Mile 550ish- Ghost Ranch

Trail angels/Estero's friends Sarah and Calculator

The top of Mt. Taylor!

Looking forward

Well it's been a week of ups and downs here on the trail (temperature and elevation, anyway).  After being dropped back off in Grants from Albequerque, we went up to the top of Mt Taylor.  At over 11,000ft, it gave me an idea of what I'd be enjoying more of in the days to come- being out of breath and slow going up.  Then there was the downhill- in the trees snowy, and in the sun I could basically run down the trail.
The walking to Cuba, NM was lovely, with going up and across and down mesas.  There was a 28-mile waterless stretch, which was a bit arduous, thankfully it was cloudy that day.  We made it into Cuba from Grants (110 miles) in 4 and change days, and headed out again the same day after resupplying.

Lit-up trail.  All those plants are Cholla Cactus, BTW.

Blooming Cactus

After Cuba, we headed up again, only to be snowed on- what!?  Yes, snowed on, while walking through marshy meadows and over patches of snow.  That experience has me thoughtful for what's ahead in the San Juan mountains of southern Colorado.
As we were walking into Ghost Ranch, I was thinking about how happy I currently am and how wonderful life is and how grateful I am for what my mind and body can do and go through, it's such a great place to be in.  I'm so joyful I could burst!

Softwalker and Estero doing sock laundry in the first
flowing stream we've encountered

Walking toward Rio Chama

Mile 395ish- Grants, NM

Quite some time has passed since I last wrote.  The reasoning for this is because there hasn't been an opportunity between Silver City and Grants to update this blog.  Read: no computers for almost 250 miles-what freedom!  Though since this entry will be a long one, I'll split it into different subtitles.

Jammin' in Silver City

Silver City through the Gila to Snow Lake
My compatriots and I stayed in Silver City with some lovely people the evening after my last blog entry and attempted to leave mid-morning.  Due to the amount of people in town wanting to talk with us/our eating a delicious breakfast , we ended up leaving later in the morning and wandering back into the Gila (pronounced hee-la) National Forest.  As we gained some elevation walking the road out of Silver City, we were taken back into the land of pine trees and shade.  The wind has been a constant on this trip, so I'm very thankful when the trees become a barrier. Walking with others along the road has also been nice; we can attempt to entertain one another.

Softwalker and the sunset- notice his lack
of shoes.  He didn't do it all the time, but it was
refreshing to see bare foot prints ahead of me

Softwalker on one of the first of the Gila crossings

Frozen shoes!

Our 2nd day from Silver City, we switch-backed down a trail to the confluence of where we began to follow the Gila River up to Doc Campbell's Post- a store that holds packages for thru-hikers.   The first river crossings were novel, and then it just became wet shoes all day.  Waking up to frozen shoes the next morning, the river crossings became more irritating because the cold water caused a pins-and-needles sensation from my thighs down to where I lost sensation (around ankle-height)  Thanks to the scenery for making it worth getting out of my sleeping bag before 10am.  Also, the lure of hot springs definitely helped!  We took a day off at the hot springs campground to go see the Cliff Dwellings,and ended up getting a ride from a park ranger who worked at Mesa Verde N.P. who had come down to see how these cliff dwellings compared to the ones he worked at.

The guys in Gila Hot Springs

Gila Cliff Dwellings

After Doc Campbell's, heading back into the canyon

Estero at another river crossing

Onto more river crossings!  Also, a middle of the canyon hot springs!  Along the Gila River, one of our maps stated, "There are 85 crossing between here and Snow Lake"  So, I began counting.  I reached 83 before we hit Snow Lake. There were river crossings galore, and between the crossings in the canyon, there were thigh-high reed-like plants that would hit your wet legs and give them micro abrasions.  My legs burned so badly a couple of nights that I had trouble sleeping.

Jordan hot springs! 92 degree water.

Trail magic beers- 8:30am.  Thanks, random hunters!

