Day 38: Dado Canyon

May 28: I woke up and hit the trail a little before 7:00am. I was a bit surprised how warm it was given our elevation at just over 10,000 feet and it didn't bode well for the rest of the day. It was gonna be hot!

The day's hike was generally uneventful. The trail followed easy, gravel roads for pretty much the entire day with a small exception that led us to American Canyon Spring. It would be our only decent water for the day, so we filled up with tons of heavy water. The spring water came from a hose directly out of the ground, looking so clean and cold, so I didn't bother to treat it. I love nice, cold spring water. =)

The water coming from that pipe at American Canyon Spring was delicious!

 

The trail also generally headed downhill all day, coming off of Mount Taylor and our high elevation. But like I said before, it was an easy day of hiking and the roads sloped downhill gradually--definitely a nice change from yesterday's brutal climb to the top of Mount Taylor!

I had stopped for a break when Pez caught up with me--which came as something of a surprise since I had assumed he was ahead of me. Evenstar and I had passed him with our detour up Mount Taylor that he avoided because his knee was still hurting. We figured between him being ahead of us and taking the "easy" route, he'd still be ahead of us. I guess the "easy" route wasn't as easy as we had assumed. Or maybe the pain in Pez's knee was worse than we had thought. Or maybe he just slept in late. Much later than we had. =) I'm not sure, but whatever the reason, we managed to pass him while doing the alternate up Mount Taylor.

But he caught up with us late in the day and it was nice to be together again since we hadn't seen him since leaving Grants.

As the morning passed and the afternoon marched on, the sun grew hotter and hotter. And as the elevation of the trail dropped, not only did temperatures soar, but the trees slowly disappeared into almost nothing. There would be no protection from the brutal sun throughout the afternoon.

Late in the day, we finally reached Dado Canyon and a watering hole. Guthook comments suggested it was barely more than a mud pit, but it was the best option available for miles to come. And when we arrived, we were not disappointed.

 Pez poses at Dado Canyon. You can't see it in the photo, but there's a small, muddy watering hole at the bottom of the cliffs just behind Pez.

 

The canyon itself was gorgeous! Rocky canyon walls outlined a scenic, green valley. But the water was as promised: a quickly drying muddy mess full of dead bugs. I was basically out of water and needed it anyhow and probably spent the better part of an hour trying to filter the water. It was frustrating since the filter clogged often and needed to be backwashed regularly. Once, a still living bug crawled out of my filter when I took off the bag to refill it with more water for treatment.

It was even difficult just to reach the water without stepping into shoe-sucking mud. I really didn't want to drink this water, even after treating it, but sometimes you just have to take what you can get. Evenstar had carried enough water from American Canyon Spring to not have to refill, and I envied her for that. Throughout the day, she probably envied my lighter pack for not carrying as much water, but now it was payback! =)

I did spot what I thought were mountain lion tracks in the mud near the water. The prints looked like large paws of a cat, and I couldn't imagine anything else that might have made them, so I kept my eyes open for a mountain lion but never saw any. I'm not particularly adept at recognizing animal prints, though, so perhaps it was something else I just didn't know about.

What kind of animal do you think made this print?

I had no doubt, however, that animals often came here for water. It was the only water for miles around. I definitely had no plans to camp in the valley near the water--that would just be asking for trouble. 

While collecting water, another hiker named Stry (short for Stryder) showed up, so we chatted for a bit and I invited him up to join Evenstar, Pez and myself for dinner. They were already near the treeline on the far side of the canyon and easily visible from the trail. He wasn't thru-hiking the trail, though, but planned to do a "short" 400-mile stretch of the trail.

Stry was also obviously black, which still--sadly--surprises me when I see a black person on the trail. Thru-hikers, as a whole, aren't particularly diverse in that sense, but it makes me happy whenever I see more diversity. I think the situation has improved over the years, though. By the end of the trail, I'd actually cross paths with a few black people. And several others which appeared to have Asian and Latino decent. White people still made up a huge majority of hikers, but the ratios have seemed to improve over the past 18 years that I've been thru-hiking. Progress is slow, however.

Anyhow, Stry joined us for dinner and the four of us enjoyed chatting the evening away. Pez and Stry decided to camp closer to the trail and out of the trees, so they eventually left shortly after the sun set. Evenstar and I set up camp in the trees, though.

Thus ended another day on the trail. I wasn't looking forward to tomorrow, however, as tomorrow was expected to be even hotter than today. Dry and hot--it might be a rough day.

"Is this the right way?"

During the hottest part of the day, there weren't many trees to provide shade!

