Day 6 - Zero in Lordsburg
Date: Tue April 23
Start Mile: NA
End Mile: NA
Total Mileage: NA
The Highlights: resupply, rest, and carrots
Today we took a zero. For those not familiar with thru hiking, a zero is a rest day where you hike ZERO miles. Pretty awesome.
Having one thru hike under our belt, we have the experience to realize that taking rest days early in the trail as our bodies adapt can help prevent injuries and power us to be stronger hikers later down the trail. In fact, when we hiked the PCT in 2018, we hiked the second half of the trail an entire month faster than the first half of the trail.
While it would be nice to think that we slept in for our rest day, I was pretty much awake by 5:30am, as usual. I lie in bed, catching up with the news and all the happenings in the world while we were out tramping through the desert.
Eventually our hunger got the best of us and we made our way down to the hotel breakfast buffet.
Here we ran into Swisscake and Todd, who was just reading my most recently posted blog. Is this what it feels like to be an author and see someone reading your book?!?
We had already chatted a bit yesterday about our struggles with heat, rocky terrain, and trail growing pains, though I was suddenly worried I was painting a very discouraging picture. On the contrary, he appreciated my honesty. This is good because I intend to be very blunt here. 😆
After working my way through more than enough breakfast, we headed out for errands and resupply. The morning was already quite hot.
We really only had one errand other than resupply, which was a trip to the post office to send home a few small things we didn’t need or want to carry. The CDTC had provided us with a bandana and some other swag when we checked in for the shuttle last week, which was a nice gesture, but we didn’t need it for the hike. This along with a few other small bits and bobs went into a large envelope coming your way, Mom!
The women working at the post office were incredibly nice and the walls of the front area were covered in maps and hiker resources - a map of the CDT, a hiker sign-in (basically town trail register), and a list of all the trail town post office addresses for New Mexico.
Another flyer advertised all the services we could find at the library, including charging ports, computers, and a place to relax - especially nice for those that might not be spending the night in town. Or those that want to do “old people stuff,” as our friend Squishy calls using a computer.
We mailed our stuff, signed the trail register, and marked a large world map with our hometowns.
This is where we bought our food. Riveting stuff.
From the post office, we walked the few blocks back to the grocery store. Resupplying is always a bit of fun, especially in these small towns where options might be different or more limited than what you might find at a larger chain grocery store.
Last night we had looked through the water sources on the map for the upcoming section, estimating what our days might look like in terms of mileage based on the water available. From this, we knew about how many days the hike to Silver City would take and how many breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks we should need. I always throw in an extra ramen and a few other snacks just in case, as well.
After finding most of what we needed at the supermarket, we went across the street so I could pick up a couple last things at the Family Dollar. Here we ran into Pungo and Mogul.
These two had started the same day as us, though took a bit more time moving through the section, just arriving back in town this morning. They recounted their tent sites, shade hopping, and the hikers they’d met or camped near along the trail. They are taking a zero in town tomorrow, wanting to give themselves plenty of rest early on, like us.
Our building tour of Lordsburg continues at McDonalds, our home away from home here, it seems.
Across the street, we were back to McDonalds for lunch, where we met Greta, a hiker from Germany. Having sat down nearby, Hot Mess struck up a conversation with her which began with Greta explaining that she’d chosen the CDT for its isolation. At which point, I think Hot Mess just turned around and ate his sandwich in silence. I kid, I kid… but she definitely picked the right trail for isolation. She is setting out for Silver City tomorrow, as well, so we’ll likely see her again.
After eating, we headed back for the hotel, where we organized our resupplies and generally spent the rest of the afternoon laying around, which is the real goal of a zero. This said, by the end of the day we probably racked up around three miles of walking around town between the post office, resupply, and meals. So… not exactly zero miles.
Is it Mexican food…or New Mexican food?
We waited until evening before we made our last trip out for the day for dinner, going to a Mexican restaurant on the other side of the interstate. Quite the outing. Date night burritos. I wore my (only) outfit.
Getting one last use outta this puppy. It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me how cool I look.
This was near the Econo Lodge, which was the hiker central of the motels in Lordsburg. They had a hiker box (at this point several tables) set up in their lobby where hikers could leave any gear, food, toiletries, or other items they no longer needed. Likewise, hikers could stop by and take anything they might need.
The hiker box exploded onto several tables. But can I have the snow tigers?
We both decided to get rid of our sun umbrellas. We don’t feel like we use them enough to justify carrying them around. For me, the nuisance of constantly adjusting the umbrella outweighs the actual shade it provides, which often ends up not being exactly where you want it or the umbrella blocks some of the breeze. I had basically felt the same way on the PCT when I carried the umbrella through much of the desert, but thought I’d give it one more chance. Still not for me I guess. Stay tuned for hot days where we are wishing we still had our umbrellas.
Oh good. Someone left a partially eaten bag of carrots. Jackpot! Also not sure who thought they were going to go through all that penne.
And that was basically our day. Tomorrow we’ll head out early to hike as many miles as possible while it’s cool. It’s supposed to be cloudy, so fingers crossed for that.