Snow Lake to Pie Town

Snow Lake's water level is a bit low

We looked at our maps at Snow Lake, and it was the last water source for quite a distance, so we filled up. It also happened to be super muddy and gross, though we're pretty used to that at this point.  Eating dinner next to the bathrooms (they were a nice windbreak) at the campground, and then heading on to the waterless stretch of dirt road walking was vastly different than what we had been walking through for the past 4 days or so.

Gate on some actual trail before Pie Town

We found snow on Mangas Moutain!

View from the fire tower.

This is what the Gila River does to your legs.

After spending a chilly night atop a ridge in a pasture, we followed a forest service road for most of the day, cutting across to another forest service road right before lunch.  Unfortunately at this cut-off, we chose the wrong forest service road to follow and ended up going down a different canyon, having to backtrack, and finishing the day at 27 miles, only 20 of those being on-trail.  Also, that extra mileage wreaked havoc on my feet, causing 5 or 6 new blisters to rear their angry heads.  This was not only caused by the mileage, but also caused by my shoes being a bit too small in the toe area- I have wide feet.
Hobbling on waterless, exposed dirt roads for the next few days was troublesome with my feet acting up, though we did get to go into a working fire tower on Mangas Mountain as well as talk to a few of the many hunters we saw out looking for turkeys.  Coming into Pie Town was a great day, I felt as though we were immediately blended into the community.  A wonderful woman name Nita has opened up the house she raised her family in(nicknamed 'the toaster house' because of the unique outdoor decorations) to hikers/bikers/travelers of all kinds, and loves hearing their stories and inviting them to check out some of the local sites.  We ate our fill of pie at the Pie-O-Neer restaurant, and had a couple nights of singing out on the porch of the toaster house to revive our spirits before moving on to Grants.

PIE! In Pie Town.

So many hikers in one place, they had
to get a photo...or 12.

Pie Town to Grants

Looking for life outside Pie Town

Drop off 2 dozen fresh eggs at the toaster
house and hikers will eat them.

The only sign on the road walk out of Pie Town that didn't
read some version of "No Trespassing"

We headed out of Pie Town and were greeted with a road walk along with light-to-medium gusting winds.  This is becoming the norm for the CDT, and it makes me glad I chose to go north-bound so that I'll appreciate the actual trails even more when I am on them more often.  Not only are road walks harder on the feet, I feel they're also tough on the psyche- am I on a trail here?  It's a not-too-subtle reminder of how young and incomplete the trail truly is. We did get to see some native ruins, go past a beautiful arch along Hwy 117 into Grants, and see ALOT of lava rock.

Ruins up a canyon near the trail

My feet are also hurting, to the point of generally having to focus on my breathing to abet the pain for the few hours of walking between breaks.  Over the past few days- a couple before Pie Town and a couple after- I've had to be selective about which blister was causing the most pain so I could pop it that day.  The rest in Pie Town helped, but did not solve my problem.  Which is why I asked my resupplier extraordinaire, Fidget, to send me new shoes in Grants.  I currently also have an ankle-sized lump an inch or so above my right ankle that I've started referring to as my third ankle- it doesn't hurt and I have no idea how it got there- any thoughts?

A blister under a blister? Yea, that.

Looking ahead, it looks as though the trail becomes trail and we get to go up in elevation from the around 6,000ft we've been at since about Silver City.  It'll be exciting to see what else New Mexico will throw at us,  I'm looking forward to it!

Road walking to the arch

Mile 140ish- Silver City, NM

The Border Marker had toppled,
so I made my own

Some people have called the ride to the Crazy Cooke Monument at the Mexican border "harrowing".  It seemed like a less jolting ride into the field for me (from my previous job). After a surprisingly successful greyhound bus ride from Las Vegas to Lordsburg, NM, I joined up with Estero and Speed Bump for our ride to the border from a local gentleman named Sam Hughes.  Sam charges a fee and requests that we send him a postcard from the end.

A grim reminder that we're in the desert

Water source?

We then begin walking north, through canyons and open desert, the only shade for miles is under scrub oak that grow in the washes.  This goes on for days (read:90 miles). The most memorable so far being a day in which there were gusting headwinds across an open, slightly uphill walk where we came across the poor cow who didn't quite make it to water.  That's a grim reminder of how beautifully punishing the deserts in the southwest can be.