Day 37: The Mount Taylor Challenge

May 27: I got up and hit the trail at 6:45am--my earliest start time yet! The morning wasn't particularly cold which helped make it easier to get out of my sleeping bag.

The first several miles of the day were over a largely flat plateau, fast and fun to walk through with scattered trees around for shade. I typically walked ahead of Evenstar, but then she would catch up whenever I stopped for a rest.

Not sure why there was a bell on the trail here, but that's what we camped by.

But then... the trail started climbing upwards. Slowly at first, until we reached the junction for the Mount Taylor Alternate. The main CDT went around the flanks of Mount Taylor, but the alternate climbed to the very top of the 11,301-foot (3,444 m) peak. Pez, we knew, probably wasn't far ahead of us, but he had been talking about avoiding the Mount Taylor Alternate since it required more up and down and he figured it might cause more problems with his knee, but Evenstar and I were more inclined to take the alternate although it was almost certainly going to be much more difficult since we figured it would be the more scenic option.

So we veered off the red line and onto the alternate, at which point the trail immediately started climbing at a steeper rate of attack.

It was the last three miles, though, that took our breaths away. Not just because of the high altitude or breath-taking views, but just because the trail was so freakishly steep. I joked that it was solid "AT-quality trail"--which I didn't mean as a complement. Evenstar, who had also thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, knew exactly what I meant and agreed whole-heartedly. The last portion was steep! Even with switchbacks!

The peak was also a solid 2,000 feet higher than the previous highest part of the trail we had experienced so far so the thin air just made it more difficult. But wow! What a view! Once we got above tree line, it felt like one could see a hundred miles in every direction! 

Relatively low-flying aircraft seemed to pass over us regularly, and I wondered if they were taking off from an airport to the east. Albuquerque, perhaps?

I was a little disappointed when I realized that this wasn't even a high point for New Mexico. The trail didn't go anywhere near the state's actual high point--but it was still a wonderful view from the top.

Reaching the top of Mt. Taylor was exhausting, but the views were excellent!

 

At the top, I took a much needed rest, relaxing for the next hour or so. From here, I thought, it was all downhill!

Except... it wasn't. *sigh* The trail did go downhill at first, and passed by a tiny amount of snow on the ground along the north-facing slopes. I was happy about the lack of snow at such a high elevation. I felt that it boded well for Colorado. I had been hearing horror stories about how bad the snow in Colorado was and was a bit concerned about that. I didn't want to spend entire days postholing, or traversing sketchy patches of snow, and the snow in Colorado was one of the main reasons I wasn't pushing myself hard through New Mexico. I was happy to give the snow there more time to melt.

I did know, however, that elevations in Colorado topped out a few thousand feet higher than Mount Taylor, but I figured this meant that snow shouldn't be a problem at elevations lower than 11,000 feet. I hoped that was the case, at least, and huge sections of Colorado are definitely below that. We were still a couple of weeks away from Colorado. Hopefully whatever snow was above 11,000 feet would also melt before we arrived.

Anyhow, from the summit, the trail descended steeply for a bit before climbing steeply once again, and I lost my steam on the climb. It was exhausting! Mount Taylor looks like it's an old crater with a deep depression in the middle of it, and the trail followed along the ridge around the crater's rim--up and down, up and down--although never going back quite as high as the high point where we stopped for the rest.

After the second long climb, though, the trail mostly leveled out and generally went downhill slow and steady, and at that point it was a lot easier to hike quickly and efficiently. The trail dumped us out onto a gravel road, and one vehicle driving by stopped to offer Evenstar and me a ride, but we turned them down. Nope, we wanted to keep our steps connected.

The trail followed this gravel road back uphill again. Argh! It was exhausting!

 

We finally stopped just before sunset as the trail descended from the crater, setting up camp at--according to my GPS--precisely 10,001 feet above sea level. It would be our first night above 10K! Might get a little chilly during the night....

A little after sunset, a rancher drove by on his ATV and got really chatty, telling us that there was a spring just below our camp. We didn't know about this water--the next water that we knew about was still somewhere ahead--but he went down to check it, then eventually returned to tell us that it was just a tiny trickle and not really usable. But that was fine. We hadn't known about that spring (I guess it wasn't considered reliable for hiker purposes) so we weren't depending on it.

He also offered us both beers, but neither of us drank so turned him down. I think he was a little disappointed about this since it would have given him an excuse to sit around and chat more with us. It was a shame Pez wasn't with us--I'm sure he would have been happy to enjoy the beer. =)

Eventually, the cattle rancher left us in peace and thus ended our 37th day on the trail.....

