CDT Intinerary – March 2005
Afoot and lighthearted, I take to the open road... W.W.
Well, here’s the plan. But first a note to welcome you to the blog, and that we welcome any of you all to meet us and walk with us for as little or as long as you like. I know we’ll see a few of you all along the way, if only because you live unescapably close to the trail, and we’ll be crashing at your house and grazing your gardens like a summer hailstorm. As for the rest of you, if you’ve got any inclination to ramble the Rockies this summer, well, what are you waiting for? And if hiking 16-22 miles a day isn’t your idea of fun, well, there’ll be more than a pitcher or two of delectable brew to share (for critical rehydration purposes, of course) at all sorts of lovely little mountain towns along the way, you know, like Butte, MT or Rawlins, WY, or even delightful Grants NM. Otherwise you’ll just have to check in with us on this blog every now and enjoy a beverage of your own choosing, we’ll post updates whenever we get the chance…
Currently, we are planning to hike from South to North from Antelope Wells, NM, to Cuba, NM. Then we are taking a week off to go to a wedding in NY (Beth’s brother, Kevin), and probably another week to prepare for the rest of the trail – food purchases, preparing boxes to be shipped, etc. After that, we’ll most likely head up to Waterton Lakes, Alberta, and hike the rest of the trail from North to South. Originally we had conceived of going S to N the whole way, but it turns out this really isn’t the year for it, with way above normal snowpack in the San Juans and elsewhere in southern CO and northern NM, which won’t be melted off anytime soon, and a very dry winter in MT and WY, with folks up there planning for big fires this year. So it’s really looking like a better year for N to S, unless things change a lot over the next couple months. But since we are already here in NM with a couple months to spare before a June start up north, we figure we might as well enjoy the spring hiking through the deserts, canyons, badlands, and mountains between the bootheel and the southern Rockies. We’re hoping that the rain and snow they’ve had down there this winter has alleviated some of the water concerns through the deserts and all the stock tanks are brimming…
We’ll be starting at Antelope Wells on the morning of March 30, if all goes according to plan, with our friend Anastasia Allen kindly driving us down to the border. We intend to cover the ca. 125 miles to Silver City in a leisurely 8 days, where we’ll be staying with another friend for a day, Jan Frye. You can reach us at 708 N Black St, 88061.
April 8 we’ll hit the trail again, into the Gila. We should be able to recuperate from the long miles at 5 hot springs before we emerge out of the canyons and into the Tularosa Mountain country. We’ll pick up another food drop in the little town of Gila Hot Springs around April 11, the address to reach us there is: (one or the other of us) c/o Doc Campbell’s Trading Post, HC 68, Box 80, Silver City, NM, 88061.
Then to Pie Town NM, which we should reach sometime around April 18-19. I don’t know what our chances are of checking email but we will pick up physical mail there, the entire town consists of a post office and the Pie-o-neer Restaurant, which is closed Monday and Tuesday, i.e. April 18 and 19…You can send us a pie c/o General Delivery, Pie Town, NM 87827.
Onward. We’ll cross the lava flows of the Malpais and arrive in Grants ca. April 22-23, Resupply there, then up to the summit of Mount Taylor to take a look around, along the top of Mesa Chivato, then across the badlands of the Rio Puerco, and we should be in Cuba by April 30, coincidentally, my (Jonathan’s) birthday. So we’ll be eating carne adovada and drinking margaritas that night at El Bruno’s restaurant in Cuba, which is actually a pretty good little place.
Then we’ll be off the trail as we have to get to a wedding in NY by May 6… neither of us have been to NYC before and it’ll be an interesting change of pace....a chance to eat some bagels and pizza before we hit the trail again, in any case. If you have any other recommendations as to where to go what to see etc. feel free to let us know.
From here, the itinerary gets a little fuzzy…maybe another stretch of the trail here or there, then an early June start from Waterton back south. Tentatively: Glacier/Bob/Scapegoat till mid-late June, Anaconda Pintlers late June/early July, Bitterroots early July, reach Yellowstone by mid-late July, Wind Rivers late July, Wyoming Desert to Colorado in Aug, Colorado filling up the rest of Aug and Sept, getting back to Cuba NM sometime in October. We’ll post a more detailed itinerary as it evolves.
See you out there somewhere or maybe somewhere else. More to come…
Peace.
