Note: I start to use trail names of the people I have been hiking with in this post. Everyone mentioned is part of the group I met and have hiked with since day one.
I left Pie Town early, a stretch of 30 miles of road walk lay before me. A line of hikers strung out ahead, small black specks against the tawny dirt and gravel. My umbrella protecting me from the worst of the sun, I pushed to TLC Ranch, an old structure that trail angels had opened up on their private land cached with water and fruit. It quickly became a gathering place as hikers escaped the sun; it seemed to be close to 90 degrees. Pie Town had bunched up a lot of hiking groups and unfamiliar faces sat around the table. They were all talking about the potential forest closures. Rumor had it that the Forest Service was going to close all the National Forests north of us in NM to prevent forest fires in the high risk conditions. I decided not to worry about that until it became official.
We lingered in the shade as long as we could, and finally at 4:00 people started to stir. The temperature dropped slightly, my cue to head back out for more miles. As day yielded to night, it was magical walking along the road in the pink light. A pronghorn bounded across the road and paused to look at us before disappearing into the setting sun. The moon rose red over the distant mountains and slowly fell into the earth's shadow.
The sun followed the moon and rose in a red sky, evidence of the fire nearby. I continued along the road I had started the day before until I got to a junction where I met Guru. The trail took a 90 degree turn along the road ahead, and I had spotted a backroad on the map we could take to cut the corner, saving some miles. The problem was, according to satellites it looked like the road went straight through private property. But when I got to the junction the road was wide and maintained with a street name, so it appeared to be legal to pass through. We started down the road and soon approached the ranch buildings. I anxiously walked toward them as dogs started barking and running toward us. Crap. Even though I wanted to be quiet to not disturb the owners, I didn't want to be attacked by a dog even more. I yelled sternly to send the dogs trotting back to their yard. With the distractions of the dogs it was harder to correctly navigate through the series of compost piles, paddocks, buildings surrounding the house and stay on the correct road. Just to keep moving we ended up cutting through a horse paddock and shortly after realized we were on the wrong dirt road leading away. Definitely trespassing.
To escape we ducked under two fences and met up with the road shown on our map. A few miles later the road exited onto a highway. Passing through a gate, I noticed there was a sign that said "Private Road." Oops.
Finally we made it to a real trail, marked with endless cairns. Leaving the road behind, we hit a lava field and tripped over the rolls of molten lava, stepped over the cracks of lava tubes, and battled with the basalt that stole our trekking poles. The going was slow but we kept going, and finally we made it to water. A massive fiberglass tank housed fresh water that fed into a mucky trough for cows. The only way to access the fresh water was to climb to the top of the tank, but the water was so low it couldn't be reached. Tiptoe and Guru rigged a cup on the end of a trekking pole to dip down into the shallow water of the tank. The sun high in the sky didn't allow for much shade so I stretched my tarptent between the windmill poles and we ate lunch under the shelter for a while until the wind picked up. The wind whipped my draped tent mercilessly so I took it down, leaving us exposed in the sun. We decided it would maybe just be best to move on so in the heat of the day we headed out, taking a second siesta a few miles up trail under a perfect shade tree.
I finished out the miles for the day to the water source. A smallish scraggly cow stood guarding the tire trough. She eyed me as I walked around to the metal container where I heard there was cleaner water. She seemed very protective of her trough water. I used my handy opposable thumbs to lift the lid of a tank and started filling up my water. The cow mooed and approached me. I wasn't sure its intentions. "Are you going to headbutt me?" I asked, moving around to the other side of the trough. "She wants some water," Guru called over. Sure enough, she was sniffing one of my full bottles laying on the ground. She was too short to reach the water in the tire trough. I could relate.
Meanwhile, a black cow her size trotted up to the water, but both knees on the edge, and drank deeply. "Look," Guru pointed, "that's what you got to do." The cow didn't look. We led it over to the tire and tapped the edge. The cow looked stupidly at us. "You are going to have to learn how to care for yourself," Guru said. He was right, but I felt bad. I knew what it was like to be small and unable to reach things.
I filled my dirty water bottle and poured it out. The cow's long tongue licked it up. I filled and refilled over and over, until I felt bad for how much water was being wasted on the ground. There had to be a solution. I built a little ramp for the Felicia, as I decided to call her, to climb up but she didn't seem to want to use it. I looked around at my resources. Rocks, wood, and whatever I carried. I grabbed out a plastic baggie from my food bag and scooped up water. Felicia drank deeply. Again, over and over. It seemed like her thirst couldn't be satisfied. Deciding she had enough I left her and climbed to the other side of the fence to camp.
The lack of clouds allowed the sun to cut though the atmosphere unhindered. The trail thus far consisted of grassy meadows or rocky lava basalt mounds. My feet ached as they kicked up swirls of dust. I listened to things on my phone most of the day to keep my mind form the misery I was experiencing. Trees offered minor shade until the sun got too high. I put up my umbrella. By the afternoon, I found Guru near a lava field. It was a half mile across the rock or 3 miles on road to an ice cave. Looking at the folds of ancient lava, it seemed like it would take just as long crossing the flow as road walking. There was no telling how much we would slow down on the uneven terrain, stepping over crevasses and navigating loose basalt chunks. But in the end we decided to go for it. It would be an adventure with big rewards.
