I now have a bunch of photos uploaded and sorted into posts, but I haven’t had wifi access for about 2 weeks. Getting all of these drafts revised and correlated with photos is a bit of work, so check back on previous posts to read what I have to say about those sections…. Meanwhile, enjoy the photos.
New Shoes!
After around 500 miles and all of the lava fields, our soles are flat and our lugs are just nubs. Time for our first new set of tires.
Zuni Canyon into Grants
Despite being a road walk this was one of my favorite mellow parts of this trail.
Zuni Canyon (across the middle-right of the image) cuts northeast through mesas south of Grants NM. The mesas around us were sea floor 259 – 290 Ma ago, (reddish-salmon colored) and as such are limestone and dolomite. These were such a contrast against all of the igneous rock we passed through in the last 2 weeks. And yet, a massive lava flow no older than 700 thousand years ago cuts through the floor of the canyon (yellow) and a few cinder cones are still in view.
There were also two windmills along this route pumping perfectly clear water into a cow trough from above, allowing us to catch it before it fell into the green pool. When we reached Zuni Canyon Road, the hiking was pretty dusty when vehicles passed, but the drivers were usually courteous and some offered water if we needed it. We stealth camped in the mouth of a converging canyon by the roadside and woke to an easy road walk into Grants where town food and sodas were waiting!
Types of Lava
You may not be familiar with the types of lava you could encounter on this trail. Please allow me to help you identify and date some of these fun formations in your environment.
None of these are much fun to sleep on, but some are not fun to be near. We sometimes find it helpful to set up a kind-of fence with our trek poles to mark the lava so we don’t accidentally get too close when taking naps or breaks.
El Malpais
We were sitting at the Toaster House mulling over plans and exchanging ideas with other hikers, several of whom were planning to take the alternate route to skip El Malpais and the Chain of Craters. Water and time were the two resources seemingly in the shortest supply. More time means a heavy food carry, and scarce water means an even more weight between sources. The alternate cuts the route by about 1/3 but is almost entirely road walk. Going through all of the lava flows and rugged country in the longer route is so much more scenic and I didn’t want to miss it at all. My dad once took my sister and I to a cabin in El Malpais when I was young and I really wanted to see it again.
We met a local hiker and cyclist while eating at Ohana (a local diner) who offered to cache some water for us near his home and along our route. Thanks Cousin Eddie! He gave us some info on water sources as well so with this and the other info we gathered, we sketched a plan on a napkin and took a gamble–if we hurried we could take the longer route on minimal food but if we got lucky we could skip some of the straight, mundane road walk by hitching. Either way we could make it through El Malpais, but the later would give us more time to enjoy it.
As it turned out, a dude named Jeff picked us up in his pickup and carried us down the road to the trailhead at the start of the Chain of Craters. Even more fortunately, he personally maintains a section of the CDT in Colorado near his home and is a hiker and cyclist too. We got a ton of great information on the Colorado section of the trail and snow conditions, further solidifying our decision to flip to the north and finish the hike southbound. He left us to go catch his flight back home that day, and we started out over the lava fields with tons of food and a leisurely pace. We would have to make 20+ miles the next day for water and camp, but this day was going to be easy. We were going to get to be tourists and still hike the same distance as the alternate.
The first day’s camping was hard and rocky, but day 2 took us to the Hiker Hideout–a campsite with sand tent pads maintained by ranger Ross. After that bigger day, we slowed down to enjoy this section.
The third morning we climbed to the rim of an extinct volcano and tried to connect back to a trail on the map but were obstructed by a deep, wide trench of lava flow and backtracked around to a small store on the other side. Turns out, that store charges admission to hike a little trail to the base of said volcano. Feeling unaware and a little guilty, we paid the admission since we got a much better hike and a superior view anyway and meant no harm. I wonder what the tourists on the little trail thought about two brightly colored hikers in full gear scrambling around this volcano off in the distance…
Later that evening as we were making dinner at another trail head, a couple of rangers were starting a public tour of a trail we just finished hiking. We joined the group (at a slight distance since we were so damn smelly!) And listened to the presentation on bats at scheduled stops along the way. This trail led us past huge lava tubes, sinkholes and caves to one with an active bat colony where everyone sat down at sunset in hopes of watching the bats emerge. A few noisy kids seemed to keep most of the bats away until the sun fully set and the group left. We sat silently for at least another hour into the night as the bats finally started to show and the stars grew brighter. We hiked back to the trailhead and stealth-camped in a ditch where we finally found some soft sand. The next morning we set out to navigate by cairns through the last lava fields and lava tubes to Zuni Canyon where we turned north and set foot on the most normal dirt we had seen in almost a week.
So I did it. I finally pooped in a plastic bag. This is officially a thru hike. I was in the middle of a lava flow with no dirt for digging. This probably won’t be the last time on this trail.
400 miles! (about?)
Trail mileage gets weird when you take official alternate routes, but here we are…ish.
Davila Ranch to Pie Town
We had enough food to make it to Pie Town, but we heard about a place along the alternate that let hikers stay for a donation and was stocked with eggs and potatoes. We were sold! We grabbed some water from a cache maintained by Jetta and set out for Davila ranch.
A ranching family built a structure on some land and supplied it with water, septic, a refrigerator, two washers and dryers, a shower, and a small ranch kitchen! There was so much food!! OMG!! We even left with some green onions for snacks on the way into town. God how I miss vegetables when I’m out there. John, the rancher, passed us on the way to pie town and tossed us a couple of bananas too. Super nice guy!
Full and clean, we headed toward Pie Town and finally reached The Toaster House hostel.
Cold juice, hell yeah!
I carried this thing for two days and kept it very deep in my pack after getting it cold last night. We just did an 1,800 foot climb, and this is the best shit I’ve tasted in a long long time. Thank you Wayne Wilkinson, you truly were at godsend!
300 miles
