More zeros.

I'm back in silver city. I was moving around too much up at the hot springs. Add good as they were for my muscle the 6+ miles a day I was walking around up there isn't what I needed to get better. Plus this morning it felt slightly better and I was considering pushing on. If I had stayed up there I would have gone hiking too soon. I'll be in town for three days then I'll reevaluate.

Another day another zero

Still just hanging out up at the hot springs. The ankle isn't any better. It's exactly like the injury in the AT so I don't see any reason to go to the doctor. They'll just say rest, ice, and anti inflammatory meds. They might give me better anti inflammatory drugs but that's it.
I'll probably head into silver city tomorrow if for no other reason than I will move around less in a hotel room.

Doc Campbells

Shin splints were bad this morning. Decided to take a few days of up here. I thought about hitching back into silver city, but then I'd spend 200$ to sit around in a hotel room by myself. Instead I'm up here in by the river worth hot springs and a river to alternate cold hot and speed my healing. If it's still bad after the weekend I'll head to town and get it checked out.

Gila somewhere to Doc Campbells

Woke up early this morning, 530, so I could start hiking at dawn. Boy was that a good idea. I managed to get everything packed up right before a sleet thunderstorm rolled through. If I had lounged around for even one more minute everything would have been soaked.

I had a plan for today, hike early and fast to get to the hot springs. It was a good plan since I was able to generate a lot of body heat to counter the cold and damp from the remnants of the storm. The river crossings weren't any warmer. I thought I might have to stop and thaw out my toes a few times, or switch to my heavy wool socks. They are warmer but hold water. I was able to hike fast enough to just keep everything warm with my rain gear and toe socks. Right around 1030 the sun finally defeated the clouds and everything started to warm up nicely. Which was actually to bad cause I made it to the hot springs around 11. They were beautiful but I think it would have been nice if I had been slightly frozen and used them to defrost.

I soaked in the springs for a half-hour or so while trying to figure out my next move. I could keep going doing another 16+ mile day and not hit the hot springs at Doc Campbells as well as miss the cliff dwellings but I'd stay on schedule. Or I could do a short day and stop at Doc Campbells soaking in the hot springs then do another short day tomorrow to visit the cliff dwellings and end the day at yet another hot spring. The main problem was food. Docs only has a limited resupply and I had sent 6 days of food to cover 125 miles to my next stop. If I dilly dallied around at hot springs I might not have enough food. I decided to see what the limited resupply looked like then make my decision based off that.

I finished the hike up to Doc Campbells having crossed the Gila River 51 times. I somehow managed to get shin splints in my left leg. They started just after leaving the hot springs. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about them yet. Doc Campbells had enough resupply that I can hang out and let them heal here. I can just hole through it, or I can hitch back to silver city and let them heal up there.

There were 3 other hikers at Docs two of whom I had met before. Bearclaw who was at the kickoff, but she's getting off trail due to some rl issues. Boston who I met in Lordsburg and a new guy Gritts that apparently hiked the AT sobo in 13 same as me but a couple weeks behind.

Near hells canyon spring to somewhere in the Gila

After lazing around and not getting out of camp until 8. I finally looked at my maps for today and realized I messed up. Messed up big. I had scheduled 3 days to hike the 50 miles to my next resupply and couldn't figure out why in town. That's why I got out so late and was lazy this morning.  The reason I was planning going so slow was there are HOT SPRINGS. Real natural relaxing rejuvenating hot springs. I had scheduled extra time so I could relax in them. My plan wasn't 3 15 mile days. It was 2 20 mile days with a hot spring before bed, a hot spring for breakfast, then a short hike to Doc Campbells where I'd resupply then soak in a hot spring again. Too late now. To make that work is have to hike 26+ miles with a late start over rough terrain. Ah well I'll just hike as close to the spring add I can then soak in it in the morning.

