Follow me on the CDT: Gila Alternate

My feet hurt. Not the normal tired ache from hiking all day. They hurt. Each step a painful thud as the impact pounded them against the road. It was a 14 mile highway road walk into Silver City. This was our 2nd resupply point and the first town we planned to spend a night. Paved roads are notoriously hard on feet and the pavement wasn't helping but I knew it wasn't the problem. As the highway turned to sidewalk, we entered town and my pained feet were forgotten.

TOWN!! This meant laundry. Lunch. Ice cream. Hotel. Grocery store. Pizza. An afternoon in town was exactly what we all needed. My clothes shone in way I didn't think was going to be possible. My tan disappeared down the shower drain, but the absence of the dirt was refreshing. The best perk of this town was access to a Walmart. Walmart has the best selection for instant food, chicken packets, and other travel size toiletries. I was even able to purchase new insoles for my shoes. It was a hail Mary, but when I pulled out my old insoles I realized I had found the culprit. There was less than a centimeter of cushion. I am hoping to nurse these shoes to 500 miles and here we are just shy of 200 miles. There is a lot resting on a pair of $5 Walmart insoles. 

Silver City is a popular town for a zero day (no hiking) but the 3 of us were still feeling strong so we decided to leave the next morning. We stayed long enough to order another pizza from Dominos and promptly package it up in Ziplock bags to take back on trail for dinner. I was anxious to start hiking again with a heavier pack, weighed down with a full resupply, and see how my sore feet would respond. No pain. Nothing. My hail Mary worked!! The road walk out of Silver City was a parade instead of a forced march. The feeling was augmented by cars honking and waving as they passed. Of all the states I have hiked through, New Mexico is the friendliest and clearly proudest to be home to a long distance trail. 

Shortly out of Silver City, we entered a new segment of New Mexico. Goodbye to the barren desert and hello to the river canyons. The CDT is unlike either of other two trails in that it offers the option to customize your route. The "official" trail, often referred to as the red line, is a suggestion. There are numerous alternates along the red line that either offer more direct or more scenic routes. The Gila River alternate is one of the most famous alternates. It takes hikers down into a canyon and follows the river through the twists the turns. In short it is an oasis, hidden away by tall cliffs and trees. 

Up until this point, we have filled from only one natural water source. The Gila is our key to rid the chains of caches or cows. It was not just human life the Gila was sustaining. Plants and wildlife flourished below the canyon walls. The graveyards of cow bones were replaced by Arizona sycamores, their bone white trunks and branches a sharp contrast to the red/orange walls. 

Animals who have been scarce, now started making an appearance. Our second night camping along the Gila brought us a nighttime visitor. Just as we were drifting off, furtive scuttling outside the tents caught our attention. It was not the rhythmic rustling of a squirrel passing by, but the chaotic pawing of a larger animal. Javelinas are common in the area and was my first guess. As the noise continued and moved closer, Jedi confirmed the culprit was in fact a yearling black bear. In the dark with sleep interrupted, Jinx and I were disconcerted to have even a small bear in camp. I clutched my headlamp through the night tight enough to leave imprints on my palm in the morning. As the sun rose it was easier to examine the picture of our visitor and find him cute and dare I say harmless...

There were aquatic animals as well. Frogs, tadpoles of all sizes, trout, and ducks. The trail crossed the Gila 246 times. The crossing were not dry crossing… so shoes and all, we waded through the water careful to keep fish from underfoot. 

It was a beautiful stretch and a special one. A spot of nature only available to those walking in 1+ days by foot. By the end of the 60 miles, I will admit I was happy to emerge from the canyon. My feet, socks, shoes had not been dry for 3 days. The night temperatures dipped close to freezing, leaving our shoes and socks rigid with frost in the mornings. 

The trail after the Gila reverted back instantly to what we had known before. Flat, sagebrush, cattle, and more dirt roads. Water did find us again, this time in the form of precipitation. We were all taken unaware by sprinkling rain storms that became regular afternoon occurrences. As we gained altitude above 8,000ft the rain alternated between snow and hail. That was ultimately how we arrived in Pie Town, NM - chased by a storm. 

I lived 5 lives on the dirt road walk into Pie Town. The first was a climb to a mountain top fire tower.  From there we could smell smoke and watched as a haze blew in from a fire that started that morning. It was only there we learned that minutes ago the trail was closed until this point. The other 4 lives alternated between early morning light in cold temperatures; resigned to the hail; hot on the verge of sweating in sun; and in a near run from the gathering storm a couple miles back. Luckily we beat the storm to Pie Town. 

Now how to describe Pie Town? Well for one don't think of it as a town. It is two pie stores on the side of a highway. On the other side of the highway is a small collection of houses. One of these houses is decorated with old electric toasters across the front fence and gate. How these toasters came be, or why one would chose toasters as the decoration theme are unknown. The aptly named Toaster House is a CDT hiker haven. There must be some sort of caretaker to pay the water and electric, but otherwise it is run by hikers. Hikers can stay the night, or any number of days, on a mattress in the house. If it is crowded you can sleep on the floor or pitch your tent outside. Given the weather, the Toaster House was packed when we arrived. This was a shock because we have only seen 6 hikers on trail since leaving Silver City. 

In a turn of events that can only happen on trail, one of the owners of a pie eatery offered to let us sleep in his "hiker lounge." The lounge was a garage turned storage room that had a couch and TV. No complaints from any of us for a place to sleep out of the weather. In the morning, snow was clinging to the ground as a testament to how lucky we were to get a spot indoors. 

We couldn't leave Pie Town without getting any pie. It turns out pie is really the only thing you can count on getting in Pie Town. Our hope had been to resupply (purchase food to take with us until the next town) out of the small offering one of the restaurants put together. Unfortunately that section would have required us to each eat only potatoes for 3 meals a day. There was a hiker box (place for hikers to place items they don't need anymore) that had enough ramen and oatmeal to make a resupply possible. Naturally, we also had to buy pies to take with us. 

With that we left Pie Town, similar to how we entered. Drudging down a dirt road with snow threatening to fall.