Day 3: Desert Wildlife

April 23: I woke up and hit the trail. Evenstar got a bit of a head start on the rest of us, and Pez was moving a bit slower than myself, so we all left camp at staggered times. That was okay, though, since we all needed a little privacy to dig some holes in the ground that would need filling. ;o)

Pez slept on his tent after the wind tried to blow it away last night. Here, he's getting ready to leave camp.

I caught up with Evenstar after a couple of hours, and while walking together, I spotted what looked like wild hogs up up the trail. Hogs are out here?! Who knew?! Evenstar missed seeing them the first time I spotted them, but saw them later when we rounded a corner and they were still visible. They were not, however, particularly social and ran off long before we could get close enough for a recognizable photo. 

Later, while talking to other hikers and describing the animal, they said we had probably seen javelinas, an animal I don't ever remember hearing about before but apparently looked much like hogs.

Another hour or two later, Pez caught up with us, but Addie was still missing. We had assumed that we'd catch up with her sometime after leaving camp but by noon, we started wondering if she had camped out of view of the trail and we had missed her completely and she was behind us. Maybe other hikers would catch up with us and confirm that she was, in fact, behind us. 

Pez was beginning to walk a little slow and reported that his knee was hurting. There wasn't really anything we could do about it at the moment, but we suggested taking it slow and listen to his body.

The morning had been cool, but temperatures rose throughout the day until it was uncomfortably hot by the afternoon and every bit of shade was a precious resource. The wind continued to blow strongly, however, which was pleasant in the hot afternoon but an annoyance in camp.

Later in the afternoon, the three of us started drifting apart, hiking at different speeds. I took the lead while Pez with his hurting knee took up the rear. Evenstar was in the middle, but she was struggling from massive blisters on her feet. Despite the blisters, however, she still kept up a punishing pace.

We didn't expect to reach the next water cache until the end of the day, about 18 miles from where we camped the morning before. That was a little more distance that I wanted to do so early in the hike, but we really needed water! There was another water source several miles before that, however, pumped from underground for the cattle to drink. The area was surrounded by cattle who watched me like I had no business being there.

The cattle are watching. The cattle are always watching.

I kept my distance, walking around them, and rested in the shade of an old windmill. It was located next to a stagnant, ugly pool of water, but fortunately, there was a facet from a nearby tank where we could get much better, cleaner water.

While sitting in the shade reading my Kindle, I saw Evenstar in the distance approaching. She carried a large, shiny umbrella to protect against the sun and it flashed in the sunlight every time it shifted in my direction. But then I noticed her bypassing the water. This water source was perhaps a quarter-mile off the official trail, and Evenstar blew right by it. I wasn't sure if this was deliberate on her part or she just didn't realize the water was here, but it concerned me a bit as this was the one and only reliable water source between the two water caches and she hadn't picked up more water since yesterday's water cache.

So I filled up an extra bottle with a liter of water to give to her in case I could catch up and she needed it.

I took a break in the small amount of shade cast by this dilapidated windmill. Fortunately, I did not have to drink the water from that ugly pool behind it!

 

Pez soon arrived at the water and told me that he was going to stop there for the day to give his knee a rest. We chatted for a bit and I was tempted to camp with him, but I also had only so much food to reach Lordsburg so I couldn't slow down too much. And anyhow, Evenstar might soon die of thirst if I didn't arrive with some extra water for her. 

So I parted ways with Pez, but with the hope that he'd catch up again soon.

Not sure why this photo ended up so blurry, but this tank was where I got water from.

 

Another hour or so later, I caught up with Evenstar again and gave her the extra liter of water I carried. She told me that she chose to skip the water not wanting to do the extra miles off trail to reach it and that she'd be okay without it as she was rationing her water and could make it to the water cache without it. 

I told her that I wasn't going to carry a completely unnecessary liter of water and if she wasn't going to take it, I'd pour it out on the ground to save weight. I literally picked it up just for her. I had more than enough for myself and there was no good reason for me to carry the extra liter if she didn't want it.

