May 28 Mileage 8 529.5 miles hiked from Mexico 5 hour hotel sleep lets me accomplish so much. How can a person rest when there's ELECTRICITY? Sleeping is what happens in nature. By the time the boys start to roll into town late morning I've gotten almost everything done. Shower, resupply, all my blogs finished … Continue reading CDT day 24: leaving the desert behind

May 27 Mileage 34 521.5 miles hiked from Mexico Now that we're camped way down near six thousand feet, the cold never arrives. There's a stillness, a windlessness, on this flat sandy mesa, and I sleep cradled within it. The sky is gentle, the lightning-gnarled trees are gentle. The small soft stick-breakers do their dances … Continue reading CDT day 23: rock formations of magic

May 26 Mileage 32 487.5 miles hiked from Mexico When I wake up I realize that I left my shoes outside my tent and they're now frozen solid. Dammit. I make hot tea with brown cow water in my pot, which is still coated in the remnants of last nights' dinner. The end result is … Continue reading CDT day 22: summer was there all along

May 25 Mileage 27 455.5 miles hiked from Mexico In the morning it's overcast, and an icy fog hangs over everything. Fuck it's cold! I say, like a broken record, as I boil water for tea. I have reception, somehow, and I get a message from Threshold, a fellow CDT hiker who I also share … Continue reading CDT day 21: embrace the suck

May 24 Mileage 20 428.5 miles hiked from Mexico Ye ol' five hour hotel sleep- I mean to hike out early but Denny's is right next door and we all tarry eating underwhelming breakfast items and drinking watery coffee; I remember in 2013 on the PCT when I was at the Dennys in Lake Tahoe … Continue reading Day 20: pizza on the side of the road and the sawyer SipSip

May 23 Mileage 10 408.5 miles hiked from Mexico Walking the 10 miles into town fast in the pre-dawn chill wearing all my layers watching the sun throw yellow/orange light on the sandstone cliffs. Edge of town is barking dogs in bare dirt pens, a handful of sheep, a foal. Picking up my stove from … Continue reading CDT day 19: Grants, ho!

May 22 Mileage 30 398.5 miles from Mexico The sky clears sometime in the night all the clouds and wind gone and when I wake to pee it's just stars, stars. Hello stars, I think. It's been a while. Morning brings condensation and that pre-dawn chill and I shiver awake. It feels good to be … Continue reading CDT day 18: surprise rock scrambles and pooping on anthills

May 21 Mileage 30 368.5 miles from Mexico The night is black and still and I have sad dreams about people living lonely lives and wake once in the middle of the night to stare at the thick darkness of the trailer, wondering what its narrow halls have seen. Mostly, though, I sleep. Sweet, sweet … Continue reading CDT day 17: hermits pottery and old stone houses

May 20 Mileage 15.5 338.5 miles from Mexico I'm awake for much of the night, how it usually is in town. Ah, well. As soon as the birds start to sing I'm up, doing this and that, making instant oatmeal from the hikerbox, watching the other hikers stumble around the cold kitchen, woodstove just beginning … Continue reading CDT day 16: more rural New Mexico magic

May 19 Mileage 17 323 miles from Mexico Wake up in the frosty morning ice covering everything and pack up as the sun struggles over the distant hills. I hear there's major snow north of us- I wonder what Colorado will bring. I wonder what will even happen there. It's good then that I started … Continue reading CDT day 15: don’t believe the hype