Shade outside Lordsburg

The border patrol have talked to us seemingly every chance they get, asking us about what we've seen and letting us know about the dangers of the area.  Apparently this area is rampant in illegal drug smuggling/immigration.

I've been walking with Speed Bump and Estero since the border, and they're good company.  In Lordsburg, we ran into a few other hikers who were planning on starting the Monday after we did.  All were very nice, and excited to get going, even to the point of running from a block away to talk with us.



NO CAMPING

After Lordsburg, we finally got into some protected areas, the beginning of the Gila National Forest.  There was much more coverage from the beating sun and wind, which I was very excited about.  Then there was actual trail instead of hiking from CDT post to CDT post!  It began a whole new world, and we began hiking with another hiker- Softwalker.  All together, we've made it here to Silver City and are planning on heading back into the Gila to soak in some hot springs and enjoy some more desert scenery!

The road walk into Silver City




It's Nice to be Somebody's Hero.

April 10th, 2012 is not a memorable day for most people, but it is a day I doubt I'll ever forget.  On that day almost a year ago, I was involved in a potentially deadly car accident.  It's one of the reasons I'm choosing to begin my CDT hike as near to April 10th as possible; to commemorate the first anniversary of my and a few of my friends survival.  In this post, I'm going to attempt to give you my perspective of what happened that Tuesday, and possibly a look into why it effected me so deeply.

Here's some background information (If you already know this information, feel free to skip this paragraph): At the time of the accident, I was working as a field staff for a wilderness therapy company in Southern Utah.  It's a program that helps adolescents and adults work through their struggles while in the wilderness; which basically means they're placed in one of eight numbered groups in  the high deserts of Utah/Nevada for multiple weeks with trained staff and a therapist at hand and hopefully come out the other end having made some sort of progress.  As a staff, I worked with a team for 8 days in the field and had 6 days off between shifts.  We'd go in and out of the field- a two hour drive one-way, half of which is on dirt roads- on Tuesdays to switch out with the other  shift- the staff who're in the field working with the clients while we had our days off.  This transfer of people/information is called "switching out".

On the afternoon of Tuesday, April 10th, Elise, Dave, Charlie, and I were driving out to Group 7.  Elise was driving the Ford F250, with Charlie in the front passenger seat, Dave behind Charlie, and I was sitting behind the driver. It was a lovely afternoon, the sun was out and the roads were dry.  Spring had finally arrived in the high desert and we were all excited about the rising temperatures.  On the drive out, we went through our routine: set weekly goals for ourselves, and talk about how we can support one another in achieving those goals.  We also talk about what each client is working on in their therapy, and how to properly support the group.  As we were driving along on the dirt roads, Elise had just finished updating us on a particularly tough client when she began going around a right-turning curve.  We fishtailed on some loose gravel in the turn, and the driver proceeded to try and straighten out the truck by turning the steering wheel and attempting to take her foot off the gas pedal to step on the brake.

It didn't straighten us out. The truck went off the road on the inside of the turn, and we were in the sage brush. I was looking through the windshield thinking it was going to shatter with all the sage hitting it, so I ducked my head down into the center of the backseat and closed my eyes to protect them from broken glass.  After that, the trucked rolled and I just remember the sound of my seatbelt catching right before my head smashed into the roof of the truck (or it may have been the roof smashing into my head). Surprisingly, the truck came to a halt upright in the middle of the road.  As the dust was settling, we all checked to see if we were alright:

Charlie: "Is everyone alright?"
Me: "Yeah, I think so."
Dave: "I'm alright."
Elise: "I'm not alright. I'm not alright."

Since the roof of the truck was crushed in, the doors didn't open.  Thankfully, all but Dave's window and the front windshield had broken out, so Dave and I jumped out of my window to help Elise.  She was sitting in her seat with her seatbelt on. I told her I was going to hold her hand, and took her left hand in mine.  She said she had shooting pain down her arms (indicative of spinal injury) and she thought her foot was stuck under the brake pedal.  Just then, Dave yelled, "There's fluid leaking out of the  truck! Turn off the truck!"  In my and Elise's mind, that meant we needed to move away from the truck- we'd all learned in our Wilderness First Responder classes that if the scene is unsafe, don't approach it.  Since we were already in the scene, we had to move.