Well, here’s the plan. But first a note to welcome you to the blog, and that we welcome any of you all to meet us and walk with us for as little or as long as you like. I know we’ll see a few of you all along the way, if only because you live unescapably close to the trail, and we’ll be crashing at your house and grazing your gardens like a summer hailstorm. As for the rest of you, if you’ve got any inclination to ramble the Rockies this summer, well, what are you waiting for? And if hiking 16-22 miles a day isn’t your idea of fun, well, there’ll be more than a pitcher or two of delectable brew to share (for critical rehydration purposes, of course) at all sorts of lovely little mountain towns along the way, you know, like Butte, MT or Rawlins, WY, or even delightful Grants NM. Otherwise you’ll just have to check in with us on this blog every now and enjoy a beverage of your own choosing, we’ll post updates whenever we get the chance…
Currently, we are planning to hike from South to North from Antelope Wells, NM, to Cuba, NM. Then we are taking a week off to go to a wedding in NY (Beth’s brother, Kevin), and probably another week to prepare for the rest of the trail – food purchases, preparing boxes to be shipped, etc. After that, we’ll most likely head up to Waterton Lakes, Alberta, and hike the rest of the trail from North to South. Originally we had conceived of going S to N the whole way, but it turns out this really isn’t the year for it, with way above normal snowpack in the San Juans and elsewhere in southern CO and northern NM, which won’t be melted off anytime soon, and a very dry winter in MT and WY, with folks up there planning for big fires this year. So it’s really looking like a better year for N to S, unless things change a lot over the next couple months. But since we are already here in NM with a couple months to spare before a June start up north, we figure we might as well enjoy the spring hiking through the deserts, canyons, badlands, and mountains between the bootheel and the southern Rockies. We’re hoping that the rain and snow they’ve had down there this winter has alleviated some of the water concerns through the deserts and all the stock tanks are brimming…
We’ll be starting at Antelope Wells on the morning of March 30, if all goes according to plan, with our friend Anastasia Allen kindly driving us down to the border. We intend to cover the ca. 125 miles to Silver City in a leisurely 8 days, where we’ll be staying with another friend for a day, Jan Frye. You can reach us at 708 N Black St, 88061.
April 8 we’ll hit the trail again, into the Gila. We should be able to recuperate from the long miles at 5 hot springs before we emerge out of the canyons and into the Tularosa Mountain country. We’ll pick up another food drop in the little town of Gila Hot Springs around April 11, the address to reach us there is: (one or the other of us) c/o Doc Campbell’s Trading Post, HC 68, Box 80, Silver City, NM, 88061.
Then to Pie Town NM, which we should reach sometime around April 18-19. I don’t know what our chances are of checking email but we will pick up physical mail there, the entire town consists of a post office and the Pie-o-neer Restaurant, which is closed Monday and Tuesday, i.e. April 18 and 19…You can send us a pie c/o General Delivery, Pie Town, NM 87827.
Onward. We’ll cross the lava flows of the Malpais and arrive in Grants ca. April 22-23, Resupply there, then up to the summit of Mount Taylor to take a look around, along the top of Mesa Chivato, then across the badlands of the Rio Puerco, and we should be in Cuba by April 30, coincidentally, my (Jonathan’s) birthday. So we’ll be eating carne adovada and drinking margaritas that night at El Bruno’s restaurant in Cuba, which is actually a pretty good little place.
Then we’ll be off the trail as we have to get to a wedding in NY by May 6… neither of us have been to NYC before and it’ll be an interesting change of pace....a chance to eat some bagels and pizza before we hit the trail again, in any case. If you have any other recommendations as to where to go what to see etc. feel free to let us know.
From here, the itinerary gets a little fuzzy…maybe another stretch of the trail here or there, then an early June start from Waterton back south. Tentatively: Glacier/Bob/Scapegoat till mid-late June, Anaconda Pintlers late June/early July, Bitterroots early July, reach Yellowstone by mid-late July, Wind Rivers late July, Wyoming Desert to Colorado in Aug, Colorado filling up the rest of Aug and Sept, getting back to Cuba NM sometime in October. We’ll post a more detailed itinerary as it evolves.
See you out there somewhere or maybe somewhere else. More to come…
Peace.
posted by coop at 7:21 AM
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