It wasn't that easy. I'm back up at 6000+ ft. and I felt it. I had a big climb to start the day almost 2000 ft. It was difficult. I made it but to took me the better part of 3 hours to cover 5 miles. To make matters worse I took a wrong turn and hiked an extra 500 ft. After that it was all down hill but my legs were shot. That extra bit of trail killed my legs. It was a long way down to the Gila River but believe it or not it rained on me. It was about as much rain as the last time but still it was different.

Down at the Gila the trail was a bit difficult to find. I guess there was a big flood a few years ago that took out the entire river valley and made the trail difficult to follow. Outside of that it was easier to ford the Gila than I expected. I had read on Facebook the reports of earlier hikers who described it as knee to mid thigh deep. At times it was but for the most part it was a joke compared to the crossings in Maine. I didn't feel the slightest danger. I've only done 13 crossings so far so that might change but I doubt it. I called it quits early on my last crossing my legs felt like they wanted to cramp up.  No matter how easy the crossings are they still require fully functional legs. It was a good thing I did cause as soon as I finished dinner it started to rain again. This time my entire rain fly got wet! Now I'm going to bed with a turkey gobbling just across the river. So far I'm loving the Gila.

Silver city to somewhere near hells canyon spring

Yeah back on the trail again. Had to take care of some bills and what not since I wasn't site when I'd have signal again. That made me late getting out of town so I didn't get moving until noon. On the bright side this meant I was still in town when Alota Gelota, the towns' signature ice cream shop was open. It was really delecious. On the way out I stopped off at Diane's bakery and picked up a sandwich. It was OK. They put too much mustard in it so I couldn't taste the good stuff. But they also had some home made energy bars. Basically peanut butter chocolate oatmeal and nuts. So gooey homemade goodness.

The first bit of the hike was lame. I chose to take a 7 mile roadwalk instead of following the CDT out of town. I am doing the Gila River alternate for this section instead of the CDT. The CDT does 200+ miles over the black mountain range. It is dry. Like seriously dry. Like 80 miles between water sources dry. The Gila route crosses the river 100+ times. Enough said. Anyway since I'm not following the CDT here I don't feel bad about cheating. About 4 miles into the roadwalk a random local offered me a ride. I'm not one to turn down rides on stupid road walks. I didn't and wasn't trying to get a ride but I can't turn down trail magic.

Once I got dropped off the first 7 miles or so was on jeep track. They really should rename this the Continental Divide Jeep Track Trail. Anyway at the end of the Jeep track was an awesome valley with, get this, your never going to guess, a Real Continuous Flowing Creek! That's right real natural water. No cow ponds, no water caches, no pools of stale water, this was the real deal. I hadn't seen any since my second day and that was so sporadic that it was hard to call it a creek. After drinking a couple liters I looked at the map and saw a greener grass. Cause as good as fresh mountain stream water is, fresh mountain spring water wins every time and it was only 3 miles down trail. Oh. Yeah. That's right there was a real trail again too.  Unfortunately it was late and I didn't quite make it, there was a sweet camp spot which I decided to call it quits at. The fresh spring water will have to wait for morning.

In silver city

Since I have time here is the link to my spot tracker. It has a password on it. If you want to know the password just ask and I'll give it to you... the next time I have signal... which could be a few weeks.  My parents also have the password so if you know their contact info you could try ask them.

https://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=1kyuyXn2PTBTQjvrtv98n0QIIkOSAkUzc

Here are some stats to tide you over.

Fitbit steps: 215,675
Samsung steps: 173,050
Fitbit miles: 94.79
Samsung miles: 77.27
Fitbit stairs: 504
Actual trail miles: 83.37

For some reason the phone didn't record my steps on 4/17 very well. It's only half what it should be for that day. Which is why they are lower than expected.

