CDT Days 40-42 – New Mexico or Colorado?

Every day for the last three days we spent time in both New Mexico and Colorado!

Day 40 – Mile 751.0 – Yahtzee

Today we started hiking at 6 am in hopes of catching Dirty Money, who we haven’t seen since leaving Cuba five days ago. At around 10:30 am, Lambchop appeared heading southbound followed by Unit and Lunar, which was a fun surprise! We took a break with them to catch up and play Yahtzee. They listed 10+ northbound thruhikers they crossed paths with in the last three days (including Dirty Money one hour before), which is very interesting because we have seen no other thruhikers on this section! After our break with them, we hiked through a campground. We met Charlie, who was out biking, and Cathy. They gave us fig bars and ginger ale. Wow, they hit the spot! This is a long stretch between towns (seven days), and we did not bring any extra food. The landscape today was green and rolling with lots of streams. There were some mosquitoes flying around us at camp, but luckily they weren’t too skillful. Now that it’s dark, they seem to be gone. We did not catch Dirty Money… Maybe tomorrow. -R

Day 41 – Mile 778.2 – Colorado!

Hello from Colorado! We just crossed the border at the end of the day. We celebrated with a couple of mini-shots (thanks Beth!) and then started looking for a campsite. So far, Colorado and New Mexico are almost identical, except Colorado is winning in the Mosquito contest! Our campsite is swarming with them. In addition to the excitement of crossing the border, we had a nice day. This morning we met a 73 year old thru-hiker named Pete. Shortly before crossing the border, we met another thru-hiker named Jason. Now our count is up to twenty thru-hikers encountered on the trail. We reached the highest point on the New Mexico CDT today: 11,040 feet. It was fun to be at the top. There was some snow on the trail today… It is probably nothing compared to what’s ahead! We’ve been hearing lots of rumors about there being tons of snow in the San Juan Mountains, which we are about to hike into. Tomorrow we go into the town of Chama, and we’ll scope out the situation then. -T

Day 42 – Mile 780.0 – “Nero” in Chama, NM

Today we hiked nearly zero miles (known as a “nero” in thru-hiker lingo). We hiked only two miles to the road and then hitchhiked into Chama, NM for the night. It took nearly three hours to get a hitch. But finally we got a ride to Fina’s Diner and enjoyed some huge, tasty burritos (thank you, Charlie and Cathy)! We stayed at the Y-Motel, which was really fun because about 10 other thruhikers were also staying there. It was super nice to socialize! We showered, did laundry, and resupplied at the grocery store. Goose buzzed Tim’s hair off. We also found two Germans in town, Blitz and Pocket Rocket, so we were able to practice our German a bit. It was a fun, relaxing town stop. (Blister update: After seven days with new, bigger shoes, many of my blisters are drying out! 👍) -R