Day 5 – 25 crossings
Happy Thanksgiving! Today started with 25 river crossings over 3.5 miles. The scenery was beautiful, but the air and water temps were cold! Our feet were freezing! A few stretches of trail were a bit overgrown and frozen plants were cutting our legs (we wore shorts because of all of the water crossings). I think the river has been getting colder the farther upstream we walk. Day one on the river was a blast, and our feet were completely happy and not at all cold. But by day 3 (today), our feet were frozen and miserable. Our waterproof socks are fully soaked through, and we haven’t been able to dry them out yet because of the cold temperatures, so maybe they are less effective now?
After those 3.5 miles, we headed up a trail that took us up and out of the river valley. At the top we were rewarded with a beautiful view of the river, so we decided to stop early and make Thanksgiving dinner! Before the trail we freeze dried/dehydrated tofurkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, corn, sweet potato pie, cranberry sauce, and apple pie. We had a camp fire and cooked up our feast, which tasted great. A hard 1.5 hours this morning turned into an amazing Thanksgiving day overall. -R
Day 6 – 20.4 miles, 2,048 feet of elevation gain
We took our time this morning. The campsite was soooo pretty that we were in no rush to leave. We started hiking at around 9am and decided to loop our way toward the Gila Cliff Dwellings (where we were two days ago) and exit the wilderness there. Our initial plan had been to go farther north, but we have really enjoyed the highlands above the river and this route lets us stay in them for longer (and in the cold river for shorter). We hiked past a TON of wildlife prints this morning: elk, bear, coyote, turkey. Unfortunately we didn’t see any of the animals. We made it to the road right after 4:30 and heard three cars drive by. Unfortunately we missed hitching with them by only a couple of minutes! There were practically no other cars for the next hour, so we made our way to an established campsite near the cliff dwellings and called it a night. Tomorrow we’ll try hitching again first thing in the morning. For dinner we had macaroni and “cheese”. Yum! -T
Day 7 – 0.6 miles
We enjoyed 3 coffees in our tent this morning. We were a bit nervous about the hitch because the highway dead ends at Lava Beds NM, where we were camped, so we figured there wouldn’t be traffic heading out towards Silver City for quite awhile. As we were packing up our bags, the first car of the morning drove by. Tim went out to talk to the driver, but she was headed to a trailhead to start a backpacking trip with her dog. About 30 minutes later, as we were walking the road to find a good spot to hitchhike, the same lady we talked to earlier pulled up. She suggested we take her car—she lives on the other side of the mountain, so if we drove her car to her house, she would be able to walk to her house rather than doing the out and back she was planning. Amazing!! Thank you so so much to Becky (and Cymba) for letting complete strangers borrow your car!! We drove Becky’s car to Silver City to pick up our rental car and went out for a big lunch. Then we dropped off Becky’s car at her house and started the long drive back to California. -R