Elise: "My foot's stuck, I can't get out."
Me: "Well let's see if you can move it."
Elise: "You're going to have to help me."

Her foot wasn't actually stuck; in her delirium, she thought it was. Her ability to move her foot also showed me that the spinal chord wasn't severed, which is something I was fearful of in the back of my mind.  I reached over her and unbuckled her seat belt, and aided in turning her back-first towards the door. Tucking my arms under her armpits and then supporting and stabilizing her head/neck with my hands and torso, I stepped onto the running board of the truck and lifted her straight up out of the driver's window.  By this time Charlie had turned off the truck and then came around to the driver's side.  As I was supporting the upper portion of her body, he carried the rest of her and we walked about 50 ft. or so down the road away from the vehicle, placing her down gently.  I then began to talk with Elise while checking her for any outward signs of trauma while Charlie got some supplies from the items that had flown out of the truck bed during the roll-over.   We were about 15 minutes from pavement, and Dave barely had cell phone service to call our field director, "We just had an accident, we're going to need an ambulance."

Just as we placed Elise down, we were all momentarily silenced as a jet fighter flew very low over us, it was so surreal.  I noticed blood in Elise's right ear, and had a moment of panic (bleeding ears generally suggests a cracked skull/head trauma). Thankfully it ended up being a small cut from glass, and since she was covered in broken glass, it made sense.  After we laid her down on a sleeping pad and stabilized her head/neck, another truck full of  field staff rolled onto the scene.  This helped, as all of us from the accident were very much in shock.  I chose to stay with Elise, taking turns holding her head or her hand and trying to keep the fine road dust from getting blown into her eyes/mouth/nose.  She kept apologizing and was fully conscious the entire time.  More and more people began arriving, including more staff teams, the head field director, and police. When the ambulance arrived on-scene, with me at her head (again) we rolled Elise onto a backboard after they put a neck brace on her.

After Elise was taken to the ambulance to await the helicopter to the hospital, time seemed to speed up again for me.  Here are some snippets of the rest of the day, possibly in order:

The accident investigator asked us how many times we thought the truck rolled- Charlie, Dave, and I all agreed on once.  He then told us the truck actually flipped twice, and showed us the divots in the dirt to indicate the two flips.  He also asked us if anyone had been ejected as well as if the airbags went off.  Neither of those things had happened, and we all looked at one another, baffled as to be so fortunate to be uninjured.

A friend of mine (who was on another staff team) told me that the head field director had told her that she wasn't going into the field.  He had thought she was in the accident, instead of me.  Dave,  Charlie, and I were asked to fill out multiple pieces of paperwork; one releasing the ambulance from taking responsibility of us, another for the program we worked for detailing the accident, another for the doctor we went to in St. George to get checked out.  Photos were taken for insurance, and the helicopter took Elise to a hospital in Las Vegas.  Dave, Charlie, and I got a ride out of the field with another driver.  I ended up having a cut on my neck from my seatbelt, and head pain from my head hitting the roof (or the roof hitting my head).  The doctor we all went to gave us pain killers and muscle relaxers and told us we were all fine.

The x-ray after the fusion

I don't believe it truly hit me about how fortunate I was to walk away from the accident until we were back at the program's office and the woman who handles HR looked at me, cringing, and said, "I saw where your head was" after she had seen the photos.  The driver's side of the truck had hit first in the rolls, so it had crushed in more, with the driver's headrest bent in from the roof and the rear passenger's (my) roof crushed in to the headrest.

It took me half an hour in the shower to comb the knots out of my hair because of the wind and all the dust in it. At the end of the day, Dave, Charlie, and I all sat around a table in Dave's yard, looking at each other in disbelief.

