CDT JOY: Halloween on the road

Day 128: 20.9 miles

Highlights: Halloween Party for Hikers in Silver City.

Although we planned to leave camp at 6:30am, we ended up hiking the trail around 7am. It was a cold morning and it took us a while to get moving. Midnight, Whiskers and I wanted an earlier start to get back to Silver City early for Halloween, but we also had a shorter day and weren’t in a rush to leave.

We put on our Halloween costumes before we left: Midnight dressed as an alien, Whiskers dressed as a pink rabbit, and me dressed as Harley Quinn. We took some photos along the way as the sun came out and were able to show our costumes to some people along the way.

It was a little uncomfortable to continue wearing my costume for 15 miles during the day as the scorching sun left the costume wet with sweat. My costume was also a girl’s dress and I could feel the costume digging into my armpits and rubbing against me. I changed into normal clothes and headed to the Burro Peak trailhead.

I haven’t been looking at the elevation profile since southern New Mexico was so flat, so I was surprised to find ourselves climbing up Burro Peak on my way to the trailhead.

My friend Tim picked us up on the trail to take us to Silver City. We checked into the same room at the Palace Hotel and retrieved our items from the front desk, where we left extra gear and Halloween supplies from the day before.

I took a shower, put on my costume, sprayed my hair black and red with temporary dye, and put Halloween makeup on my face. Woody joined us in the room and then the five of us went to the Little Toad Brewery.

Dressed up for Halloween with Tim

We ordered 3 orders of Irish nachos since they were so good last time and we finished them all. After dinner, we headed to the local trail house of angels, about a half mile away, for a hiker’s Halloween party.

There we saw many friends from the trail that we had not seen for a long time. There was a costume contest that Midnight won and Supernoods took a cover photo for their CDT calendar.

Some of us ended up sitting outside on a couch for hours laughing and hanging out. We left the party for the hotel room around 1am, but ended up staying in the hotel room talking for a while.

Day 129: 9.3 miles

Highlights: Fifteen magical trails. Leaving Silver City again.

Since we didn’t go to bed until after 4am, I was surprised to be up at 8:30am and getting ready. I had cereal and coffee for breakfast, cut my nails, packed my clothes, and cleaned up the mess from yesterday’s costume creations.

When we left the hotel at 11 am, Whiskers, Midnight and I headed to the post office. Here I sent home my sandals, my wool base layers, and my duplex tent and tent pole. The forecast calls for a 0% chance of rain, so I’ll be cowboy camping with my new Tyvek groundsheet. If it rains, I’ll pack up and walk, or share space with Midnight under her hammock and tarp.

At the post office I bought lunch at Forrest’s Pizza, ice cream at The Ice Cream Emporium, a small resupply at the Snappy Mart gas station, and visited the visitor center.

Our friend Quince, who finished the trail several days ago and had a rental car, offered to take us back to the trail we left yesterday.

From the trail we made our way onto single track with small hills and desert plants. It really feels like the Sonoran Desert in this section with the plants and the extreme weather of hot in the afternoon and cold at night.

We had dinner across Highway 90 at a water tank where Quince left a magical trail of soda and replenished the water tank. We all ate ramen and drank a soda and then walked three more miles as the sun set and night fell.

Thanks for the Trail Magic Fifteen!

We camped on flat ground near the trail and dug a hole in the sandy ground to make a small fire. We gathered firewood, laid out our sheets and mats by the fire, and sat for a while before going to bed.

Small campfire for the night with midnight alien costume lights in the background

Day 130: 22.1 miles

Highlights: Lordsburg, New Mexico. Last stop on the trail in the city.

Around 11pm, I woke up and my hip hit the ground instead of being in the air under my sleeping mat. Then, a few minutes later, my shoulder hit the ground. I looked at the fire that we had been taking turns stoking during the night to give it more heat and saw that one of the types of wood we collected was making a lot of popping noises. We made sure we were in a sandy area with no plant life and no wind, but I figured at the time that an ember must have landed on my deck and made a hole.

That’s tomorrow’s problem, that’s what I thought to myself. I took my 8-inch pad and folded it in half so it spanned from my shoulders to my butt, then placed my clothing bag at my feet before putting my deflated sleeping bag back under me. I slept quite warm even though I was missing a sleeping pad.

This morning we allowed ourselves to wake up naturally and without an alarm. We stayed at the campsite quite late, but since daylight saving time set us back an hour, we still left before 8am.

The morning was cold, but by 10am I was sweating and wanted to find some shade to rest. I met up with Midnight and Whiskers and we had a snack before heading back to the trail together.

We all missed a path to the trail junction that was not well marked and had to return to the trail. After 12 midnight I started looking for a shady place to have lunch, but there were no more trees and instead the landscape was replaced by a mix of yucca, bushes and prickly pears.

At 1 in the afternoon we all settled down in the shade of two yucca plants and ate. I had 1 quart of water left for the next 8.6 hot, exposed miles of trail and some of us had even less, so we decided to hit the town in one go and pick up drinks at the Dollar General on the outskirts of town.

From lunch the trail wasn’t so much a trail as it was exploring metal posts with white CDT signs in the distance and then venturing in that direction. It was about 5 miles and then the trail went under a barbed wire fence and onto a road. From there it was an easy road ride with a nice shoulder to the city.

I bought a Gatorlyte and a Baja Blast and headed to the other side of downtown, next to the McDonald’s. There I had a Big Mac, a buffalo chicken sandwich, fries, and a leprechaun.

We saw Beaker and Gone there, who plan to finish the same day as us. We were informed that Motel 6 didn’t have soaps or shampoo for the room, so I quickly ran next door to the Family Dollar and bought some before we all headed to the room.

The hotel shower switch between bath water and shower water didn’t work properly, so I took a dripping shower while banging my feet on the tub faucet. And so, I took my last shower and had my last stay at the trail hotel.

When I finished showering and started doing laundry, I repaired three small ember holes in my sleeping mat. They were easy to spot as small raised protrusions on the top of the platform, near the bottom third of it.

Of that. I charged electronics, cleaned my kitchen utensils, hydrated, and relaxed by surfing the Internet. We decided to do a late night restock at the Family Dollar so we could get an earlier start the next morning. We still had a full day of hiking and any tasks we could do today would help set us up for success in the morning.

Midnight, Bigotes and I showing off our latest resupply bags