In 2021 we walked from Mexico to Canada on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) . The CDT has a lot of alternate routes and shortcuts, but we to stuck to the official trail the entire time (other than when the trail was closed due to fires). The Gila Alternate is an extremely popular alternate that probably 99% of thruhikers take. In 2021 we followed the official route through the extremely dry Black Range, but promised ourselves we’d come back someday to experience the Gila. Well, that day has come! Hello from New Mexico! We are super excited to cross the Gila River 100-250 times, and for hot springs and cliff dwellings.
Day 1 – 13.2 miles, 1,700 feet of elevation gain
We got to a hotel in Silver City, New Mexico at 1am and there was rain in the forecast for the morning, so we decided to sleep in a bit. At noon we walked out of Silver City and into the Gila National Forest. We walked on the official CDT for about a mile, and it brought back tons of amazing memories! It rained lightly on and off during the day, and we even had small hail for ~1 minute, but we saw an awesome rainbow. New Mexico is beautiful, and we’re so excited to be back! -R
Day 2 – 17.1 miles, 3,400 feet of elevation gain
Our plan was to start early. But it was cold and we were enjoying the tent, so we got on the trail at around 8:30. Whoops. The day started out on jeep roads, and we started out wearing a lot of layers. As the sun rose it got warmer and before we knew it we had stripped down to just our sun hoodies. We left the jeep roads and spent a lot of time on single track trails climbing up to a relatively high saddle at 7,800 feet. On the way up we got enough cell service to post our first short video of this trip. But, cell service was very limited so it took a while.
As we started moving again we realized that it was already afternoon and we hadn’t walked very many miles. We picked up the pace, but it was obvious that because of the early sunset (5:10pm) we wouldn’t make it nearly as far as we had planned. We spotted lots of bear poop and some interesting tracks from a small mammal we couldn’t identify. When it got dark we started looking for a campsite. We found one a couple of miles before we are set to hit the Gila River and the many water crossings begin. It’s going to be a cooold morning, and we learned our lesson today — with the days so short, we have to start early if we are going to get this hike done! For dinner we had peanut butter pasta. Yum! -T