Once she realized that she wasn't taking water from my supply, she was happy to get the extra water and not have to ration it quite so much. And I was happy to get rid of the extra weight. =)

We pushed onward, eventually reaching the third water cache of the trail not long before sunset. Two other hikers were already camped there, Natalie--who I had met before at the first water cache--and Paddles, her significant other. I was also informed that Natalie now had a trail name as well: Sprout. 

Privately, I thought that wasn't a great name only because I had met multiple different Sprouts before. As far as trailnames go, it wasn't particularly unique--but I didn't bother to say that. There's no rule that trailnames needed to be unique or special out here, and what were the chances I'd run into another Sprout nearby? All-in-all, I hadn't really been meeting a lot of people on the trail. At this point, I could still count them on my fingers.

As the sun set, Evenstar and I set up camp. Once Evenstar had her tent up, she went to work on popping her blisters--which were absolutely massive! I was stunned that they hadn't already popped on their own, and I asked if I could take photos and videotape her popping them. No problem! So I did. =)

You might have have heard of Old Faithful Geyser, but this is its lesser-known cousin, Old Faithful Blister.

 

The biggest blister, however--I'm sorry to report--I missed getting a video of. I thought I had hit the record button and gave Evenstar the signal to pop away, but when I check the video, I realized that it recorded absolutely nothing. I was heart-broken! Noooo! When she punctured it, the blister juice shot out like a geyser, arching several feet from her foot. She named it Old Faithful because it shot out so well.

But she had a second large (but less impressive-looking) blister so we tried it a second time, and this time the juice in her blister shot at me getting on my hand and camera. Come on! That was gross! I'm pretty sure she wasn't trying to hit me with her blister juices, but ewww! And I did get all that on video. *nodding*

Once the sun set, temperatures plunged quickly. It was going to be another chilly evening. Once it got dark, I pulled out my black light again and scanned the area for scorpions, joking with the other hikers that I should start charging for performing a "scorpion check" around their campsites. I imagined walking around from camp to camp and whispering, "Ten bucks for a scorpion check! You'll sleep better knowing there are no scorpions around your campsite!"

And if I could actually find a scorpion, I could trap it in a jar and release them during the night for anyone who didn't take me up on that offer that they shouldn't have refused... ;o)

Anyhow, all joking aside, I did go out looking for scorpions, but given how cold it got, I didn't think my odds were good. So imagine my surprise when, just a few minutes into the hunt, I found a scorpion! It was a tiny little thing--I'd never seen such a small scorpion before. The thing looked like it was a quarter-inch long (or about a half-centimeter). I shouted out to the other hikers that I had found one, and Evenstar came out of her tent to check it out. Sprout and Paddles chose not to.

I tried taking photos, but it just didn't work. My camera just couldn't focus on something so small in the darkness. If I moved the camera too close, it was out of focus. If I moved it too far away, it was too small to see. I took about a dozen photos but could immediately tell none of them clearly showed a scorpion. It was really frustrating for me, but the trail ran through New Mexico for over 700 miles. There would be more, I was certain.

I just couldn't get a good photo of the scorpion. It was so small and tiny! If I hadn't had a black light, I'd never have found it to begin with!

 

"Now that I've actually confirmed there are scorpions around here," I joked with the others, "I'm charging $20 for a scorpion check." =)

And that was the end of the third day of hiking. It was a good, satisfying day of hiking, but I had already lost 2 of my 3 hiking companions from yesterday.

I take a break in a rare patch of shade

Day 2: Following the Yellow Brick Road

April 22: Shortly after waking up in the morning, I noticed a severed head next to my campsite. Well, okay, maybe that's not an entirely accurate description of the situation, but there were antlers attached to the top of a skull--probably from a deer or something, but I hadn't noticed it while setting up camp the evening before. Did some animal leave this as a warning for me during the night?

This felt a bit like a warning to me when I discovered next to my camp in the morning!

 

The answer was a definitive no. When I looked at photos that I took of the campsite the evening before, I actually could see the antlers in at the edge of the photo. (Look at my last blog post, particularly the photo of my campsite under the tree. See the antler cut off at the far right side of the image? Yep, it was totally there but I had been completely oblivious to it.)

