CDT Days 28-30 – Volcanic Landscapes

We hiked through volcanic landscapes including lava rocks and lava tubes. It was very interesting but hard on the feet at times.

Day 28 – Mile 478.4 – Chain of Craters

We woke up late this morning. We heard coyotes calling and saw an antelope while drinking coffee and eating breakfast. Last night I drained more of my blisters. This morning I taped them with Leukotape. It made a huge difference! My feet were feeling much better all day. We got on the trail at 7:30 am. We had a nice trail/cross country travel (with well worn paths) all day. We walked through the Chain of Craters Wilderness Study Area. The landscape was volcanic with lots of lava rocks. We only saw one person all day–a nice backpacker who works for the New Mexico wolf project. -R

Day 29 – Mile 498.6 – Zuni-Acoma Trail

This morning we started with a gravel road walk. This section of trail has had a lot of road walking… On the gravel road we saw a bobcat! That was really cool. Now Renee and I have each seen two bobcats. The last one we saw was in Rhinelander, WI. The gravel road turned into a paved road and then we took a 0.6 mile detour for a break at the “Ice Caves” tourist trap. We didn’t do any of the touristy things… we just ate a bunch of food. We bought almond milk while there. We used some for cereal at the Ice Caves and packed the rest out to put in our oatmeal tomorrow. That will be good! We also ate chips and salsa and we each had a soda and a coffee.

Then we got back to the trail. After the highway we walked over lava flows and saw a bunch of openings for lava tubes below. Then we started walking the Zuni-Acoma trail, which is over 1,000 years old and is also over lava. The Zuni-Acoma part of the CDT is easier to walk on than the other lava-flow part of the CDT… I guess they don’t build trails like they used to! For dinner we had Unstuffed Peppers. Yum!

Day 30 – Mile 522.9 – Grants, NM

This morning we had more Zuni-Acoma trail and lava flows. It was so fun to check out the caves, holes, and cracks in the lava. It only lasted for a short while though, and then we had a 20 mile paved road walk into Grants, NM. The views along the road were quite nice — sandstone bluffs on the right and lava flows on the left — but the pavement was hard on the feet. We met Sleeping Bear on the road and also saw Ginnie. We saw a herd of mule deer jump two fences as they were running across the road. We also saw lots of prairie dogs. We finally got to Grants around 6:30 or 7 pm. Barbara aka Dirty Money, who we hiked with a bunch on the PCT, was there waiting for us! We are spending a night at a hotel, which feels quite luxurious with a bed, shower, and laundry. It is our first time staying at a hotel on a thruhike! We were too lazy to go out for dinner, so we ordered pizza with Erik and Dirty Money.