A few days later, another friend and I drove down to visit Elise in the hospital, where she had undergone surgery the day after the accident to fuse some of her vertebrae together- she had broken her C7 vertebra in the accident.  She was so excited to see us, and I got to meet her mom. I was told that the surgeon came out after the surgery and told her mom, "You're daughter's here for a reason" and then went on to explain that he's never seen a spinal injury that severe on a person who wasn't already dead.

To this day, Elise calls me her hero for taking control of her head at the scene of the accident.

I tell her I hope she never ever pays me back.

Elise is currently enjoying and appreciating
life more than ever before.

The Final Countdown.....question mark?

The Nephew (Eli) and I

I've been instructed to update my blog by multiple friends and have been avoiding it for the usual reasons, one of which being I'm trying to not get myself worked up before the hike.  I feel as though it's almost setting yourself up for failure- I think it must just be one of my pre-hike superstitions. People have been asking how excited I am this week, and it's gotten me thinking about how excited I am.  I believe I'm beyond the excited stage, and in the purgatory between having most things done and actually beginning to walk north from the Mexico border.  Though recently, I've been talking with a lot of friends who have gotten me more excited, so I go up and down.

The checked bag of food I brought- 49.5 lbs!

Fidget and I talking resupply

As I have hiked long trails in the past, and have vague memories of how tortuous waiting to start another amazing journey can be, I planned two trips for the month of March.  The first one was to Colorado, and was a multi-purpose visit.  I was able to visit the many friends I made while living there, get to see my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew as well as babysit while they went out for her birthday, AND drop off my resupply stuff/talk trail with my friend  Fidget who'll be resupplying me.  It was really great to see everyone and get to hang out with some family (both trail and genetic).  I spent just enough time there to get more motivated to hike and travel.

Drop-n-Roll Rappelling in Spry Canyon

I got back to Utah just in time for some great rock climbing weather and canyoneering season has officially begun!  I went canyoneering with a new trail friend (Drop-n-Roll) because she was on a road trip passing through on the same day I was doing a canyon with some new friends- what timing!  It was cold and fun introducing a new person to a canyon in Zion NP.

Also, staying busy helps the time pass faster, and I was/am doing my darndest to forget that I still have time to wait until starting  the CDT.  I'm trying to repeat the mantra: Be Here Now.

I'm currently in Asheville, NC visiting some of my best friends, including some from the Appalachian Trail, along with my good friend Tom who recently biked across the country.  We've been talking about our past adventures together, as well as future plans for the many more adventures to come.

In the Planning Stage

This is what I feel like right now- minus
 the celebratory champagne

I'm currently at that stage in planning where one wants to be done with planning, and still has a lot left to do.  I like to call it the "AAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!" stage.  I call it this because you feel like running around like a chicken with your head cut off trying to get everything done, while at the same time wanting to avoid anything to do with planning your trip.  In your mind, you're screaming your head off because of just wanting to be done with it all, and on the trip already.  

To give you an idea of how these past months have gone, I'll lay out my two lists. By the way, I'm writing these from memory, so this is also an idea of what's going through my head right now.  

Here's what I have done:

What my sister's freezer looked like before the PCT

-Made and dehydrated 3 months of dinners (yes, that's 90 meals)
-Sent back my Montbell Jacket for repair- the zipper's broken
-Found and bought 2 cheap-ish pairs of Brooks' Cascadias
-Attempted to buy as many socks as I will need on-trail
-Attempt to buy as many Clif/Pro/Luna bars as I'll be able to stomach either on sale or pro deal
-Send my old tent back to REI
-Buy a new tent within my budget
-Ogle gear that I want, but can't afford
-Finished my taxes to see how much I can add to my budget
-Send back my base layers for replacement
-Buy a GPS, and load maps onto- we're currently trying to figure out why the topo isn't showing up
-Talk with Freebie about the trail- what to expect/towns to stop in/is anything going to eat me?
-Went to CostCo for the first time.
-Contacted and set a date with the guy, Lee, who drives people to the Crazy Cook Monument- I'm officially starting April 11!
-Sent my camera back to Olympus for (hopefully) repair
-Ordered new shoulder straps from Osprey
-Re-learned to drive a manual car
-Dehydrated a TON of fruit and vegetables

