Category: New Mexico

We have uploaded photos for the first US state we walked through – New Mexico. These can be seen here….

Following on from the previous update here are a random set of photos of Northern New Mexico……

Approaching the Chama River and Ghost Ranch in pink rock sedimentary mesa with sagebrush below.

A close up of what we think is the delightfully termed skunk cabbage. Anyway they are nice plants and grow in wet meadows so are a good water indicator for us!

Martina camped in a stand of aspen at 9,500 feet in the morning sun.

We are in rolling hill country here in northern New Mexico at about 10,300ft and beginning to see more snow.

We meet up again with Ted and Richard after we all took different routes through the forest. An opportunity to dry everything out again before the rains start in the afternoon. Our walking is typically on old disused jeep roads as seen here.

Colorado border at last- now to camp before the thunderstorms hail on us again!

A shortish 55 mile section from Cuba to Ghost Ranch New Mexico www.ghostranch.org

We had an extreme change from semi-desert in Cuba to a 3000ft climb into fir and spruce green mountains of the San Pedro Mountains. Our tent had its first coating of frost and ice camped up there at 10,300ft on a lovely meadow next to running water. Our next night was also next to a river in the Ojitos canyon before we followed the Chama river to Ghost Ranch.

The scenery here is dominated by pink, red and yellow sedimentary cliffs and its pretty cool. The artist Georgia O’Keeffe painted here for 50 years. No photos as the computer won’t let me download but next stop for us is the Colorado border, 84 miles away at Cumbres Pass. We then aim to hitch (or get the scenic train line) back to Chama NM to resuply with winter gear (boots and ice axes) ready for the snowy and high San Juan mountains of Colorado.

Hope the Scottish readers are enjoying the hot spring weather !

Brian Saturday 30th May

We are now in Cuba New Mexico after 515 miles of walking from the Mexican border. We had a 500 mile sing song to a certain Proclaimer’s song whilst walking along a cliff top mesa yesterday. This last 100 miles has had some of the most varied terrain and weather of our trip so far. From wild wet wind and cloud over the Mt Taylor mountains to dry arroyo and mesa country later on. We have enjoyed the scenery particularly of the desert mesas with lots of cactus bloom, twisted juniper trees, slick rock sandstone and endless vistas. We saw a group of 3 jeeps pass us in the last 6 days, the rest of the time we were on our own. We have been accompanied by the yelping of coyotes each night and morning but have not managed to capture them on camera yet. The lizards and skulls have been more photogenic so far and we hope the photos below give a flavour

brian 27-05-09 Cuba NM (no relation to Fidal Castro’s Cuba !)……

415 miles Grants New Mexico.
Quick update from the Grants library. They have blocked the USB ports so I’m afraid no photos- boooh.
I (Brian) broke the camera a couple of days ago by falling on it in Sand Canyon. The shots are ok but the camera is knackered. Funny enough it survived an immersion in the Gila River a week previously . It wouldn’t work after a fall in the river but after a day strapped to the top of my rucksack it spluttered into action. The super-hot , dry weather has its uses! I have bitten the bullet and bought a replacement in WalMart, Grants.

Yesterday we crossed Route 66 which I liked- yes we got our kicks on Route 66!

We have been walking through a recent (1000 yo) lava zone called El Malpais. A nice varied stretch for us. Previous to that we walked through Pie Town- well, we walked 26 miles in a day into Pie Town driven on by the target of eating as much pie as possible. Unfortunately we made it there at 16:30, dry, dusty and hungry, only to see the ‘closed ‘ sign on the cafe – the PIE-O-NEER. We sat there on the wooden porch, heads in hands, wondering what to do next when Stan from the cafe opened the door, took pity on us, and let us in. Hoooorrraaah. We both had double pie and ice cream washed down with diet coke and coffee.

Today it rained in Grants. Thats a seriously significant event for them here and we are glad to see it. We might just see some more water out there on the hills. It looks like we might get more rain too.

We have about 230 miles more in New Mexico, in about 18 miles we will reach Mt Taylor at 11, 300ft our highest point yet.

Brian

Just a quick note on Pie Town: it is really called that! There are about 10 houses in Pie Town and 2 Pie Shops and a post office (where we sent ourselves resupply food for the next 90 mile stretch). Some bloke moved out there in the 1930’s and started selling pie to passing tourists. He changed the name of the town to Pie Town (with resistance from the post office who considered it a silly and undignified name) and it became a famous place to stop and eat pie.

The current owners of the Pie-O-Neer have revived this fame and their pie is incredible – never seen a crust as fluffy as that! They have been subject of articles in many foody magazines and even been covered in a TV documentary on a US TV channel dedicated to food. There is another restaurant in town that also does breakfast and burgers as well as pies: the “Daily Pie”! We ate at both.

In Pie Town a lovely woman called Nita has made her old house available to hikers (she and her family moved to another house in town) including shower, washing machine, kitchen and a lovely porch to sit on in the evening. We stayed there with Ted and Richard and also met Jim and his dog Slick who are long-time Divide travellers (on horseback though) and are currently looking after the place (Jim fixed the bathroom door while we were there).

Brian managed to stash some water a day up the trail with the help of Gordon and his van (Gordon was there to support another set of thru-hikers). We left Pie Town quite late (15:20), aiming to get to a ranch which has a tap in the garden for hikers to get water – 16 miles down the trail. Richard came with us and Ted decided to stay another day in Pie Town.

We hiked hard on dirt road and made it to the ranch just as the light began to seriously fade! Ranchers have guns. They have big yard dogs. They might not expect a bunch of dirty tramps (that’s us) walking up their drive in the dark … we were a bit nervous as we approached the big steel shed at the Thomas Mountain Ranch.

But as we timidly “hallo-ed”, a small door in the shed opened and a friendly man in his 70’s asked us in, overtaken by his even friendlier wife who immediately ordered us to put down our things, make ourselves at home, we would be sleeping in the shed tonight. The shed contained a whole household (kitchen, living room, dining room, big TV and huge fireplace with a roaring fire in it). Did we want some bread and butter pudding? John and Ainsi Thomas made us completely at home and were splendid company over dinner. The previous day had been their 58th wedding anniversary!

Suddenly there was a knock and a voice outside the door. Ted had changed his mind as he saw the three of us hike up the road and had come after us. So that night we slept in the shed and in the morning we got real coffee.

The kindness and hospitality of people here is quite incredible!
M