Part twenty -two: it is always sunny in New Mexico

Monday, October 14 – Ghost Ranch, Nm

I woke up before the sun rise on the horizon. For the first time in a time, I slept deeply and warm, so warm that I even opened my quilt. It was a luxury that had forgotten.

I took photos of the sandstone cliffs when a gold wave won slowly on its native burned orange color. Korn and I enjoyed the wonders of a buffet breakfast of everything you can eat at the ranch, and shortly after, I returned to the path.

The road took me along a gravel road that approaches the Chama River, an important tributary river of the Rio Grande. A bridge took me through the great body of water, and then the path took me through the canyon while the light was softened. At dusk, I was still walking, anxious to make some miles and approach the next city: Cuba, nm. I had dinner in the dark, near an oxidized tire through which it served as a water source. The moon rose full and clean on me, throwing a pale washing light on the dirt road and the surrounding forest. It was the type of silence that made you sit straight. I felt it then, something. A presence. Like the eyes behind the trees, observing from the shadow wood line.

I kept walking, with parked and externally quiet legs, but within each alarm it was narrowing. Night hiking stir a different type of consciousness: narrow vision, sounds exacerbated, the world changes to forms that you cannot name.

Here, darkness belongs to predators.

After another hour of hiking, I camped just a few miles from the road, in a leveling land patch. I felt proud: I had pushed and walked more than I had planned.

I. The question

Wednesday, October 16 – Cuba, Nm

I passed the scattered houses and the dogs barking and arrived in the city of Cuba, nm. First stop: McDonald’s. The leg of the plug and the syrup were there, as well as other family faces hidden in the corner of the place. I filled myself with food and then wandered to the dispensary. It is said that if he bought something, he could camp free in his field. I picked up a Gommies CBD package, hoping that they could relieve the pain of standing.

The field was hidden behind a marijuana culture, half hesitant and fenced. It is not exactly its typical camp. I looked around, I laughed at myself. Sketch, of course, but I had charm. A strange place more to call home, at least at night.

After finishing my clothes, I found McDonald’s drifting as a sheep to his pen. McDonald’s was a shelter here: hot food, free Wi-Fi, long hours and a warm place to sit that did not stain. He drew in all kinds, through hikers, yes, but also by bicycle. I ended up chatting with a British cyclist riding the great division from Banff. It seemed used in the same way I felt. I told him about the small incomplete field behind the dispensary. He told him that he could also collide there. Two felt safer.

The next day, I woke up with the rain drops hitting my store. When they gave up, I packed and went to breakfast. The forecast was not good, a storm was blowing. And I thought the desert was sunny and dry! I thought about it, I weighed my options and stayed with my plan. I would go the next morning, regardless of the weather. If my time were correct, I would arrive at the summit of Mount Taylor just after the storm was clear.

I spent the day marking the tasks of the city, replenishing, I sent a box on foot Town, then installed in the strange comfort of McDonald’s.

In the grocery store, I was aligning my items (Ramen, Tortillas, Nutella, when the young cashier looked at me and asked me, as a board, «So why do you walk anyway?»

I had heard that question a hundred times before. Usually, I had a list ready. But the way he said it, as if he didn’t matter, as if he didn’t expect anything true to come out of my mouth, he hit differently. For a moment, I stayed there. Then I gave him the safe and generic version. The one we all use when we do not want to explain too much: «I just wanted to travel and explore the country. You know, go to an adventure.»

Even while I said it, I knew it wasn’t correct. It didn’t sound like me.

I went to the parking lot with a supermarket bag in one hand and somewhat heavier in the other. Four months. More than two thousand miles. And I still couldn’t say, with certainty, because.

Friday October 18 to 24 hours later

I uploaded a small table and I saw the wind whip the sand in demons of dust. The wind had fought all day. I wore sunglasses just to keep the sand out of my eyes. The sky had obscured during the afternoon and the rain threatened. I found the camp surveyed between three low sewing trees, the only place protected by a few miles. My tent stirred in the wind and the rain began to play the store. I couldn’t establish myself. I thought about the border, I wondered what weather I would find me there. I prayed by the sun and the blue sky.

I told myself what I always do: everything is temporary.