I ate breakfast, packed up camp, and was on the trail and hiking a little after 7:00am. The temperatures were still nice and cool, but I knew they would become uncomfortably warmer throughout the day. For the time being, however, the temperatures were cool and pleasant and I was enjoying the walk.

I hadn't walked even a half-mile before running into Pez just as he finished breaking down camp, so we started hiking together.

Meet Pez, my first hiking companion of the trail.

 

We were deep in conversations and following a dry riverbed downstream when we almost missed the turnoff. If it wasn't for the huge arrow previous hikers had made with rocks in the dirt, we'd have missed it completely.

Despite the huge arrow in rocks, we almost missed this turnoff!

But it was maybe 15 minutes later when I realized that we had passed the first water cache. I had assumed the water cache was directly on the trail but, as it turned out, it was further down that dry riverbed where it crossed the gravel road. Well... crap. We really needed water!

We thought about just pushing on, not wanting to backtrack. Maybe we would find some uncharted water source along the route? Maybe we had enough water to make it to the next water cache? Ultimately, we decided that the smart and safe thing to do was to go back for the water. What kind of dumbass would voluntarily hike through the desert without enough water? The relatively comfortable temperatures at the moment, I knew, were deceiving. It was going to get much hotter throughout the day and there wasn't going to be much shade. No, we really needed the water.

Rather than backtracking directly, however, we decided to go cross-country to shorten the amount of walking that was necessary. It wasn't particularly difficult walking off-trail through this barren terrain, but it did mean I had to stop more frequently to check my GPS and make sure we were headed in the correct direction.

Not a lot of water out here.... better safe than sorry, we decided to backtrack to the water cache.

 

We finally arrived at the water cache where we found another hiker, Natalie. I was a little surprised to find her here since I had assumed anyone who had taken the morning shuttle the day before was far ahead having several hours of a head start, but she had backtracked herself to get water. I think she wanted a little extra water to find a hole in her airpad which had popped during the night. She would be just the first to suffer this calamity.... A lot of hikers would complain about holes in their airpad through these deserts. Thorns and needles ruin them at a horrific rate.

Anyhow, Natalie took off down the road to catch up with her significant other after picking up water. Shortly thereafter, a small van full of fresh thru-hikers pulled up to the water cache. Pez knew the driver--he was the same person who had given Pez a ride to the Mexican border yesterday afternoon. This was the morning shuttle on their way to drop off half a dozen or so more hikers. 

"Save yourselves!" I joked. "It's a brutal desert out there!" Nobody took me seriously, though.

He checked the water levels and topped up the large jugs with clean water before they all piled back into the vehicle on their way to the Mexican border.

Then Pez and I headed back to the trail, not wanting to follow the gravel road. Instead of going cross-country, however, we decided to head back up the dry riverbed to the same giant rock arrow in the sand that we had almost missed coming from the other direction.

"You know," I told Pez, "it would have been to our advantage if we had missed that turnoff. We would have ended up right at the water cache instead of the backtracking that we had to do. And by the time we reached the water cache, we would have realized that we were off trail and turned back--after picking up the water we needed."

I'm not sure I was ever in a situation where, in hindsight, I wished I had missed a correct turn!

Oh, well....

This particular trail marker was huge! Most of them were much smaller and unobtrusive with a simple post in the ground and a rock balanced on top.

A couple of hours later, Pez was telling me that he planned to avoid political topics while on the trail, not wanting to offend or upset anyone when suddenly a voice came out from nearby, "You guys are talking about politics out here?!"

"No! We were talking about NOT talking about politics!"

This new hiker was Addie, who was sitting under a small patch of shade next to a tree. She moved over so we could squeeze under the little bit of shade with her and chatted for a bit. Addie wasn't planning to thru-hike the trail, but rather was out for about 6 weeks to get as far as she could. She dreamed of thru-hiking the trail someday, however.

Meet my second hiking companion, Addie.