On another note the guy I helped is safely out. I got a call at 5 today asking for the exact location I last saw him so border patrol could mount a search. The other driver who was waiting had hiked in searching but couldn't locate him so when he got back to town they called border patrol to look. It seems he had only made it another 1.5 miles before getting lost or calling it quits. He setup camp to wait for help, which is good since that's what I told him to do. Border Patrol was able to find him shortly after they received the info from me and pull him out a bit dehydrated but in ok shape. I still feel a bit guilty for leaving him and not going back to look for him, but in the shape I'm in now they'd probably have to pull us both out. My stomach has finally settled down so I should be good to go hiking tomorrow. Plus at some point you have to be responsible for your own actions and I think I did enough to ensure he would be ok. I made sure he had what should have been more than enough water to make 5 miles and was in full control of his body and mind when I left him, plus I offered to help him walk back to the border with me. Anyway everything is OK now so I can hopefully let it go and sleep peacefully.

Somewhere near the border to crazy cook

Today was a lot more difficult than it needed to be. I was already low on water since I have most of it to that guy yesterday and I woke up with diarrhea. Joy. I was still well hydrated and the hike to the boarder was easy and downhill. I got up super early to make sure I hiked the remaining 5ish miles before the shuttle and I made it with ease. There was one water source 2.5 miles from the border but I chose not to grab it. It was really bad cow water and there was no way I could get to it without getting soaked. I knew if i could just hold out for a little bit the shuttle would have water. I made it and took a picture like the southern terminus of the AT. Same clothes and everything. I'm going to have to do that at the PCT sometime.

I didn't go back to the water cache to look for the guy I gave the water to since one of the shuttle drivers was going straight to silver city. The other driver said he'd go check on him.

We stopped off at the lordsburg econo lodge to grab my new water filter but it hadn't arrived yet. Thanks 2 day amazon guarantee. I ordered it the day I left but still beat it to lordsburg. I made arrangements with the econo lodge owner to ship it ahead to me in pie town since my ride couldn't wait until 3 when it was supposed to arrive. But while we were working on that the ups guy showed up with it.

2nd water cache to somewhere near border

Got up feeling excited about today's hike. All the nobos were saying it's the most difficult section in terms of terrain. They were right. I had to hike along a mountain range for 12 miles until the was a valley that would let me go south. It was completely cross country of course. The part that made our difficult was the ravines and washes coming down the mountains. At first it wasn't bad at all and I did 3.5 miles in an hour and 15 minutes. But then I hit the ravines. It was just up and down for 9 miles straight. The ground was a gravely rocky mix filled with very angry thorny bushes. Of course the ravines weren't just up and down they had some steep cliffs that you had to hike way out of your way to traverse or just take your chances and scramble down hoping your footing holds. There was a road parallel to this so you could skip it but that's the easy way, you know for northbounders.

I eventually finished that stretch out of water and way tired right at the heat of the day, 130. There is a water cache here and rather than hike 3 more ravines then backtrack to the cache I just followed a wash down. I had damn good timing cause that was when all the shuttles showed up at the cache, and there were a lot of then today. All told 18 hikers had gotten dropped off. The shuttle drivers saw me coming down the mountain and all stopped thinking I was a hiker calling it quits, but I just wanted to get there and confirm that the shuttle would be there in the morning and they knew I'd be there too. The water cache was kinda spooky, it seems one of the bottles had a leak and the entire thing was swarming with bees. They didn't care about me and just wanted the water but too many bees too close for comfort. I'm not even allergic but with the amount of bees I'd be a goner if any of the swarms I saw decidedto attack. There was a girl with her 3 big malamut mutts that was just setting up her camper and told me I could rest under the shade for a bit. I was going to take a break anyway and this let me rest by the cache so I could camel up properly.

