should get him to join us as well. Addie called the motel to ask for his room, but Pez was in the lobby and we asked that they tell him to come join us at the restaurant across the street.

So Pez walked in about 10 minutes later and the four of us were together again! It was wonderful. We shared our stories and laughed and laughed. Pez's knee was still hurting him so he was going slow as well. So far, at least, I was the only one left in the group that was uninjured and not limping.

Our trail family, finally reunited again!

We ended up spending the next six hours sitting at the table and chatting! Originally, I had planned to continue my hike the next morning, but we were out so late, I never finished the work I wanted to get done online. Pez and Addie had only arrived in town today and both of them wanted a zero day, while Evenstar thought two zero days might be good for her feet. I didn't want to leave my whole trail family behind the next day....

So....

April 28: ...I took another zero day. A double zero. I did manage to get some work done in the morning, and Pez, Addie, Evenstar and I decided to go out for lunch again.

And it was today that Pez actually got his trailname. He was standing outside the motel lobby talking with a few other hikers and--I wasn't here for this and only heard the story second-hand--might have been talking with his mouth full of candy and wound up accidentally spitting some of it out like a real-life PEZ dispenser. Presto! A new trailname was formed!

We joked that his full name was Pez D. Spencer, which I thought was an absolutely awesome trailname, but we'd call him Pez for short. We felt like we were on a first name basis by now anyhow. And we were all glad that he finally got a trailname because all of had trouble saying his real name. =)

This time, we headed out to Denny's for lunch, which required a little bit of a walk, but all of my injured companions seemed up for the challenge.

I joked that we'll spend another six hours chatting there, and the others said that that was not going to happen this time. And they were right. This time, we only spent about five hours at the restaurant laughing and chatting.

I imagined the wait staff there was probably ready to see us go as we read out the descriptions of the dessert menu out loud like it was hiker porn!

Pez checks out his dessert at Denny's.

Anyway.... while we were there, a huge rainstorm swept through, and we watched the buckets of rain falling outside the window while we were dry and warm inside--and feeling a little sorry for the hikers out in the desert actually having to hike in it. It only lasted a half hour or so before stopping.

But all good things must come to an end, and we eventually left and headed back to our motel for the night.

All-in-all, a really good time! =)

A lot of the buildings in Lordsburg were abandoned and falling apart. It seems like the heyday of Lordsburg was in the rear-view mirror.

One hiker made his own camp shoes from shoe inserts and string. Those were definitely lightweight! I'm kind of inclined to try making my own someday.... (I didn't think to write down the hiker's name and I long forgot whose feet these are, though. Sorry!)