 

Eventually, the three of us got up and continued the hike together. I kind of felt like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, collecting walking companions along my way to Oz. Which made we wonder which of them was the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion? Just need one more hiking companion to fill my card. =)

By this point, the trail was becoming increasingly difficult to follow. The hard-packed ground often didn't leave a visible trail or was difficult to distinguish from cow trails and we had to resort to looking for the posts in the ground that marked the trail periodically. Often times, we stopped completely and looked around the terrain.

"Does anyone see the next post?" we kept asking each other. "There!" another one of us would point.

Pez commented that he thought it was weird that people would put rocks on top of the thin posts, but he quickly realized that often times, we could only see the post because of the rock. The post itself tended to blend in with the background making it difficult to see while the rock on top stood out much more clearly.

We pushed onward, through the increasing temperatures, over rolling hills, and I found it quite beautiful in a desolate wilderness sort of way.

I was on the lookout for another shady place to rest and told Pez and Addie that even if we didn't find one before the next water cache, at least the water cache itself would cast a bit of shade and I'd be happy just to have that!

No matter what, I thought, I was gonna get some shade.

Then as we approached the water cache, I noticed another hiker sitting in the shade next to it. I turned back to Pez and Addie and exclaimed, "Someone took my shade!" I was stunned. Who was this person?

It turned out to be Evenstar, and when I introduced myself, she said she knew me. She did? What? She was a member of Walking 4 Fun and had even emailed me about creating a Boston walking route for the site, and it clicked. Yes! I did know her! At least online. I'd never met her in person before, and never before had I met someone who already knew about Walking 4 Fun before I told them about it. This was pretty exciting for me. How cool! =)

Meet Evenstar, my third hiking companion, stealing what little shade the water cache could provide.

The shade that the water cache cast was on the small side of the box and didn't leave much room for others, so I sat down and sprawled out nearby. I pulled out my umbrella and popped it open to create my own shade. It's not as effective as a good block of shade, but it would have to do.

While chatting with Evenstar, two additional hikers showed up, but they were heading southbound toward the Mexican border.

 "You know," I said jokingly, "you're headed the wrong direction. Canada is that way."

They explained that there wasn't any space on the shuttles to the border so instead, they'd hike to the border then take a shuttle back. There was plenty of space on the shuttle back to Lordsburg since almost everyone was traveling the opposite direction. Made a lot of sense, really. I was surprised more people weren't doing that, actually.

The water caches were a popular place for hikers to hang out. You know Pez, Addie and Evenstar already. The other two hikers were heading in the opposite direction of us, however, and I don't remember their names.

After lounging around for an hour or so, we got up and continued onward. Now I had a full complement of hiking companions! Even in the movie The Way, Martin Sheen ended up with three other hiking companions. For some reason, groups of 4 seem like the perfect number. That's just not my opinion, but also proven out by all the movies ever made about hiking a trail since the time of Oz. =)

We finally stopped hiking about an hour later, calling it quits at around 6:30 in the afternoon. This was much later than I expected when I woke up in the morning. My GPS had recorded 17.7 miles from where I camped in the morning so I hadn't actually made very bad time, but the backtracking to that first water cache and losing the trail so often really seemed to add up throughout the day and I was absolutely exhausted. At the same time, I felt like I couldn't stop too early because I only had so much food to get me to Lordsburg. I needed to hit my minimum targets each day to ensure that I didn't run out of food!

Pez pretends to hitchhike into Hachita at a road crossing.

 

Addie decided to go a bit further up the trail to camp alone, saying something about liking to run around topless in camp. I replied, "Oh, come on.... you can do that with us. I don't mind!" 

But she wasn't convinced to stay, so Addie pushed on a bit further, but she looked pretty tired and I doubt she went more than 10 or so minutes further up the trail before setting up camp. Pez, Evenstar and I set up at a decent-sized mostly-clear area. I figured we'd just catch up with Addie again the next morning.

Evenstar and I got a good laugh at Pez when he struggled to get his tent up against the relentless wind, which eventually collapsed completely at one point. Pez seemed to have a good sense of humor about the situation as well, but was definitely annoyed with the wind.

After it got dark, I pulled out my blacklight and started hunting for scorpions. I didn't expect to find any--it seemed too cold for them to be out now that the sun had set and our campsite was barren of the rocks where I typically find them, so after about 5 minutes, I gave up. 