As I was packing up to hike again at 3 two hikers came strolling in. They were the girl with the campers. They were crazy fast since they had to have hiked that first  stretch of 13 miles uphill most of the way in about 4 hours. Anyway I knew I'd have to camp dry so I was packing 4 liters out for 13 easy miles, I knew I had too much but I wanted to have done extra for sitting around and waiting for the shuttle tomorrow. It's a good thing I did pack that much up. After about the 6th hiker I passed I started getting told that there was a guy who was way underprepared and was struggling. That I should keep an eye out for him just in case. They were right, when I found him he still had 5.5 miles and 400 ft. to go and he was completely dehydrated and out of water. It's a good thing the others told me about him cause I started saving my water at that point so I still had 3.5 liters left. I ended up giving him 2.5 of it keeping 1 for myself. I probably should have kept more but considering he'd give through 4 already and was only 2/3 the way I decided he needed it more. After getting him hydrated up and giving him some unsolicited advice, like don't try hiking 400 miles while fasting, I decided that he was in as good shape as I could get him short of hiking back to the water cache with him and not seeing the start of the trail, so I left him. I only had an hour and half of daylight left so I wasn't going to make my planned campsite, plus being very low on water I wanted to try get as much hiking in between now and dark. I did pretty well, covered 4 miles in an hour and half with only drinking a quarter liter. At that point it was dark, I was tired and thirsty and called it a night.

3rd water cache to 2nd

Another 20ish miles to go to get to water. The aren't really many other options in this section. The is a good source at 7 miles but it's in a timer which hasn't been figured out yet, so if you get there at the wrong time your drinking from a cow pond.

The hike was very nice I started out with some rolling hills before going down a valley to a dirt road. In the valley the CDT goes up this pointless hill 300 ft up a bare exposed hill only to go right back down. I chose to not go up it and stay in the river wash below. Definitely the right choice since the wash was easy hiking with shade trees! After that was a bit more cross country until I hit the water source on a timer. I was lucky enough to get it when the water was flowing so I quickly drank a liter than filled it right back up. I probably didn't have to treat it since it was will water but I did anyway.

The next stretch was a few miles on a jeep track road over some rolling hills. Pretty boring but good for listening to audio books. About halfway down the road I start to hear the buzzing of a lot of bees. Makes sense since there are yellow flowers everywhere. So I start looking all around trying to find them. The whole time the buzzing is getting louder. I don't see them to my left and start searching the right, as my eyes cross the road I notice some bee shadows on it. A lot of bee shadows. A crazy amount of bee shadows. I look up and directly above me is an entire swarm of bees. It Was Amazing! They had flown off by the time I got my phone out but that was way cooler than a swarm sitting on the side of the road.

The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful. I did run into another hiker that said there was a dead cow at the next water tank. I didn't go check it out since there were a lot of cows around and I had plenty of water.

Miller tank rd to 3rd water cache

With the change of plans yesterday I decided to try push to the 3rd water cache. This would be a really big day, I wasn't sure if I was going to make it since it would be 22+ miles. Yesterdays hike of 20 miles felt good until around 18 miles which was consistent with how I felt hiking from silver city, one more mile a day was comfortable but anything more would be the pits. By this logic a 19 mile day should be ok but anything more would hurt. So just to be on the safe side I packed an extra liter of water in case I had to call it quits before the water cache.

The hike went well, I finished that long stretch across the valley and climbed into some nice hills with a valley running through them. It was still bare and harsh like the rest of NM but it had some great cliffs for me to admire. Coming out of the valley I was on a dirt road with a gentle downward slope. I think this is what allowed me to finish the hike to the water cache. If it had been cross countrythe whole way I doubt I would have made it. Having to stop and find the next marker is surprisingly touring and stressful. When I got to the water cache it was right next to a road, I normally try to get at least a half mile from roads but I was just so tired that I setup camp and went to bed. It's weird being back in hiker schedule calling it a night as soon as it gets dark.

Lordsburg to miller tank road

Not the greatest start I've had. I got out of the hotel room by 635, I wanted to see if the shuttle had space and it was supposed to leave at 630. One of the vans had left but the other was still around, no space of course.

After that I tried grabbing breakfast but the guy using the waffle iron before me didn't spray it with no stick so it was or of commission for 30 minutes, so I ended up eating a bagel and apple danish. Which is fine but I'll be eating bagels and apple nutrigrain for the next 4 days.

