After our wonderful excursion to Albuquerque and Santa Fe to hang out with hiking friends and see some balloons, Beanie Baby and I headed back to Chama, where we made a quick stop at the amazing Tumble On Outfitters store before heading back to the trail. Tumble On Outfitters was founded by some former CDT hikers who also allowed hikers to stay at their home in Chama. This amazing store has custom fleeces, alpha backpacks and fanny packs, as well as all the gear a hiker would ever dream of needing.
As we emerged from Cumbres Pass again, Beanie Baby and I noticed that the storm clouds had not yet let up. One of the main reasons for taking a few days off for the balloon festival was that a bad storm blew through for a few days. Clearly, the storm had not passed yet! As soon as the sheets of rain began to fall on us, Beanie Baby and I found a relatively sheltered spot for our tent and began preparing for the night.
We had dinner in our tent (one of the only times) and even made some fun snowflake omelettes. It was a little scary hearing the wind howling outside, but our tent felt cozy and warm, probably because we made the decision to camp just as it started to rain.
The next few days, Beanie Baby and I walked among wonderful living trees and continued to follow the changing aspens south even after Colorado. It was certainly a relief to walk on flatter terrain for a change after the endless steps of Colorado!
We also saw some beautiful chainsaw work along the trail, as well as the snow-capped San Juan Mountains in the distance! Cookie Junior also enjoyed the sunny days and the change of scenery! We were glad we made it through San Juan before the snow really started falling.
The day Beanie Baby and I arrived at Ghost Ranch, leaving all the trees behind for a couple of days, we hiked through a stunning canyon carved by a desert river. Dramatic colors painted the rock walls around us: purples, reds, oranges, yellows, greens and blues, a landscape that inspired artist Georgia O’Keefe to live on the Ghost Ranch property and paint the colorful canyons. The aspen trees were also full of color as we descended the canyon, a vivid yellow contrasting the bright blue sky.
Beanie Baby and I met Beanie Baby’s dad in the nearby town of Abiquiu that night, and we feasted at some of the most delicious restaurants we’ve been to in the entire CDT in this unassuming little town! I also bought a new backpack from Beanie Baby’s dad. I decided to try a Gossamer Gear Mariposa, which is the one Beanie Baby has, because my old ULA Circuit felt uncomfortable under heavy loads.
The day after arriving at Ghost Ranch, Beanie Baby and I met up with some of our friends from Sprouts! We found Fruitfly, Losty, Lemon, Woods, Roadrunner, Dad and Dixie at Ghost Ranch, and all of us cowboys camped out that night. It was a cold night and the next morning when everyone woke up, a thin layer of frost covered our sleeping bags. We shook them and put them in the sun, where they dried quickly. Then we all hit the road, the first time we’ve walked with a tram in a long time!
We all walked along the Chama River for a while before entering a drier section of the desert. This looked more like the desert landscape I had envisioned for New Mexico!
We entered the Chama River Canyon Wilderness Area and trudged through a canyon that had recently burned in a forest fire and where flash flooding had subsequently occurred. Beanie Baby and I were glad we didn’t have too many sections of trail like this – the trail was nearly impossible to navigate and took much longer to cross.
Beanie Baby and I hit 10,000 feet for the last time on the CDT before heading to Cuba City. We were amazed by the colors of the desert: the stunning sunrises and sunsets that filled the entire vast sky, the canyons, the windblown desert trees and bushes. The desert is often thought of as a desolate, lifeless place, but Beanie Baby and I continue to find new life and beauty at every turn in New Mexico.
In the south of Cuba, we were able to hike through beautiful rocky landscapes! Often the trail was marked with cairns because it would have been impossible to carve a trail into the rock. This section of the trail was surprisingly well maintained and Beanie Baby and I even did some night hikes!
Fences, gates, and stiles have proven to be a common feature of the New Mexico landscape, along with some cool metal CDT flames!
We enjoyed walking through the desert at both dawn and dusk, when the weather was cooler and the colors melted into the horizon, also shining on the nearby rocks.
One night between Cuba and Grants, Beanie Baby and I watched a huge thunderstorm roll across the desert. It was in Silver City, but we could still see a multitude of massive lightning bolts in the distance.
We discovered that everything in the desert was thorny in one way or another, and Beanie Baby and I accidentally sat on cacti! It was amazing to see the cacti in bloom, a symbol of the beautiful resilience of the desert. The dusty ground also held footprints and paw prints for a long time, and we saw some interesting animal tracks along the way!
As Beanie Baby and I got closer to Grants, the water became increasingly scarce and we had to rely on a disgusting water source that was a big puddle behind some rocks. Luckily, our friend and traveling companion QuickDraw had just left a trail of magical waters and soda along the way, so we didn’t have to drink the disgusting water. QuickDraw took us to the town of Grants, where we met up with another group of hikers (Pop, Knotty, Swampy, Pitch Perfect, and Bird) for a delicious Asian buffet. New Mexico flies by!
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