Continental Divide Trail – Lordsburg to Silver City Hike Overview

The first part of this section, out of Lordsburg, was flat and hot. But, This is a good section because the landscape transitions from desert to rolling hills and lots of trees. It’s hard not to like that after 100+ miles of desert. 

Thursday April 26th – CDT Day 6

I got a bit later start today, leaving the Econo Lodge around 8:15am. It seems like most of the hikers at the Econo Lodge who got in from crazy cook yesterday as I did where going to take a zero day. I considered the same, but really wanted to push to make it to Silver City for the Trail Days festival this weekend. 

It was about an hours walk to get our of town and back on to the actual trail. I walked passed a really old man working outside on his yard blasting some metal music. He waved, I waved back. Then I proceeded to play the air guitar in approval of his choice of music, to which he pumped his fist in the air. “You good? Need any water?” he asked. “I’m all topped off, thanks for asking. Rock on man!” I replied. This made me smile. 

After turning off on to highway 90, the trail splits off from the road and into some ranch land. It’s super easy to miss though, only marked by 2 blue poles along the fence line. On the other side, no trail or markers can be seen. Makes you really wonder if you’re in the right place or trespassing. 

This next section is flat, wide open and not the most interesting. It’s going to be over 12 miles with little or no shade. Easy walking, but another hot day. Real feel in the low 90s. I saw a couple of jackrabbits and a horned lizard, that’s about it. 

After walking about 3 hours non-stop from Lordsburg I came across my first shade, a small tree in a wash. I stopped here for lunch. Man is it hard to get up and get back into that heat afterwards!

Before stopping I had only seen maybe 3 CDT markers, but they were more frequent now. I walked about another hour and a half before entering some new Ranch land that was at the base of some Hills in a canyon. Engineer Canyon I believe. It was nice to get out of the open desert.

Working my way up the canyon, I came across the couple of dry water tanks, some cows and a dead coyote. As a followed the wash through the canyon, I came across it really nice shade tree that I couldn’t pass up. It was 2pm now and I had covered around 15 miles, so it was time to get out of the heat for a little bit. 

Not far up the trail I encountered a full trough of water. It was green but would have been decent water to filter. Going by the water report, I opted to hike to the co-op windmill at Mile 102. 

By the time I reached the co-op windmill, I was pretty dehydrated. I thought I had drink almost 4 liters, but upon inspecting my water bladder I had probably drank closer to 2.5 today. I was not very hydrated when setting out this morning to begin with. Yeah, not smart… 20 miles hiked in low 90° Temps through the desert. There was a spigot under the windmill, first thing I did was fill a liter and poured it over my head and upper body. I quickly filtered another liter to drink, which almost brought tears to my eyes. It’s been quite a while since I was in such desperate need of water and the feeling is tough to describe if you’ve never been there. 

I proceeded to fill my 4L platypus dirty water bag, but I only got another 2L before the spigot went dry. Really now? There was a cow trough that looked had nasty green algae water. Initially I thought it was a no go, but there was a lid covering one corner of the trough. Underneath was much cleaner water, despite tons of bug debris… It looks like a bunch of wings. After swishing these aside, I was able to scoop fairly clean looking water which I then dumped into my platypus bag to use with my gravity system. Boom, good water! I ate dinner here, drank 2.5L and filtered 5L to carry. Tomorrow will be dry too. 

I hit the trail again around 7pm. I wanted to knock out a few more miles before dark, as well as not wanting to sleep next to the windmill with all the cows. The trail climbs uphill from here. Once at the top, there was an expansive view of more wilderness. The trail follows the top of a Ridgeline for a while before dipping down into a new environment. Easily the best views yet. This energized me as I hiked on another 45 minutes. I found a place to camp about 20 minutes before sunset. I never saw that person after leaving the paved highway in Lordsburg. What a day!

Miles – 21.66
Total Miles – 113.3
Rain – no
Sleep – Backcountry tent
Animals – rabbits, horned lizard

Friday April 27th – CDT Day 7

Quiet night, but slept poorly. Cooler and cloudy this morning. 

Todays walk started off easy. Forested hillsides with little Elevation change. Lots of places to camp just off trail on soft sand. 

After an hours hike I reached hwy 90. I had a few bars of cell signal but no data. I called my dad to hash out the logistics for my resupply box in Pie Town before moving on. 

The next section was enjoyable… New terrain, nice views and easy. So easy that I wasn’t paying attention to my footing and almost stepped on a snake. It looked poisonous at first but upon closer inspection, it lacked the diamond head and rattle. Gopher snake. Still, don’t want to step on it and get bit. 

I liked the views over the next couple hours. Rolling hills, trees and occasional grassland. Not stunning but a really nice walk in a unique looking environment. 