To males things even better after about a quarter mile down the road out of town I dropped my Sawyer water filter on the asphalt and it shattered. Not a huge deal since I still have my aquamira drops to purify the water but that only sterilizers the water it doesn't get the nasty cow funk out. I still had 3g so I quickly ordered another one from amazon and will have it delivered to the hotel for me to pick up on my way back through lordsburg. I'm going to try hike the water caches which are 20 or 13 miles apart. That way I don't have to drink any cow funk yet.

Compared to the last stretch into lordsburg the hiking was easy. Next thing I knew I had done 15 miles and decided to take a long break since every mile after was bonus. Surprisingly enough I still had 3g signal and checked my email. Good thing I did to. I had planned on taking a nice comfortable pace of 15ish miles a day and get to the border on the 22nd. According to the email I just got that was one of the days the shuttle didn't run! That meant I could either hike 20 miles a day and get there on the 21st or slow down and get there on the 23rd. I had enough food to do either since I packed an extra day incase I missed the shuttle and had to hike 13 miles out to the nearest road. Based on how I was feeling I thought I could do the 20 miles a day. If I didn't make it I could hike back up to the road and hitch.

So I hiked another 5 miles across the open plain and finally found a spot sheltered from the wind before calling it a day. I could probably kept going but the didn't look like anywhere would be better shelter from the wind.

My trail to lordsburg

What a day. Definitely hiked too far today I'm completely wiped out. I tried to cowboy camp last night it seemed like a perfect night for. The stars down here a bright and beautiful. My cowboy camping went really well and I had a nice sleep going until about 11. That's when a coyote walking down the trail caught scent of me and decided to all it's buddies know. That woke me up in a heartbeat. Nothing like a wild animal yelling at the top of its lungs a hundred feet from you to get the blood pumping. I eventually managed to calm down and went back to sleep. That is until it decided to rain on me. It wasn't much of a rain I think that if I had just ignored it and went back to sleep I would have been fine. But, I have a nice down bag that I'd rather keep dry. Thankfully my tent is designed by some really smart ppl. They made it so you can setup the rainfly with just the footprint. Since i already had the footprint down and staked it only took 30 seconds to get the fly up. The rest of the night was uneventful.

As you recall I had only a liter and a half of water left with one of those liters being that cow funk water. With that in mind I got up and started hiking early so I could try make the next water source before it got too hot. I totally made it, no cow funk for me yet. The water at this source was exactly as advertised, cool clean well water.

At this point I was feeling great I only had 14 miles to go to hit town, full of delecious water and what looked like a nice easy 12 mile flat crosscountry how. I decided to go for town. I cameled up, that means I drank until I couldn't drink anymore, and loaded up with 4 liters of water, which have me 1 liter per 4 miles, more than enough. Turns out it want going to be that easy. Once I got out of the mountains and onto the crosscountry stretch I ran into a big 20+ mph headwind. On the one hand it was nice since it kept me cool and I didn't take a siesta to avoid the heat. On every other hand it sucked. I was already going to be nearing the limits of the distance I could hike in a day at my current fitness level. Adding in that headwind definitely added more effort than I was ready for. I did eventually make it to town but I was completely wiped out. I also think I ended up dehydrated somehow. I'm not sure if I was my pee was a nice hydrated color but when I got to the hotel I wasn't able to get enough saliva to spit. Ah well I'm a day ahead of schedule so I'm going to take tomorrow off and recover. I learned that I'm currently able to hike 15 to 17 miles comfortably but 22+(what my phone said I hiked yesterday based on my step count) is too much still.

Fun stats from fitbit:

steps taken: 143917

Miles hiked: 63.12

floors climbed: 560

From my phone:

steps taken: 97543

Miles hiked: 42.9

Actual miles hiked: 55

Deadmans canyon to my trail

I was pretty worn out after yesterday's 16+ mile hike so I stopped at 4 when those storm clouds showed up. Unfortunately that meant I didn't reach the water. I had enough but was really counting on those hikers report of water in the canyon being correct.