And that was that. The end of the second day.

We're looking for a place to camp now!

Day 1: An arbitrary border across the land....

April 21: I woke up in a strange bed. I was at the Econolodge in Lordsburg--the last civilization I would see before starting my thru-hike of the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) from the Mexican border to the Canadian border. At least that was the plan. With about 3,000 miles from start to finish, there's always the very real chance of not being able to finish for a thousand different reasons. My previous experience with successful long-distance hikes was no guarantee of success. In fact, my last attempted thru-hike, along the Pacific Northwest Trail, had failed, and I needed to complete that trail the next year.

Two days earlier, I had flown into Phoenix to meet up with my mom, and the previous day, we drove out from Phoenix to Lordsburg, a small town near the southwest corner of New Mexico.

Lordsburg not only was the last decent-sized town before I started my hike, but it was also the first trail town of the trail. In fact, the CDT ran directly through the town. We had already seen dozens of hikers all over town, but I didn't know any of them. Not yet, at least!

I took a shower--the last shower until I arrived in Lordsburg again in a week or so after traveling through the Chihuahuan Desert on foot--and shaved for what would likely be the last time until I finished the trail five or six months out.

I packed up all my gear and we headed out to the truck. Before leaving town, we dropped by the McDonalds mostly because it was fast, easy and nearby. Mom wanted to take me out for something a little nicer with more substance like Denny's, which was tempting, but I wanted to get on the trail and start hiking.

Breakfast completed, we drove out of town.

A water cache, stuffed full with the most precious resource one can find in a desert!

There are 5 water caches along the trail between the Mexican border and the town of Lordsburg. From what I read online, I didn't really know what was happening with them. I saw comments about them being filled regularly, not being filled regularly, water being stolen out of them and I didn't know what the heck to believe, but since I had my mom with a vehicle, I figured I'd just put my own water in the water caches and make sure there was a Plan B in the event that my water was missing by the time I arrived on foot.

So we started driving to water caches on our way to the Mexican border. I found a hiker breaking camp at the first water cache, and we talked for a minute or so before I threw a couple of gallons of water into the cache and returned to the vehicle for the ride to the next cache. There was a lot of water already in the cache, but I figured there was no good reason not to add my own either. Otherwise, it would just go back with my mom.

The second water cache was basically the same thing: a bear box in the desert. Although bears aren't a problem out here, other animals do exist: coyotes, javelinas, rattlesnakes and more. And that doesn't include a lot of things that can poke and puncture containers with water: the thorns and needles that decorate pretty much every plant you'll find out here. Even the sun alone, given enough time, can break down water containers into useless pieces of plastic.

When we arrived at the third water cache, a trail angel was waiting at the side of the road to hand out snacks and goodies to any passing thru-hikers, just as a half-dozen thru-hikers arrived at the road. It was a party at the water cache! Or at least on the side of the road near the water cache. The actual cache was located perhaps 1/10th of a mile down a dirt road. 

I opened the gate to let my mom drive through just as a second trail angel arrived to restock the water cache, so we both drove down to the cache. He introduced himself as Radar, and I introduced myself as Green Tortuga.

"I met a Green Tortuga once," he told me. "On the Florida Trail. In... 2008." 

I couldn't help but smile. Yep, definitely me. I took a closer look at him but came up blank. I couldn't remember meeting the man before. 

He continued talking before I could say a word, though: "Him and his girl tipped over in a canoe."

Ah-ha! Now I remembered him! Yes! It was a very brief meeting, and I was surprised he remembered me at all. It was the fact that we tipped over in the canoe that made us stand out. If that hadn't happened, he explained, he probably wouldn't have remembered me. Tipping the canoe was particularly memorable. Our meeting was so brief, I didn't even mention Radar by name in my blog post about the day.

Small world.... who knew that our paths would cross again 13 years later on the other side of the country.

Anyhow, we chatted for a few minutes and Radar told me that he was stocking the water caches on a near-daily basis and had 300 pounds of water in his truck. My leaving water in the caches wasn't particularly necessary. At least not at this time of year while he was stocking them regularly for the thru-hikers.

