Adventures in Onionism

Holy crap. That was a lot of snow. Holy CRAP , that was a lot of snow. From 2 to over 32 miles out of Chama I saw maybe 100 yards of trail. Basically, all of Colorado above 10,000 feet is covered in snow right now. Guess how much of the trail is above 10,000 feet in Colorado. So far, every single inch of it. At first, I was thinking how bad it sucked, and how I'd like to take a few days off and see if I could get a bus to go to a friend's wedding in Truckee ( yeh , that'd be cool, showing up smelling like hiker with no spare clothes and no place to stay.) But the second half of the 65~ miles wasn't so bad. I've got 116 more coming up and I think they'll be just as bad. It's kind of cool just to be braving the elements, and if I could drag my lazy butt out of bed at the usual time I could do 20 miles a day, which is about what I expected. But the post-holing starts at about 9:30 and doesn't stop till I go to bed, so my shins are covered in sc...

Did I mention that I found an iPod on the trail the other day? Yes, it works, and yes, it was charged. Sweet! Only after a while I was like, "What!? Where's the Zep? How am I supposed to get the Led out? Not even any Skynyrd? How am I supposed to rock? There's not a single air-guitarable song on here!" Anyway, things are good. I picked up $30 worth of athlete's foot stuff at the drug store and some socks at the dollar store (3 for $3 nylon Wal-Mart socks work great, so I hope 3 for $3 polyester Family Dollar socks are OK too.) Alright, I'm going to go hit the grocery store, get a burger, and try and get a ride back to the trail.

To paraphrase: Up walked Huck carrying a dead cat. "Whatcha gonna do with that cat?" asked Tom. "I'm gonna cure New Mexico with it," said Huck. "How're you gonna do that?" asked Tom. "Well, when a wicked man's been buried, the devil comes to fetch his soul at midnight. When the devil comes, you heave yer cat after him and say 'New Mexico follow cat, cat follow devil, devil, I'm done with ye!'" (The real Twain version, as adapted in a famous Christensen family road trip tape, was how Huck tried to cure warts.) What does this mean? I'm done with New Mexico! (For now.) 662 miles or so done. I crossed the border into CO this morning on a forest road and then hitched back to Chama in NM for the nearest resupply. I picked up some warmer clothing, crampons, my ice axe, new shoes, socks, gloves, tent stakes, batteries, and trekking poles, and of course more Vitamin I (ibuprofen). Sitting in the library warm and toasty I...

Never get involved with a thru -hiker when an all-you-can-eat meal is on the line. I had something like 15 miles to do before 11:30 when Ghost Ranch stops selling tickets for lunch, so I hauled apples all morning and rolled up to the cashier at 11:31 without even bothering to look twice at my barbed-wire-gouged bleeding arm. I'm not usually one for fast mornings, usually I'm lucky to do 10 before 1, but not if there's an AYCE at stake. Here's why I'm an idiot. I didn't apply for one of Patagonia's two $3000 " Dirtbag Grants" before the May 1 deadline. I'm an idiot because I am a total dirtbag . Not in the sleazy pedophile way, but in the old-fashioned cheap fly by the seat of your pants hopping over barbed wire fences adventurer sort of way. I rolled into Cuba, NM on Sunday and wanted to do laundry, only I needed to launder every item of clothing I have, and neither of the two laundromats in town had a lost and found I could grab some ...

Greetings from Grants, NM, where the houses aren't just pre-fab, they're pre-fabulous! Marcus has kept you pretty well up to date, so I'll just fill you in on the last couple days. There was a terrible thunderstorm on Monday on my way out of Pie Town, but I happened upon a dilapidated cabin by the road (all was flat for miles around, there was no way to lose elevation) and chilled there till it passed. I knew to expect daily afternoon storms in CO, but I had no idea they happened in NM too. I got a little lost in the afternoon when the CDTS books and Jonathan Ley's maps didn't really line up, but no biggy. Yesterday I chilled in a picnic area port-a-pottie for a few minutes waiting for the storm to pass, then walked along the very cool rim of the Narrows near La Ventana natural arch and crossed the El Malpais lava field, and there was a good bit of paved road walking yesterday and today. Roadwalking down a paved canyon where the ditch is full of trash with a fo...

Pie Town has two pie restaurants each of which opens on alternating days to share the booming pie-serving business. It also has two or three churches and one post office. That's about it. Garret walked in, consumed "the best pie ever," took a shower that the proprietress of the diner offered him and is waiting for the post office to open tomorrow morning to collect his resupply. He says the trail is scenic despite being mostly walking on infrequently used gravel roads. He's seen elk, antelope and various small mammals and is right on schedule with his planned hundred mile weeks.

Garret left a message on my phone around noon. He was a bit angry because camera "goes on the fritz" fairly often, but besides that he seemed good. It was raining when he called and he had forded the Gila river which was mid-thigh deep "fifty-some-odd times in the previous twenty-four hours." He says nobody picks up the phone when he calls.

I got a call fom Garret the other day. He's doing well. He says that the CDT is generally more extreme than the PCT. He mention that it's hotter and colder, drier and wetter, but thankfully not windier than the southern parts of the PCT. He got surprised by snow a couple of days ago and realized that while titanium tent stakes are incredibly light to pack, they are also ineffective at keeping his tarp tacked down. He emphasized that he's really liking the hiking.

From Garret: I'm in Deming. I was late getting to El Paso, but my ride waited, so all was well, and I got to see several F-16's land in the impromptu stop in Tuscon. I left the border at 8 PM on the 2nd, camped at Pancho Villa SP in Columbus, and yesterday walked most of the way to Deming. I did half the "trail" section and roadwalked the other half--it just seemed way out of the way, trail-less, and kinda pointless. Saw lots of hares and a few coyotes; got barked at by thousands of dogs, thankfully all well fenced. A little sunburnt, but all is well. Onward.

I should totally be packing since I leave tomorrow, but these pictures are funny, and I do have to clear my camera's memory cards, so here are some pictures from my friend's baby shower. My friends are awesome. Here's pregnant Lindsay about to whack into the pregnant pinata that Marcus brought, and here she is pulling out a baby doll and discovering that the pinata really was pregnant. With triplets. Good times.