The rocks sometimes shifted under my feet and it became a dance to find the best footing. My trekking poles acting as a second pair of legs and support, I was able to skip across the rocks relatively easy. We stepped over cracks that appeared to be 15 feet deep. I briefly considered how bad it would be if the lava tubes we traversed decided to collapse. That would be bad. Very soon we saw some folks not 200 yards away strolling down what must be a trail. Whatever it was, it wasn't on our map, but it was clearly easy walking over there. After descending a short cliff and skirting a huge sunken pit we met the path.
The path led to the ice cave which wasn't an ice cave at all, but a basalt cave with an ice pond nestled inside the protective rock. The frozen lake was quite unremarkable, just a lake green with algae, caught in the frozen water. Rocks littered the surface. The temperature dropped quickly as we descended the stairs. By the time we got to the lower platform maybe 30 feet down, it was 31 degrees. We basked in the coolness.
Ice cream was calling so we headed to the store a quarter mile away where over the next few hours we were joined by the others. Aside from my tramily of 6, I hadn't seen anyone else this section, as most people chose to do an alternate route on more road.
With the wifi we found that the Forest Service had officially ordered fire closures for the rest of the trail in New Mexico. No fires existed yet, but they were taking precautions. It was unclear what the "Stage 3" closure entailed. Some sources seemed to say access was completely limited, some seemed to say it was ok as long as there was no open flame. I wasn't going to worry about it til I got more information.
The next day we regrouped at the lava cave. Ancient tubes of lava had crept miles over the landscape, leaving only a shell. The roof had collapsed in a section which left access to the hollow interior. The yawning mouth of the cave swallowed us as we followed small reflectors deeper and deeper. The cave was quite empty as far as caves go. Because of the way it was formed there were no stalagmites or stalagmites obstructing out path, no sound of steady dripping water, no blind animals calling the cave their home. Just rough, black lava rock. At first it was easy going, a wide and spacious cavern scattered with slabs of fallen rock led to a few narrow twists and turns. A few times the path appeared to simply dead end, until I peeked through small openings and saw the reflectors beckoning us through narrow squeezes. One section had us wiggling on our bellies for 20 feet along polished basalt before finally opened up into a bigger cavern. After a few more scrambles we reached a dead end. We sat in the cold blackness with lights out to experience the fullness of the cave. Eyes searching for light where it didn't exist. The reflectors guided us safely out.
The trail from the cave made its way through meadows and across sharp lava beds. To save three miles we took a shortcut along some forest service road into a valley. We had decided to take an alternate, walking though a canyon on back roads rather than walk a highway along the official route. Red hills welcomed us, dotted with trees. The afternoon was spent cruising along the road until we made it to the water source. Nearby electric lines pumped cold clean water into an overfull tank.
As was routine, we made a few more miles after dinner and found a stealth-camping spot by the side of the road for potentially the last night on the trail in New Mexico.
The road was smooth and beautiful through the cliffs. The few cars kicked up dust that lingered in the valley but walking was quick. Once I got service I called the National Forest and they confirmed that the trail ahead was 100% closed to all users, no matter how much I promised not to make a fire, smoke, or use my stove. Looked like I was done with New Mexico 250 miles early.
Barking dogs welcomed me into the outskirts of town, and soon I became overwhelmed with the loud noises and fast speeds as I neared Grants. Cars rumbled past, tires squeaked, diesel perfumed the air, construction workers grinded the pavement sending clouds of dust everywhere, the interstate roared by below, a train sounded it's whistle and zoomed by under my feet. I gripped the guard rail to center myself amongst the sudden stimulation.
My tramily regrouped at the hostel and we discussed what we were going to do about the closures. It seemed like that was all hikers were talking about. Some were flipping north to Wyoming and hiking south. Some were taking road trips or staying in house rentals for a week, most were planning on eventually getting to Chama, the last town in New Mexico that sits on the Colorado border. It was early to be entering Colorado, but as it was a low snow year it shouldn't pose much a problem. However, the snow forecasted for the rockies that weekend could change everything.
Putting plans aside, I completed the necessary town chores: cleaning out trash, shower and laundry, washing pot, backflushing my water filter, and resupplying. I washed my tent, freeing the zippers of the desert grime that held them captive. We had already planned to zero in town so that gave us time to figure out a plan.
The plan was to slowly make our way to Chama as our packages arrived with our winter gear. It felt like such a long time to kill, and I was itching for an adventure. I stared at the map of New Mexico, trying to think of something, anything awesome that could satisfy my restlessness. Without the freedom of a car we were severely limited. I was forced to settle for the adventure of cities. Grants offered a cool mining museum that talked about the nearby uranium production. Albuquerque was home for two nights where we rented a house, I went to a museum, watched too much TV, and ate too much food. Santa Fe was a quick stop for a night to explore MeoWolf, a strange puzzle/art/play space. The days passed by surprisingly quickly.
Mining museum, homemade dinner, and MeowWolf interactive art museum.
A trail angel ride, a train, and four bus rides later landed us in Chama, the gateway to the rockies.
We were about to leave the flatlands of hot dry desert and prematurely climb to the heights of the freezing snowy mountains.
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