Day 4 - Walk to Cache Box, Walk to Cache Box

Date: Sun April 21

Start Mile: 57.1

End Mile: 76.8

Total Mileage: 19.7 mi

The Highlights: cool breezes, beautiful skies, cows

First - I hope you read to the title of this post to the tune of Rock the Casbah, Rock the Casbah…

This morning the stars once again filled the sky when it was time to wake up, the Big Dipper commanding the sky to the west as I sat up to change and pack up.

Knowing that Monkey Man was also camped in the vicinity, I tried to pack as quietly as possible. Unfortunately, the nylofume pack liners that we use for extra waterproofing crinkle incredibly loudly when you pack them, worse than the crinkliest chip bag you can imagine. So, there is basically the sound of a hundred crinkling chip bags during the pack up process. So much for being quiet.

All packed up, Shawn topped up with a bit more water from the cache box and we hit the road.

Beautiful morning skies.

The morning was chilly with a cold breeze. I’d worn my rain gear for warmth while we packed up, but stripped it off before we began hiking, which may have been too soon. I had no complaints though. I had cursed the heat in the past days and certainly wasn’t wishing away a cool breeze.

The morning hiking was easy. Completely flat, mostly soft trail… mostly easy to follow, although there are always those times that the trail and signposts completely disappear… at which point we follow the map until some semblance of trail begins again. It’s been said CDT stands for “Continuously Disappearing Trail” and even in our first few days out here we are already getting a taste of this.

With the easy terrain and cool morning temps, we had easily finished 10 miles before 10am, actually finishing over 12 miles by 10:30am, which landed us at the first water source of the day.

Since it had been cool, Hot Mess and I had each only drank barely more than an abysmal one liter of water (each) for the nearly 13 miles to the water tank. Not great hydration and probably why several of my muscles were very mad at me this morning - my right side IT band, calf, and glute all screaming at me throughout different parts of the morning.

Finally taking a break, I promptly plopped down on my foam mat and pulled off my shoes, socks, and hiking gaiters. Pretty much the first thing I did at every break of any significant length (at least 15 minutes). I couldn’t wait to free my aching feet.

My feet were not happy campers. All of the muscles in them ached, from my toes to my ankles, I had several small blisters on my toes, and the tender skin was wearing off of the balls of my feet.

All of this is pretty normal for the beginning days of a thru hike and we likely have weeks more of aches and pains to work through before our bodies get in line with the fact that this will be the norm for awhile.

This said, I also think Altra changed their shoe sizing since the last thru hike we did and I need to size up another half size. Your feet tend to swell when you are hiking this much and it’s critical that there is plenty of space in your shoes. Otherwise your feet are not happy and things will start to break down very quickly. Pretty soon I will be wearing clown shoes.

Eventually Monkey Man also joined us at the water tank. Despite the fact that there was shade to be had, the cool breeze kept us all in the sun. I ate my lunch and would have loved to take a nap, but I was too busy defending my territory from the many red ants roaming about. We had noticed quite a lot of ant hills on today’s hike actually, and now they were marching in for my picnic, as ants are wont to do.

Around noon, we packed up and set out on the next stage of our hike, which would be a little under six miles to the next water source.

After a bit more flat trail through the spikey desert foliage we have come to know and love, this next section took us over some small rollers, which were pretty but rocky, and then dumped us back into a maze of shrubbery.

The afternoon trail would eventually devolve into mostly road. These last few days we’ve noticed that is has been the pattern of the trail to be pretty nice in the morning and then, much like us, pretty much collapse in on itself along our afternoon route… either becoming a painfully rocky mess or a road… also full of rocks. Or no trail at all. It is under this duress that we drag ourselves through the hot afternoons.

Cows always taking up all the good shade!

En route to our next planned water break, we passed by Monkey Man, who was sitting in the shade of a water tank that we planned to skip. “I think I’m going to climb that mountain,” he said, motioning toward Pyramid Peak to the north.

“Okay, have fun, bye.”

My body had no interest in any sort of extra miles, my feet already pissed about the trail miles we were putting in. The base of the peak looked to be a decent distance from the trail and, not the mention, the peak itself probably not a terribly short climb. I envied Monkey Man for having this kind of energy though. “The cache is only five more miles, so I have plenty of time.”

See you later!

Pyramid Peak

Hot Mess and I continued on another couple miles to the next water source, which was a large tank for livestock. It was a tall tank where the water filtered out the bottom for the livestock. This style was preferable for water collection since the cattle couldn’t drink out of the tank directly. We didn’t really end up needing much water here, but took a break for a bit anyway.

The morning breezes had continued through the afternoon, which had made for pretty decent desert hiking. There were of course plenty of times the wind would stop for a bit and you’d realize just how incredibly hot it was. Of course, as soon as we sat down for a break, it was suddenly just non-stop windy. Too windy to linger for very long, so we were back hiking again soon.

The last stretch was only about two and half miles. Naturally once we started hiking it suddenly wasn’t windy anymore. The wind was now but a whisper in the distance, occasionally gracing us with her presence.

Thankfully this last bit went pretty quickly, and soon enough we were at water cache box number five, the final cache in the stretch to Lordsburg.

Hot Mess and I hunkered down in the small bit of shade the cache box threw on the ground. Not much later, another hiker came walking up. Not Monkey Man though, who was presumably climbing Pyramid Peak. It was Recharge.

We hadn’t seen Recharge since day one. And, as thru hikers tend to do, we walked back through the story of where each of us had camped over the last several nights and the miles we had put in each day to bring us all back together at the same spot now.

Hot Mess had talked to him a bit on day one and found out that he had actually hiked quite a bit of the CDT last year, up through somewhere in Wyoming. For a number of reasons, he had decided to quit hiking last year and was now back again, starting the trail afresh for another go at it this year. Recharge is not the first person we’ve met who has done something like this - completely restarting a thru hike trail instead of just picking up where they left off. We understand the mentality behind it, but I’m not sure I could/would do the same.

We chatted with him for a while while we cooked our dinners. Having hiked so much of the trail last year, he had some useful beta on the upcoming sections and New Mexico in general.

At some point while we ate dinner, Monkey Man arrived. It seemed he would have had to make pretty quick work of Pyramid Peak to be standing before us already, but he is a pretty quick hiker.

After dinner I topped off my water bottles and moved back to the tent for a bit of a bird bath with wet wipes before crawling into the tent and laying atop my sleeping bag, still too warm out to climb in. Eventually the breezes cooled and the sun sank below the mountains with a beautiful show of oranges and blues amidst puffy strings of clouds.

Under another bright moon, the coyotes are yipping in the distance and it’s time to manufacture the Zzzs.