It was gonna be another hot day! Fortunately, we had trees at lower elevations, and cool winds at higher elevations.

Looking back, you can see just how flat the terrain was in the morning. So flat! So easy!

Something must have gone very, very wrong with this grill.

Who would carry canned goods out here?!

That looks like a lot of uphill ahead....

By this point, we're climbing up the slopes of Mount Taylor and looking back from whence we came. (I always love using a word like 'whence' to sound pretentious!)

Water cache! But it was largely empty. I did grab a liter from it, though, and finished it off.

The trail is definitely getting steeper the closer we get to the top of Mt. Taylor!

It's a little hard to tell in the photo, but that white, granular stuff on the ground is what's left of the snow on Mount Taylor.

Looks like the earth has a pimple to pop!

Day 36: Pushing up shopping carts

May 26: I woke up especially early today to check out a total lunar eclipse at 5:16am, but thin clouds obscured most of it and during totality, I couldn't even see the moon lighting up the clouds... so I soon went back to sleep.

When I woke up again later in the morning, I felt good. I still felt no side effects from the vaccination yesterday except for a slight soreness if I poked the jab site or lifted my arm in the air. No big deal, though, and I cleared myself for hiking today. Back on the trail again!

But I wasn't in any particular rush and took my time leaving the hotel, checking out just before the checkout time of 11:00am. Pez and Evenstar also waited until the last minute to check out, so we found ourselves all leaving the hotel within about 10 minutes of each other.

Evenstar and I had to drop by the post office to mail our laptops ahead, and she had tried calling her trail angel to give us a ride and save ourselves the trouble of an otherwise unnecessary mile or two of walking through town, but he was out in Gallup and not available. So I tried giving my trail angel, Michele, a call, but she reported not feeling very well and couldn't do it today either. So then I pulled out my smartphone and tried to get an Uber or Lyft, but "no drivers" were available. Argh! I don't even know why I bothered with the apps. I installed it for the rare times I needed a ride in a trail town, but they never seem to have drivers available. I had tried using it on the Pacific Northwest Trail, on the Lone Star Trail and now this trail, and every time I couldn't get anyone to give me a ride.

With all of our options exhausted, Evenstar, Pez and I started the long walk into the center of town. Evenstar and I really wanted a ride because we both had big boxes to carry to the post office, so it was somewhat fortuitous that she noticed an abandoned shopping cart next door and got the idea to throw our packages in it and just push it to the post office. Sweet!

Pez thought we were crazy, but Evenstar and I thought the idea was brilliant. =)

 

Evenstar pushes a shopping cart with our packages that needed to be mailed.

Evenstar started pushing the cart, and it was incredibly loud and noisy. This cart had some trouble! It was a relatively small cart as well, and we figured it might have been from the Dollar Tree not far away--but any identifying marks had long gone missing.

When Evenstar tired of pushing the cart, I took over. And when I grew tired, I offered to let Pez push it for a bit. None of his stuff was in the cart, but maybe--just maybe--he wanted a unique experience. =) He passed on the idea, however, and Evenstar took it over again, pushing it the rest of the way to the post office.

Before we got to the post office, Pez peeled off to the north on his own. The post office was out of his way and he didn't want to walk anymore than absolutely necessary.

When we got near the post office, we ditched the shopping cart by a dumpster. We didn't really care what happened to it. If a homeless person wanted to take it, go for it! If someone wanted to throw it in the dumpster, they could do that as well. We didn't really care. We were done with it, though.

After mailing our packages ahead, Evenstar and I backtracked to the road where Pez had peeled off from us and continued our hike. The road was a huge construction zone and closed to traffic, passing by the library which I had visited the day before, then we headed to the edge of town.

Before leaving town, the trail went by a Smith's grocery store, so we stopped there. Evenstar wanted to go in and buy lunch while I sat outside watching our packs. I had her pick up a cold Coke for me as well. It was miserably hot already! But I wanted to eat the food in my pack because it was far too heavy.

Lots of construction going on along the trail!

Evenstar's trail angel drove by, spotting us sitting outside eating and drinking and chatted for a few minutes. We both thought it was a little weird that he hunted us down. Or at least hunted her down. He had just gotten back from Gallup and seemed to be searching the trail out of town for her, which seemed more than a little creepy, and I think she was happy that I was walking with her at the time.

We eventually left, leaving Grants behind for good. Most of the day, we followed a moderately busy highway out of town, which passed by a prison. Signs warned not to pick up hitchhikers (too bad for thru-hikers wanting to hitch into town!) More oddly, another signed seemed to call it the "Cibola Hospitality Center." If that's their idea of hospitality, I'd just as soon prefer to avoid it!