It was apparently rather cold last night since all the dew that normally collects in my rain fly was frozen. I didn't notice in my nice new toasty warm 10 degree bag. I did get the chills but i blame that on the sunburn I got yesterday. I'm not sure how I got burnt since I was pretty liberal with the sunscreen. The only explanation I can find is that it's lost its effectiveness after only a year. Ah well that's why I have long pants and long sleeved shirt.

Today's hike started out rough. The water in the canyon was fantastic but it was a long 2 mile 1000 ft climb up the canyon to the CDT. Then once I got on the CDT it was another 2 mile 1000 ft climb to the top of burros peak at 8000 ft. The climb was tiring and the altitude kicked my ass but I eventually made it up there and had no real altitude issues other than being short of breath. The rest of the trail is all downhill from here, at least till I get back up to silver city. About halfway up the peak I ran into M80 and Trooper again. They were section hiking this stretch to give their dog a chance to heal. It seems she lost part of the padding on her paw and it needed longer time to heal.

From the peak and really for the rest of this stretch of trail my main concern was water. There was supposed to be a creek in 4 miles then a cow trough another 5 miles after that. I still had a liter after the climb up the mountain to making it down the next water source was not gonna be an issue. Turns out about a half mile before the water someone had left sine trail magic water at a road junction. So I drank a liter and a half then packed out another. This gave me 2.5 liters to make it to the cow trough. I only ended up needing one.

Turns out I wasn't thirsty enough to drink cow trough water yet. I still had 2 liters left and only 9 miles to the next water which was reportedly well water. The problem was there was no way I'd make it the tonight and I use a liter for dinner. I was pretty well hydrated but I grabbed a liter of the cow water just in case. I was really hoping that I wouldn't need it.

Since I was going to push to the next water source I decided a good camping spot would be my section of trail. It was 5 miles away but I made it there easy with only using a half liter of water. It helped that it was almost all downhill or flat and cool in the evening.

First day

I had a hard time falling asleep last night even though i was tired from the trail maintenance. I eventually got to sleep but ended up waking up around 530 and couldn't get back to sleep so I just packed up my things and watched some tv since breakfast want ready until 630. I made it down to the trail around 730 and took my first official step on my CDT through hike. Unfortunately today would be 13 miles of asphalt followed by 4 miles of hard packed road walking. Luckily the weather was perfect. It was around 55 when I set out, overcast with a light breeze. The road walk went by rather quickly due to the weather. It was a nice wide 4 lane split highway with a shoulder big enough to fit another car and a sidewalk. The wide shoulder made a big difference, normally my main complaint of walking a shoulder of a road is the slant. After a mile or two my ankles are shot, but with this road that wasn't an issue. Another big help was halfway there was a small town with s post office which had a bench to sit on and a nice green yard with a pair of big shade trees to rest under. After that was a big 3 mile long uphill, very gentle grade but it just kept going. About two-thirds the way up I ran into a couple hiking who said that the water where I planned to stop was running well.
Along the road I almost stepped on a swarm of bees. Its been a while since I've jumped like that. I stopped again with a mile to go since there was a great train overpass to relax under. The shade and breeze were wonderful and I found 20 dollars.

By the time I hit the dirt road I was getting worn out. I still did the stretch in 2.5 hours but I also ended up taking 45 minutes of rest. I definitely am not in trail shape. Ah well the best way to get in shape for hiking is to go hiking. I was planning on taking it slow with a big day little day intervals until I got my trail legs back. Today is a big day in milage but it's relatively easy day in terms of terrain. Tomorrow is going to be the opposite with a fairly hard terrain day but small miles.

I was looking forward to cowboy camping again since its been a long time but with the cloud cover I'm not going to take a chance and I'll throw my tent up tonight.

