CDT Day 109 – Leaving Lordsburg

Date: 10/15/20

Daily Miles: 14

Total Miles: 2000

We had a good time in Lordsburg yesterday. Dexter and Pay It Forward were staying at the same motel, so we got to hang out with them again. Dexter is really into making his own gear, so Beardoh was in heaven getting to talk DIY Gear with another hiker.

This morning we had some work we needed to get done before leaving town, so we didn’t head out until 10:00am. It is nice when we don’t feel rushed to get out in the mornings.

The trail actually passes right by the motel we stayed at, so we just walked out to the road and continued on it as we headed out of town. It was an ok temperature as we headed out, but you could tell it was going to be another hot day.

It seems that the CDT Coalition works with several locals to stock some water caches in this last stretch. Given our water woes in the previous stretch, we were really happy to see that there wouldn’t be any big water carries in our final days on the trail. There are actually multiple cattle troughs with water currently, but there are still caches, so we shouldn’t have to carry water for more than 14 miles which feels like a dream after the 43 mile water carry we had coming into Lordsburg.

Part of the trail today was very similar to the trail coming into Lordsburg…there isn’t an actual trail, but instead there are posts to guide hikers in the correct direction. It seemed like the posts today were a lot further apart than the ones yesterday. It was often quite hard to spot the next post. Beardoh was on “post scouting” duty since SweetPea’s long range vision isn’t so good.

Part of the time today was also spent on dirt roads. The walking in general was really easy and we were able to make good time. We realized as we walked that we had allotted too much time for us to complete this final stretch. We had added an extra half day to each of our last two town-to-town stretches, and we had done that for this final stretch to the border as well, but we really don’t need the extra time. What that means for us, is that we won’t be setting an alarm in the mornings, we’ll probably stop for reading breaks during the day and we’ll probably be stopping early each night.

Today, for example, we look a long break at a water tank (the one bit of shade we had seen in several hours) and listened to a podcast together. And we also stopped for the day at 4:30pm. It seems a bit ridiculous to put the breaks on so hard right now, but our finishing plans have already been set, so we don’t really have a choice.

It was really hot again today by the middle of the afternoon. This area feels a bit like the Great Basin, in that there are hardly any trees and therefore almost no shade to be found. Beardoh bought a cheap umbrella at the Dollar General yesterday and he was pretty happy to have that today. We also wet our bandanas in any water that we happened to pass by. Even though it would dry out quickly, it was nice to have the momentary cool feeling.

Tonight we are cowboy camping in a very open spot. The sky is perfectly clear and the stars are starting to come out. It feels like it is going to be a warm night tonight.