So mom and I decided to skip the next water cache which was slightly out of our way to the Mexican border. Radar said he had just come from it and it's plenty full.

We did stop at the fifth and last water cache, however, since it was literally on the dirt on the way to the Mexican border and not out of our way at all.

Once we got off the paved road, our progress slowed down dramatically. To say that my mom was a little cautious driving on gravel is something of an understatement. I kept encouraging her to drive faster. Faster! Faster! =)

The gravel road portion of the drive lasted about two hours in all. I didn't expect to see any thru-hikers on the road since the CDT only crosses the road rather than follows it, but we did pass a couple walking down the road after they decided to take alternates.

The CDT is often referred to as a "choose your own adventure" kind of trail due to the abundance of alternates. The Appalachian Trail and Pacific Crest Trail generally have one, main route that almost everybody follows the entire way. Alternates on those are only used due to heavy snow or wildfires, and even then they're typically made up on the spot and aren't an established route. The CDT has countless well-established alternates, although my plan was to largely stick with the main route. I was surprised to see people taking alternates already. There didn't seem to be any reason for it as far as I could tell. Why walk down a gravel road shared with vehicles when you can walk on a real trail away from noisy, dirty vehicles? Looking at my maps, I wasn't even sure that the alternates were that much shorter either. 

But whatever. I didn't really care if a couple of others wanted to use the alternates. I just found myself surprised by it.

The last couple of miles to the border was along a particularly bad section of gravel road and my mom eventually pulled over and told me to get out. She wasn't going to drive any further! It was scraping the bottom of her truck despite it being a fairly high-clearance vehicle. (I still think she aimed for every large pothole she could hit to justify kicking me out early!)

So anyhow, we hugged and parted ways while I was still about 1.5 miles away from the Mexican border.

My mom drives off, leaving me to fend for myself through this hostile terrain. =)

By the time I finally started hiking, it was about noon. Temperatures were warming, but it wasn't especially hot. Not yet, at least. The highs for the day were expected to hit about 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius). Which was plenty hot by my Seattle standards, but not especially hot by New Mexico desert standards. I had heard that the previous week often saw days in the 90s, so I was glad things were a bit cooler now.

I slathered on some sunscreen, then picked up my pack and followed the gravel road, reaching the southern terminus of the CDT and the Mexican border about a half hour later. I stopped to take some photos and videos, of course.

Nothing more than a barbed-wire fence separated me from Mexico, and there was a good-sized hole in it that I slipped through to the gravel road on the other side. I actually think that the gravel road is officially part of the US despite being on the other side of the fence, however, because it was unusually wide, flat and well-maintained and followed along the fenceline. 

 

Do I dare cross the fence into Mexico? YES! I dare! Well, maybe... I think that dirt road on the other side is actually still--technically--within the US.

The Mexican side of the border had a lot of farms and there were dirt roads to access those, but this dirt road seemed overkill for the small farms. No, I suspected this dirt road was created by the US border patrol to make it easier for them to monitor the border and quickly drive to any point along it. And if the US border patrol made the road, then it was probably still US territory. Mexico didn't actually start until the other side of the dirt road.

At least that was my theory. I didn't know for certain because there were absolutely zero signs to mark the border. Just that flimsy barbed-wire fence and the massive gravel road on the other side of it. I suspected the fence was more to keep cattle in the US than to keep people out of it. The road was probably used more for keeping people out of the country.

The monument marking the southern terminus is called the Crazy Cook Monument, and it was definitively on the US side of the border next to a small, covered area that provided some shade.

The Crazy Cook Monument marks the official southern terminus of the CDT. And look at that shiny, new backpack I sewed for the trip! I finished sewing it just a few days before starting this trek.

After taking all of the obligatory photos, I put my pack back on and took my first few steps along the Continental Divide Trail toward Canada. The adventure had officially begun!

The terrain, as you might imagine, was what you might expect from a typical desert. Very dry, very little shade, and cactusy. The afternoon was blustery, but I found the wind pleasant in the warming temperatures. The ground was largely flat, rising slightly for several hours before descending slightly for a couple of more hours. Nothing particularly strenuous.

