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 and scheduled. Various online chores. Breakfast was three bowls of lucky charms and after laundry is lunch at the Del Prado restaurant, some sort of fajita dish I don’t understand. Wifi. Wifi everywhere.

We hike out around five, after many chocolate dipped ice-cream cones from McDonalds. It’s 52 miles to Ghost Ranch, a place that I can’t conceptualize but which apparently has a buffet? Track Meat and Apache are doing the Corn Dog Challenge, wherein one only eats corndogs between Cuba and Ghost Ranch. It’s a challenge of their own invention but here here, now it is real.

Leaving Cuba we climb on a winding road through leafy ranches with ancient, sunken cabins. There are aspens and a stream burbling nearby- a stream! Somewhere, when I wasn’t paying attention, we left the desert behind. Tomorrow we’ll climb up to ten thousand feet, even get a bit of snow- at least that’s what we’ve heard. Camp is a small clearing where the road turns to trail, the sound of rushing water nearby. The sky, for once in our lives, is clear, and we get to cowboy camp. There is no biting cold, just regular nighttime cold. The moon rises above us, almost full.

Photos on instagram