June 1 Mileage 23 599.5 miles hiked from Mexico At the all-you-can-eat breakfast in the morning I can only finish one plate of food. This is totally unsatisfactory. Well hell, I think. What has this zero done to me. Time to get back on the trail. We hike out of Ghost Ranch at 9 and … Continue reading CDT day 28: more gentle hiking in alpine paradise

May 31 Mileage 0 After the best breakfast ever we're jacked on caffeine and decide, what's the hurry? We've got to wait for the snow to melt anyway, why not take a zero here in this wonderful place, and we spend the next few hours hunched over our phones in the cafe where the wifi … Continue reading CDT day 27: Slow for snow: a zero at ghost ranch

May 30 Mileage 19 576.5 miles hiked from Mexico It's cold again. Dammit! Why is it so cold at night on this trail. Nineteen miles today, to Ghost Ranch and food. We hike out of the ponderosa forest and into the flat baking desert again, mesas rising up around us. Pink-gold mesas, the landscapes of … Continue reading CDT day 26: Ghost Ranch day

May 29 Mileage 28 557.5 miles hiked from Mexico It doesn't rain. It doesn't rain! Oh, cowboy camping, how I've missed you. There is one single mosquito bumping against the cold tip of my nose and the moon is growing moonier as it waxes but no matter. I sleep wonderfully! Today we walk on trail … Continue reading CDT day 25: oh magical mountain wonderland

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!