CDT Days 4-6 – More desert adventures

For these three days we continued through the desert and walked through basins from range to range. We weaved through the Coyote Hills and Pyramid Mountains. Much of the trail goes from marker to marker through the desert. Usually there is a clear path, but sometimes it is easy to get off track.

Day 4 – Mile 61.3 – Don’t pass up shade in the desert!

Tim woke us up early this morning in hopes of avoiding hiking in the midday heat. We spent the morning weaving through the beautiful Coyote Hills, featuring flowering cacti and colorful rocks. Around noon after hiking 12 miles already, we came down from the Coyote Hills and got to a water cache which we hoped would have shade. The only shade nearby was a trailhead sign next to a small highway. We should have stayed and used the shade, but we pushed on in search of something nicer. We ended up eating lunch next to a creosote bush, which didn’t really offer much shade. We had some wind which helped, but it was too hot to take our desired siesta. We pushed on a bit more and finally found a mesquite bush/tree that offered more shade. We were still too hot to take a nap, but we hung out there for a few hours. This evening we got water from a cow trough. There were a bunch of bulls nearby, but we gave them a wide berth and they left us alone. We saw two other hikers today–Travis, who we meet yesterday, and Kevin. In total we have seen only 5 hikers so far. We are cowboy camping between the Coyote Hills and the Pyramid Range. Clouds are rolling in though and we heard thunder in the distance, so we might have to put up our tarp for the first time. -R

Day 5 – Mile 77.5 – First rattlesnake

Today was a very nice day of hiking. As usual the temperature in the morning was very pleasant. We spent the early part of the day walking across a basin toward the Pyramid mountains. It was nice to do that hike in the morning because it seemed like it would have been very hot later. We found the word “snake” written in the dirt and figured there must have been a snake there once… but just 10 feet ahead there was a rattle snake right next to the trail! It rattled and hissed at us but there was plenty of space for us to walk wide around it. We suspect Case left the note for us — we met him in the morning when he walked past our campsite. As we got near the Pyramid mountains we noticed lots of volcanic rocks. We found a great shade tree in a beautiful area so we stopped for an early lunch. We met Peaches during lunch, who we probably also met on the PCT in 2018. After a couple hours we moved on to the next water source, which was a “tire tank” we shared with several friendly cows. Then we found an even better shade tree and stopped for a couple more hours of resting. After that we hiked on and saw Peaches again, and we ended up chatting with him as we hiked toward the end of the day. We got to another water cache and while filling up our bottles, Radar drove up to refill the cache. It was nice to hear some of the CDT history from him. We hiked on a little bit longer and found a wonderful campsite in a low spot between a few hills, so it is sheltered from the wind. -T

Day 6 – Mile 89.5 – First resupply

This morning as we were eating breakfast 3 horses came over the nearby hill, looked at us for awhile, and then continued on. We met Patches and Backtrack shortly after we started hiking. The CDT went right through the town of Lordsburg, NM today. We spent the day in town picking up our resupply box, eating Mexican food and McDonald’s, shopping for more food for the next stretch of trail, socializing with other hikers, calling our mom’s, and updating social media. Everyone in town was super friendly. We also met a few more hikers in town, including Chimney and 2 others. That brings our total hiker count up to 10 thruhikers in 6 days, which is probably less than we would see on any given day of the PCT. We hiked out of Lordsburg in the evening towards the next mountain range. Around Lordsburg we had to do about 5 miles of paved road walking. Tim has a big blister in between his big and second toes. I luckily just have small blisters so far where I always get them, on the bottoms of my little toes, but they should turn into calluses soon. -R