I woke up early to catch the sunrise and it was great. I've seen better in NM but none of those had scenery to compare. Since I was already up I just started hiking. The miles flew by. It helps that it was all down hill or on brand new trail. You could tell it was brand new cause it just ended and you had to follow stakes for a couple hundred feet. Guess they are still working on it. I made it to the next water source 7.5 miles away by 9 am.
I then lingered for 45 minutes trying to figure out what to do next. I have a package at the post office, I hope, in pie town but I won't get there until 5 pm Saturday at the earliest. The post office closes at 930 am. The only way I'd make it is if I did another 35 miles on top of the 7.5 I've already done. That means either I hike slower or I take another zero. As awesome as pie town sounds I'm sick of zeros. That gives me the option of continuing my planned route following Ley's road walk that takes me directly into town, or taking the official trail and hiking(or hitching) am extra 12 miles into town. Since I have time I want to do the official route, especially since they have added a lot of new trail in that section. The dilemma is my shin splints. I should get to town and take a zero to rest them. The 20+ miles I've been doing don't seem to be making them worse but they aren't healing either. I eventually decided to take the official trail due to water. The first 35 miles of the official trail has more water than the road walk. The road walk starts out with a 18 mile carry over a 9500 ft mountain. The second half of both routes are equally bad for water.
Having now hiked it if I were to do it again I'd do the first 11 miles or so on the trail. Fill up on water around mile 9 then take a road walk to the Ley route. That would let me enjoy the new trail, not have major water issues for the first 20 miles and still get to see the view from the lookout tower on the 9500 ft. mountain. Then have an easy road hike into town.
I was very pleased with my choice. The trail was just what my feet needed. It was this soft packed dirt with no rocks or anything. The obstacles, hills, and detours broke up the monotony of the road walk and caused me to use different muscles. The first few water sources were nice clean cow water. It was obvious that no cows had been using them. The last two sources were a different story. While there were no fresh evidence of cows both sources were nasty funky ponds. I had to take two liters from the last source for dinner and the hike to the next well. I double filtered it just to be safe.
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