The next morning, Rain woke me up. I waited for him and then left my store and became a world. The fog tangled around the cliffs and tables such as smoke. The light was dim, almost like dream. A heavy layer of dark clouds placed on the horizon. I started walking with difficulty: the ground had become slippery paste. I wasn’t accustomed to so much water. Each step was a bet. The clay clung to my shoes like bricks, weighing them. I moved slowly. The rain fell above, never enough to quit smoking, but enough to use me thin.

All day, I didn’t see a single soul. I walked alone, with my thoughts, towards this sterile, muddy and implacable country.

In the afternoon, a break in the clouds let the sun pass. But not for a long time. After crossing a shallow river that had swollen with the last rainfall, I saw the climbing ahead: dark clouds that concentrated as a warning. The ray opened the sky through the crest. I waited for half an hour behind a group of trees near an empty water cache, closely watching the storm. When it happened, I moved fast. Who knew when I would hit the next one, there was never only one.

The path rose quickly and steep. He was soaked in sweat and breathing strongly when the sky turned on again, white and sudden. I didn’t expect another warning. Quickly, I found a flat place protected under a few trees and launched my store as quickly as I could. Shortly after entering my store, hail hit as marble on the floor. Thunder continued, deep and brutal, as the battery in a metal concert: raw, deafening and close. I could feel it in my bones, in my chest. I was just above me.

The flashes of light exploded through the fabric of my refuge, one after another. He felt like seeing fireworks from inside my room on the day of the Bastille. I used to hate fireworks when I was a child. But tonight, I was not scared. He was amazed at this raw power exhibition. Lightning continued to tear the sky, each bolt crushing the darkness like a blade through paper. I stayed still.

Then, through the storm, I heard voices, the first time I heard in a day. PEG in leg and syrup. They had camped below in the mountain, I heard them say while they passed. It seemed to be moving forward.

II. Tsoodzil, the turquoise mountain

In the morning, I finished the climb and stepped on the flat upper part of the table. The visibility was low: a heavy fog clung to everything, swallowing the horizon. The carbonized trees bowed along the way, their limbs twisted and lifeless. The crows crossed the fog, laughing while they disappeared among the few stood trunks. I felt as if I was entering the set of a Tim Burton movie.

Later, the wind blew the fog, and for the first time in the last two days, I saw the blue sky and felt the heat of the sun. The path was easy, but bored. Water transport was long, but cold air helped. At the end of the day, I made a camp under the high pines when the sun melted on the horizon. Finally, it was dry and warm. That night, I didn’t put on the rain and I fell asleep while looking at the stars that appeared one in the dark sky.

Monday, October 21 – Mt Taylor alternate

I woke up cold. An ice cream layer clung to my team. The storm had dragged into a cold front behind him: the temperatures were falling, and now it was clear: autumn had settled forever. I spent a hunter camp and took the alternative of Mount Taylor, a dirt road that climbed most of the road. In Navajo, Mt Taylor was known as Tsoodzil (Turquoise Mountain) and was one of the four sacred mountains marked by the Navajo homeland.

The sky was clear, the crunchy air. I was surprised to walk through snow patches near the summit. Finally, at 3 pm, I reached the top. I waited at sunset, trembling in the wind. But the panorama was worth it.

I walked in the dark and put on the side of another dirt road. Tired, but satisfied.

The next day, I entered subsidies and registered at Motel 8 just after noon for a shower and rest for a long time. Peg Leg stopped through my open door and we were up to date. I told her that I had listened to her and syrup go through my store during the stormy night. She shared her side.

That night, they camped at the bottom of the table, just a few hundred meters below me. Both in their stores, taking refuge from hail, when suddenly heard a roar by land. The floor shook, but it wasn’t thunder. Before she could react, a water wall hit the store, a sudden flood. They took out, grabbing what they could.

Soaked and with half their lost team, they decided that they could not stay there. They advanced, directing directly to subsidies, about 60 miles without stopping. It sounded like hell.

Upon hearing this, empathy with them and I felt grateful for myself. Fortunately even. I realized that I had only avoided the same experience pushing more uphill. That realization sat heavy. The nearby calls often did.