Here's what I still need to get done before starting the CDT:

-Figure out resupply points- thanks Pat for letting me look at yours!
-Look at my maps and organize them a bit, reprint some that are missing
-Make sure I'm square with the two people I owe money
-Find my trekking pole or perhaps buy a new pair
-Get tent stakes/learn to put up my new tent
-Make a tent floor out of the Tyvek my friend gave me
-Make/dehydrate a bunch of lunch spreads if I have time
-Go to CostCo again and get snacks
-Hike the highest peak around- Signal Peak- which is about 10,000 ft
-Try to use up as much food as possible in the storage unit
-Figure out what to do with my computer while I'm on-trail- I don't want it to melt this summer.
-Get to Lee's house by the evening of April 10th, and pick up 2 other hikers in Lourdsburg, NM on the way

Almost there......

-Do yoga so I don't completely freak out
-Find a bleach-proof small container, so it doesn't leak all over my pack this time
-Pack everything I'll need resupplied to me in a suitcase and take it on a plane to Denver, where I'll be visiting my resupplier, Fidgit, and dropping it off.  Thankfully I'll be flying Southwest. I'll also be visiting my lovely sister and Brother-in-Law as well as a plethora of others while in Colorado- I'm excited!
-Go the Asheville to visit more of my amazing friends and see some of them off at the beginning of the Appalachian Trail!

Alright, so some of the things I have to do before hitting the trail are amazing and wonderful.  I'm glad I set it up that way, or  would definitely be going stir crazy.

Why?

WHY?  I've been asked this question in different forms over and over when explaining my long hikes.  "Why would you do that to yourself?", "Why would you go by yourself?", "Why not take some protection?" (in most cases, they're speaking of firearms or SAR beacons) , "Why not take that money and invest it/go on a nice vacation/buy something tangible?" One of the most memorable- "I just read your blog.  I don't like that." My mom was referring to this post from my PCT thru-hike.

I explain my reasoning if the person asking is open to it.  My explanations are most times tired and boring: "It's fun...mostly", "I like to challenge myself", "I can't take that, it'd be too heavy/illegal", "Yes", "No".  Most of my adventurous friends understand my desire to hike on some level, even if they don't understand why I would choose to do multiple marathon- to ultra-marathon- distance days in a row for months on end.  

I definitely ask myself this question at times.  Why did I neglect to bring a compass?  Why am I crossing a 30 degree-angled ice field with a few hundred-foot open drop below as the sun just hit it with one trekking pole and trail runners? Why am I alone in mountain lion/bear/Roan Mountain territory?  Why am I hitch-hiking solo? Why did I just do this/that/the other? Why didn't I just do this/that/the other?  Why did I eat all that food knowing I had a 15-mile uphill coming out of town?  Why are there so many BUGS?!

There are so many reasons I choose to thru-hike, as well as live my life the way I do.  The camaraderie. The views. The wildlife. The not-so-wildlife. The challenge. It's something I'm good at. I get higher feelings of self-awareness from it. The gear I now have an excuse to buy. I love the accomplished feeling I get from challenging myself.  Some parts of our society have become too comfortable, too easy.  I promised myself a while ago I would never become complacent.

All of these reasons boil down to one constant theme: because I can.  I hike because I can. I explore the world around me, try new things, do things that (at times) scare the living daylights out of me, eat, move, sleep, be merry because I can.  I am one of the lucky ones, which I try to constantly remind myself.  I get to hike for thousands of miles because I want to.  I get to be myself, be who I want to be.  I don't have much holding me back- my body works well enough, I have all of my original parts and pieces.  My mind works too efficiently- at times I can't keep up with it.  I don't have any societal norms holding me back, no parent selling me to the highest bidder, no terrible situation I have to make it through.  I'm not starving, restricted in many ways, in a war zone, or terribly mentally/physically mutilated.  So I can.

And I do.  I love living life to the fullest, at times to the chagrin of members of society whose priorities are different.  As I'm hiking above tree line along the spine of a 12,000 ft mountain, on my 30th mile of the day, looking forward to dinner even though I just ate lunch, I think to myself, "Why not?"