CDT Trail Maintenance

For the final day of kickoff they take volunteers it to do some maintenance on a section of the trail. When I hiked the AT I stayed at Bob Peoples, an AT trail legend who does a lot of trail maintenence in Tennessee, place and heard his stories about the annual AT kickoff, Trail Days, where they tale groups of hikers to do trail maintenance I've wanted to do that as well. What Bob described boils down to doing trail maintenance makes you have a greater connection with the trail and when you home the section that you did work on you get this great feeling of accomplishment. So I was pretty happy when I saw the CDT was adding this tradition to their trail. I signed up to give them a hand. There was a really good turn out. Considering it's the CDT we still had over 20 people show up to volunteer. I took a shovel and dug water drainage ditches to funnel water away from the trail. We only covered a three mile section of the trail but the were some areas in need of the maintenence.

I'm back in my hotel room got all the supplies I need to hike south to lordsburg tomorrow so I'll be heading out in the morning. I'm not looking forward to tomorrow's hike since it will be 16 miles of road walking but I am very excited to actually being my hike.

CDT Kickoff

I wanted to make it down to the kickoff in silver city by 11 am for a lecture on navigating with a GPS. Unfortunately we underestimated the tone it would take to drive there. We thought it would be about a 3 hour drive but it ended up taking us over 4 hours. There wasn't any traffic to speak of we just didn't realize how far it was. Nectar isn't much of a morning person so she let me drive which was a good idea since the road was very winding and curving and I would have been so car sick.

When we got to silver city the kickoff was in full swing with booths, presentations, and hiker trash everywhere. It was great. Until we got there I felt a bad about talking nectar into coming down since she had to drive back to albuquerque by 10am the next morning, but once we got there she was having such a great time being back in her trail hiking element that I was actually glad I got her to come. She seemed to be having a great time and got a first hand reminder on why she's working her cubicle job.

We only went to the last presentation which was a question and answer session with some experienced hikers which turned out to be an hour and half long story time. After that was when the real party started. They had blocked off a block outside the local brewery and had a band playing. It was great there were people dancing in the street. Unfortunately nectar had to leave at 5 since she didn't want to drive that crazy road after dark so we bailed then. I went to my hotel room and got cleaned up and organized before heading back to the party. I met a few other hikers but there was only one couple, M80 and Trooper, I had sorta meet before in the PCT. We were hiking in the same bubble on the PCT but they had to do a lot of night hiking due to having their dog with them. Pepa, aka buzzard bait the guy I helped in the first day of the PCT, had hiked a lot with them and thought we'd get along. They are about 2 weeks ahead of me since they are already up at silver city but they tend to go a bit slower in the desert to accommodate the dog so I'll probably catch up to them. I didn't know any of the other hikers but fixed myself to be social and introduced myself to as many as I could. I'm not sure if I'll see many of then in trail since they were almost exclusively the young, fit, and fast varieties but there are many miles to Canada and anything can happen.

Albuquerque

Made it into Albuquerque yesterday after a crazy morning. Finished packing up the house and running errands. A little later than I planned but still managed to get to the airport with 30 minutes to spare. With the plane being delayed 30 minutes that turned into having an hour to spare.

Upon arriving in Albuquerque I headed over to my AT friend Nectar's house. She was kind enough to host me for the night and I managed to talk her into heading down to the kickoff with me. Which meant I had an extra day to run around albuquerque.

For my free day I had wanted to ride the tram up mount sandia bit it was shut down for annual maintenance. I had to drive up the mountain instead. I wanted you do a little 3 mile hike up top along the rim of the mountain but the altitude was too much. Going from sea level to 10500 ft was causing me to have a really high heart rate even with the relativity easy hike and I stayed to get foggy vision after about a half mile so I turned back there. I dots get some pretty good pictures though. I then dropped down to 7k ft and did a nice easy 7 mile hike after which I felt more tired than the 10+ mile hikes I had been doing in Maryland. I'm going to blame it on altitude and not the fact that I haven't done any exercise or hiking in the 2.5 weeks leading up to this trip.