We camped in pinyon pines and grass last night and right away this morning we dropped into a canyon that was pure desert and cacti. We descended to Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian retreat tucked into the beautifully banded canyon. I think it was built on land donated by Georgia O’Keefe. We got there on time to hang out for a bit and then have a coveted All You Can Eat Lunch with the actual guests of the Ranch. While we were waiting we found Chance who had been behind us but had moved ahead by road walking from Chama. He headed out before lunch, because he had had the AYCE breakfast already and was still full.

The lunch was delightful, lots of people chatting with us and then some coffee. I, of course, ridiculously over-ate and had to be hauled out to the trail by Kevin and Piper. The weather deteriorated rapidly as we headed out, going from light mist to windy rain to wind-driven sleet to snow. We were climbing a river valley then turned into a canyon and climbed up the end of it. Everything was generally shrouded in the misty clouds, but what we could see was really pretty.

Large parts of the afternoon were on the same shoe-sucking mud as yesterday but we were mostly laughing about it instead of bemoaning it. We have camped on the lip of the canyon and snow is now accumulating around us. Fortunately, tomorrow we expect to get to another ranch where we will be able to sleep indoors.

Since I’ve stuck with Kevin and Piper for a bit, I should say a bit about them. Kevin is a Jew from Connecticut who has spent most of his adult life teaching snowboarding in Aspen. He loves movies and TV and can talk for hours about them (which is quite handy for whiling away the hours on the trail). Unfortunately, he also loves puns. Piper is a pastor from Missouri who grew up on a farm. He works at a university as a computer programmer, and again, we can go on for hours about “work stuff”. He’s also obsessed with Google stuff, which is marginally less worrying than being an Apple fan-boy. Anyways, they have made this string of crappy weather quite bearable.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 6, 2011
Day 105
Daily Distance: 25 miles
Trip Distance: 2060.9 miles

The snow continued into the night but stopped by morning, letting us get started in relatively dry conditions. We had a small climb and then big drop to a highway. Then we had a very long climb up above 10,000ft then stayed above there for a few hours. What made things interesting is that it started snowing heavily as we climbed. By the time we hit the top there was a solid 6 inches of snow on the ground, making following the trail a challenge. Also, the footing was tough due to the snow covering loose rocks and roots. We were warm enough while we climbed but cooled down once we were on top.

The continued mantra was that we would make it to Circle A Ranch and sleep in a bed instead of our wet tents and sleeping bags. The other thought I had was pure schadenfreude – thankful I wasn’t still way up in the San Juans, probably getting a foot of snow dumped on me.

We eventually dropped down far enough to get out of snow and motored down to the ranch right as the sun was setting. It’s right at the end of their season, so it is very quiet and not much was available for us, but that worked out fine. A warm shower to get my hands functioning again and just eating our trail dinners indoors as the rain picked up again was pretty nice.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 7, 2011
Day 106
Daily Distance: 29 miles
Trip Distance: 2089.9 miles

We hiked out on a road from Circle A straight to a restaurant in Cuba for breakfast. We then tried to check into a motel at 9am, but were told to come back at 11. So, we went and sat in McDonalds and watched the Cuba homecoming parade. We also found Chance there having breakfast, and soon convinced him to join us at the motel for the night.

We did our chores and ate a lot, the usual. We also watched a ton of movies on TV and just had a generally relaxing time. Cuba isn’t the nicest town but it fully covered our limited needs.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 8, 2011
Day 107
Daily Distance: 5.5 miles
Trip Distance: 2095.4 miles

The plan was to hike a full day, so everyone was up at 6am, packing and having breakfast (mine was 3/4 of a pie, HoHos and a doughnut). Then we walked out of town on a highway and slowly progressed our way down to a smaller highway, then dirt road, then trail.

The scenery was really pretty, as we climbed and descended escarpments and canyons. Today was the first day in NM where it didn’t rain, and the terrain matched the weather. Lots of big cacti, sage, and rocks :). There is a huge, lone peak dominating the skyline to the south, Cabezon Peak.

We cruised the whole day, easily getting in the mileage. Probably the easiest day on the trail so far. We had lunch in a beautiful box canyon with a spring, lined with swallows nests above us. The water has been pretty sparse so far, but manageable – we met two springs today. Should be the same tomorrow.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 9, 2011
Day 108
Daily Distance: 33 miles
Trip Distance: 2128.4 miles

Everyone lazed in bed today, watching the long sunrise. It was really cold and no one wanted to be the first out of bed. We still got started early though and all walked together for awhile, complaining about the cold 🙂

We had a big climb after lunch up to a mesa, then the rest of the day across it’s mostly flat and featureless back. There was one side trip down a canyon to a great little spring. That is the only water for the next 24 miles!