I did lose the trail once, however, when the trail dumped out into a riverbed. In the dried riverbed, the trail was unmarked and I lost my way navigating up the varies gullies feeding into it. I had a GPS to help lead the way, though, so I never got too far off track, but I found myself checking my location compared to the trail often through this section.

I didn't used to find these on the trail until the past year or so....

Whenever I came across a good-sized shady section, I always stopped for a break. There wasn't much shade out here and it seemed criminal to walk by a shady location without at least a short break. In all, I took three rest breaks all afternoon.

Near sunset, after having completed about 12.3 miles of hiking according to my GPS, I stopped for the day under a large tree in a dry riverbed. It was a nice location, and the tree helped break the blustery wind that continued to blow.

My first campsite of the trail. 'Twas a beautiful location! =)

I cooked dinner, brushed my teeth and was reading my Kindle when I heard a hiker approach along the trail. It was the first person I had seen since my mom left! The other thru-hikers, I knew, had gotten a shuttle early in the morning and were ahead of me so there was nobody around when I started my hike and therefore nobody to run into on the trail.

The sun had long since set and it was already quite dark as the hiker arrived at my camp at about 9:00 in the evening. I figured he'd join me under the tree--I was excited to meet some other thru-hikers! He introduced himself, and he had a distinct German accent. I didn't imagine I'd meet a lot of Europeans on the trail this year due to Coronavirus travel-related restrictions, so I asked him about that and he said that he had to spend 2 weeks outside of Europe before being allowed into the United States and had therefore spent the last two weeks enjoying the beaches of the Dominican Republic. Wow!

I found myself a little jealous, actually. Not that I'm particularly fond of beaches per se, but I'd never been to the Dominican Republic before and it sounded pretty exotic and interesting.

This was the hiker's first thru-hike and he didn't have a trailname yet. Later, he'd get the name Pez, but I'm going to start calling him that now because his real name doesn't matter and that way his name won't "change" later in my blog after he does get his trailname. =)

Pez told me that he had started hiking from the Mexican border at about 4:00pm. He took a shuttle, but was the only person on it and figured that we were currently the last two hikers on the trail with nobody else behind us. I encouraged him to set up camp nearby, but he seemed hesitant saying that he'd be making noise and didn't want to disturb me. I doubted that would be a problem unless he had a tuba or something hidden in his pack...but that seemed unlikely. In any case, I couldn't convince him to join my camp and he walked off into the night.

The rest of the evening I had to myself. The stars twinkled, the wind blew through the tree, and it was a relaxing evening of watching Netflix on my phone for the rest of the evening.

It was tempting to stop in this little bit of shade, but I eventually decided it just wasn't enough. I couldn't fit completely in the shadow.

This is a shady spot I could use! And a good self-portrait of the last shave I'd likely take for six months....

Definitely not a lot of shade or water out here!

I took another rest in this bit of shade where the high edge of the riverbank cast a shadow into the gully.

Day 9: The End of the Lone Star Trail!

March 3: The night got a little cold. Not freezing--it wasn't that cold--but probably close to it, and it was definitely my coldest night on the trail. My sleeping bag kept me plenty warm, though.

I started hiking immediately as soon as it was light enough for me to take photos. I wanted to finish and get off this trail as quickly as possible. I had 11 miles to do to reach the end, and I figured there was a good chance I could finish by noon. Awesome! 

Early in the morning, steam rose from the rivers and puddles along the trail--just more evidence of how cold it got during the night--and I enjoyed watching the clouds of condensation swirling around the water.

 

See the steam rising from the puddle?

The first half of the today's hike was basically more of the same as yesterday, but the last half through the Winters Bayou section had a lot of swamp walking. I probably walked through more water in these 5 miles than I did the entire rest of the trail combined. It wasn't problematic--just different and reminded me a lot of the swampy sections of the Florida Trail.

Near the end of the trail, I crossed paths with four day hikers who had a few questions about the route and seemed delighted to find a real thru-hiker to ask.