Evenstar and I largely walked at our own pace along the road but never leaving sight of each other.

Later in the afternoon, we reached a trailhead and finally got off of roads. At the trailhead was a trashcan which I was excited to finally see. On Guthook, people were raving about this trash can. I knew the "reviews" were in jest--but they were pretty funny, and it made me actually want to see the trash bins that caused so much amusement. =)

It was a standard-issue trash can built to resist bears and other animals, but nothing particularly extraordinary. It was what I expected pretty much, but I still needed a photo of myself throwing some trash into it. =)

And from the trailhead, the trail climbed steeply about 1,000 feet up to the top of a plateau where we arrived shortly before sunset and set up camp. The location had a great view looking down from the plateau back towards Grants and down toward the prison. And how exciting would it be if there was a prison escape while we were camped up here?!

The only snake I saw all day was this dead one on the sidewalk. How did it end up on the sidewalk, though? Hmm.....

A park at the edge of town actually created official signage for CDT hikers pointing us to water at the local dog park!

The fire hydrant at the dog park. Cute. =)

I pretend to hitchhike by this sign telling people not to pick up hitchhikers. Talk about a tough place to hitch!

You can call it a "hospitality center," but I'm still going to call it a prison.

Day 35: The Day I Got Shot

May 25: I woke up and soon headed off to the nearby Walmart, where I was promptly shot with, yes, a COVID vaccine. My day had finally arrived! Originally I had wanted to take only one zero day in town, but this was the earliest I could schedule an appointment, and my vaccine was scheduled for 9:00am--typically plenty of time to still leave later in the day--but just in case I felt any side effects, I felt it was better to hang around town for an extra day. Which wasn't a huge problem for me. The Motel 6 prices were reasonable, I had my laptop and plenty of work I could do.

So, I headed a few blocks away to the Walmart's pharmacy section where I filled out the necessary paperwork and soon got jabbed with a needle. I got the J&J vaccine primarily because I didn't know where I would be in a month or how easily it would be to get a second shot at the right time, and even if I could, it might be inconvenient. Nope, I wanted the one-shot vaccine, and then I wouldn't have to worry about it anymore for the rest of the trail.

Afterward, I met up with Evenstar and we walked into town. She needed to go to the post office, while I needed to go to the library to print maps for the next section of trail. We split up to do our respective tasks, but Evenstar surprised me by arriving at the library at the same time I did. She had found a trail angel to give her a ride around town, and rather than go directly back to the hotel, she had him drop her off at the library.

I got my maps printed, then Evenstar wanted to check out a store that sold musical instruments in the hope of playing a violin for a bit. The store had been closed when we went by yesterday, but they were supposed to be open now and they were.

On our way there, I heard someone call out my name. "Green Tortuga!" I looked back and saw a figure I recognized--the bicyclist who was thru-riding the Continental Divide with his wife. I was surprised to see him again. On a bike, I figured they be far ahead of me! But, as it turned out, they weren't actually doing the entire thing in one, non-stop trip. They would bike for a couple of weeks, then go back home for a couple of weeks. Then back on the trail for a couple of weeks, then back home. Which is how we both ended up in the same town at the same time again. The last time I had seen him was a few days before Pie Town.

Anyhow, we parted ways again--not sure if we'd run into each other again even further up the trail or not. =)

The music store mostly sold guitars, but they did have a couple of violins and the employee let Evenstar play it for a bit. Later, Evenstar told me that instrument was "cheap and crappy"--but I couldn't tell the difference. She sounded pretty good to me! 

Evenstar gives a short performance on the
borrowed violin. I think she has some talent! =)

The trail angel had given Evenstar his number and rather than walking the mile back to the hotel, she called him up and we got a ride back.

We went back to our own rooms for the rest of the afternoon. I wasn't feeling any side effects from the vaccine--not yet, at least--and did some work online.

Later in the evening, Evenstar and I met up again to get sandwiches at Subway for dinner. We invited Pez, but he was deep into gaming with his German friends and said that he needed to start saving money and preferred to eat his Walmart food. I was a little disappointed. As far as eating out goes, Subway wasn't a bank breaker.

After dinner, Evenstar headed back to her room, and I headed out to the Walmart to do my real grocery shopping. Assuming I still felt fine in the morning and there weren't any side effects from the vaccine, I planned to hit the trail again! And I'd need food for the next week or so on the trail.

Fingers crossed!

The main street to the library was all torn up!