Piper and I chatted away the evening hike about computer stuff, so we barely noticed 7 miles go by. Except that as soon as the sun went down the temperature dropped rapidly.

Overall, a pretty fast and easy day. We have a full moon right now, shining on our campsite like a lamp.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 10, 2011
Day 109
Daily Distance: 32.2 miles
Trip Distance: 2160.6 miles

We had a beautiful night under the stars but a sadly pre-dawn start today, due to the ever later sunrises. We hiked some nice flat dirt roads most of the day with a major blip in the middle over Mt Taylor (11,300ft).

At lunch we stopped at a spring and filled up on really good looking water, so good that I didn’t bother to treat it. When we got to the top of Mt Taylor, there was a note in the register from ET saying that he had pulled a dead squirrel out of the spring pipe. Very gross. I treated my remaining water but ugh. He said he was also feeling sick… no surprise!

Down the other side of Mt Taylor we followed some trail to a nice water cache maintained by the Mumms, and were able to dump some of the nasty squirrel water. More dirt road walking got us pretty close to Grants.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 11, 2011
Day 110
Daily Distance: 35 miles
Trip Distance: 2195.6 miles

It was a bit of a rough night with a full moon shining like a lamp in my eyes. On top of that, there was a really gusty wind all night that woke me up at least every hour. In the morning everyone agreed it was a terrible nights sleep. The bright side was that we knew we’d be in town pretty quickly.

We had a pleasant stroll across a Mesa while the sun rose, then dropped down to the highway into Grants. Then we walked into town, passing a prison, followed by a Forest Service office. We were met at the edge of town by a trail angel, Hugo Mumm and whisked away to his house. We met his wife, Carole, and got settled into their spare room.

The rest of the day was a blur of the regular chores, although Carole did our laundry for us and chauffeured us around town all day, while also slow-cooking our dinner! We had an all you can eat Pizza Hut lunch, and figured out logistics for the rest of the trail. It looks like my split from Chance, Piper, and Kevin is inevitable now, as we are committed to finishing at different trail terminuses. They had half convinced me to go their way, in conversations over the last few days. In the end, I’m going to trust that my pre-hike research about which way I would prefer was correct.

We had a big dinner and conversations into the evening, but fairly quickly retired to bed due to lack of sleep last night.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 12, 2011
Day 111
Daily Distance: 8.8 miles
Trip Distance: 2204.4 miles

Hi Everyone, Hailey here. Ryley’s hiking buddy Piper has posted some pictures on his blog. Here is a link to his Flickr album. And if you are interested, his blog is http://borntohike.net/

We took the day mostly off on 112, but we did hike from the Mumms house to the McDonalds on the other end of town. We ended up staying there for a couple hours, eating and enjoying free WiFi. I had some good chats with my parents and started to solidify some plans for getting home from the end of the trail. It turns out it was also Hugo Mumms birthday, so Carole was making us another great dinner, this time with birthday cake (everything was delicious!). We then settled in for the evening, watching The Graduate on TV.

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 13, 2011
Day 112
Daily Distance: 2.5 miles
Trip Distance: 2206.9 miles

We headed out to McDonalds very early, and had a slow breakfast (all 4 of us lingering over coffee and Internet). Most of the morning was through deep Zuni Canyon but on paved and dirt roads with a few cars. It wasn’t too bad and stayed cool almost til lunch. The terrain slowly got more boring and eventually we were just trudging in the warm afternoon until we got to one of the Mumm’s water caches.

After a quick rest break, we headed out into El Malpais National Monument, an area of exposed lava. The hiking through here was really tough, as the trail was just cairns of lava rocks scattered across broken terrain. It felt like real ankle breaker territory. That being said, it was really interesting to look at all the formations as I went through. After 3 hours I came to the other side and was very ready to end the day. I had gotten separated from the others in the lava and when they didn’t show up for half an hour, I set up camp.

I was a little nervous as this area doesn’t have the best reputation on the CDT, but the others finally showed up, hiking by headlamp. We are just off the highway, by another Mumm cache, well setup for tomorrow!

Daily Summary
Date: Oct 14, 2011
Day 113
Daily Distance: 30.2 miles
Trip Distance: 2237.1 miles