And then, I was at the end of the trail. I tried asking the day hikers--who had just finished their own hikes--for a ride a few miles into the small,. nearby town of Cleveland, but they were actually headed in a different direction and not toward Cleveland. I was a little disappointed that they wouldn't go out of their way--Cleveland was only five or six miles away. It wouldn't have been a huge burden to drop me off in that direction, but I understood.

It was still much more than I wanted to walk, however, so I pulled out my phone and tried to see if I could get an Uber or Lyft to pick me up with the little bit of power still left on my phone, but alas, neither of them reported any vehicles that were currently available. I installed both of those apps when I was hiking into Forks on the PNT last year and it didn't do the least bit of good for me then, and it didn't do the least bit of good for me now. I idly wondered if I should just uninstall those apps. I have yet to successfully use either of them.

I celebrated my completion of the Lone Star Trail with a selfie. That was pretty much it. Just this selfie. =)

So then I resorted to my usual tactic at a trailhead with no service--I stuck out my thumb and tried to hitch a ride.

I spent about a half hour doing this with without any luck. The traffic on the road was good, but it seemed likely that none of them were hikers or would be the least sympathetic toward my plight. I didn't know how much longer I would have to wait before someone eventually offered a ride so I gave up. Screw it! I'd just walk into town. It wasn't too far to walk. Maybe it would take longer, but at least I knew I'd eventually get into town in a couple of hours.

And I started walking. The road walk was utterly miserable. It was a busy road with fast-moving traffic and didn't include much of a shoulder to walk on. At least dogs running loose generally weren't an issue, although several did bark to me from behind their fenced-in yards. The road walk also did not provide much shade, and it was a warm in the sun. A little bit of shade would have been nice.

But I covered ground quickly and crossed the San Jacinto River near the city limits of Cleveland a couple of hours later. The river was considerably larger than it was when I forded it 25 miles back, and I was really glad I didn't have to ford it now! 

The San Jacinto River was much bigger than when I forded it about 25 miles back!

I had made a reservation with the Motel 6 in town the evening before and asked about running water and hot water before committing to it. I wasn't going to make any reservations online while I was in Texas. No, I was going to call them up on a phone so I could ask about water, and especially hot water!

So I followed the road into town toward the Motel 6, but veered off at a Taco Bell along the way. It was past lunch time and I was ready for food that I hadn't carried on my back. The restaurant was open and even allowed limited dine-in seating which I took full advantage of. Being after the main lunch rush, the restaurant was empty of other customers which suited me just fine.

After lunch, I continued onward to the Motel 6. I checked in and plugged in my phone to start it charging up with only 7% battery power left. Then I jumped in the shower with hot water and took my first shower in 11 days--back in the days that I was still in Seattle.

My walking days were over.

I'm not going to blog about the next several days I spent in Texas--this blog is called Another Long Walk, after all! But for those you curious about the rest of my stay, Amanda came out later in the evening. The next day, we drove down to Houston to explore the Houston Space Center which was enormously interesting and fun. The day after that, we headed out to Waco to check out the Mammoth site and the Dr. Pepper museum. 

Mostly, we were just killing time until Saturday when there was the 18th Texas Annual Letterboxing Event just outside of Meridian, after which we drove back to Houston to fly back to Seattle. The end of another adventure!

'Twas another beautiful, clear day!

I passed by this designated camp. I wondered if the two hikers I met yesterday had camped here, but if they had, they had already left before I arrived.

The trail clearly followed an old railroad bed along this section.

The Winters Bayou section had a lot of water on the trail!

The trail crosses the San Jacinto River again, but this time there was a bridge to get across it. No fording this time!

Even when there were boardwalks along the boggy sections, they weren't always useful....

This river is Winter Bayous and what this section of trail is named after. And, fortunately, there was a bridge across this river because it would have been a deep one to ford otherwise!

The last mile of the trail, I started seeing a hint of the arrival of spring! =)

'Twas a long, miserable road walk into Cleveland.

There's just never enough pipelines in Texas!

These tracks look like they're about to undergo some maintenance soon.

The beginning of the end of my road walk!

And I stopped at Taco Bell for a late lunch. =)