I came across a cooler full of pop and beer for CDT hikers near the jacks peak /burro peak trailhead. Yay! I helped myself to a pop and moved on. 

Now the trail begins to climb. A lot. And climbs some more. Now there are pine trees, first I’ve seen on the CDT. 

Soon enough I was near the top of Jack’s peak. There’s some campsites up here and foundations of old buildings. At the summit is several cell towers. Apparently none for AT&T though, as I had no data. 

Next the trail dips briefly before heading back up to burro peak. Not a great summit view with the vegetation, but still a decent. It’s just over 8000ft, the highest yet on the CDT. 

Really nice walk through pine forest coming down from burro. I stopped for a break at the first nice view, and man was it a good one. And wouldn’t you know it, I had cell service and LTE now! Perfect. 

After my break, I had a decision to make. Take the cut off trail through deadmans canyon or head towards Burro Mountain Homestead. I need water, and mud spring is near the junction of the two trails, so that’s where I headed. 

I spent about Half hour looking for mud spring before realizing it’s along the trail and not down the mountain off trail like my GPS coordinates indicated. The spring looked like a campground fire ring filled with water. You’d want to filter this, but I opted to wait… Thinking I’ll stay the night at the homestead. Just yesterday, Wayne at the burro mountain homestead posted on the CDT Facebook page that a certain area is open to CDT hikers for free tent camping, along with water and free shower. Can’t beat that! 

I passed a hiker named cracker on the way. He gave me his map of the homestead and told me the office is closed. It’s basically an rv park /campground /trailer park, but had pretty good amenities. I set up my tent in the “orchard” along orchard drive. The shower felt amazing after such a long day! 

Miles – 25.4
Total Miles – 138.7
Rain – no
Sleep – rv Park /campground in tent
Animals – rabbits, deer, gopher snake

Saturday April 28th – CDT Day 8

I was pretty sore this morning and got a bit slower start. I can’t wait to swap my foam sleeping pad for the inflatable, just as soon as the threat of thorny plants and cacti subsidies. Then I’ll sleep better. 

My walk this morning was boring and uneventful along Tyrone Rd. The plan is to get to Silver City as early as possible, so I’ll hike to hwy 90 and attempt to hitch into town. 

When I reached 90, I started walking north as I put my thumb out. Several cars passed before a pick up stopped. The woman had a CDT hat on, and was headed to Silver City for Trail Days herself. She dropped me off at the silver city rv park, where I planned to stay. I got out of the truck and she drove away before I could grab my pack from the bed of the truck, so I chased after her. Luckily she stopped! 

Checked in at the Rv park, showered and picked up my first bounce box. A bounce box is a package filled with things that I send myself every other town or so as I progress up the trail. I have extra batteries, first aid supplies, vitamins, ziplock bags for food, etc in the box. Most importantly, I have the 2 in 1 laptop/tablet I am using right now to update this blog as well as a hard drive to dump my photos and GoPro video to and interact with my GPS unit. I mailed the box direct to the RV park, but will have to wait until Monday morning to ship it to the next destination, the town of Grants… about 300 miles up trail. 

Next I headed out for food. I went to a place called Fry House for chicken wings. Been craving them for several days now. Behind the bar, a cooler full of Four Loko caught my eye. I thought they outlawed it, hadn’t seen it in a few years. I asked the bartender if it’s a popular drink around here. Apparently, they are used to make a drink called a Mexican Trashcan where you pour shots of liquor into the Four Loko. Those days are gone for me, I’ll pass! 

Then I headed up to western New Mexico university for the trail days festival. I wandered around campus for a while until I found a bunch of booths set up on an athletic field. Yay, freebies! I got half way through the booths before they started to pack up for the day. 

Back at the RV park, hikers were gathered around drinking beer and swapping stories. Most of us headed back up to the university for the trail days keynote speaker event at 7pm. Cam “Swami” has hiked over 60,000 miles in 56 counties, and is known for his “12 long walks” in a year and a half. He hiked over 10,000 miles in one calendar year.. what a beast!

Miles – 8.2
Total Miles – 146.9
Rain – no
Sleep – rv Park /campground in tent
Animals – deer

Sunday April 29th – CDT Day 9 (Zero Day)

Today was my first “zero” day, which means zero miles hiked. And it felt great! No alarm to wake up to, just a full day of rest. Most other hikers I started with on April 21st took a zero day in Lordsburg, but I pushed to make it to Silver City for trail days. 

It was a nice leisurely morning bullshitting with the remaining CDT hikers before they took off. It really emptied out by noon. I used the hard drive in my bounce box to dump my pictures and video and spent much of the afternoon on my laptop updating this blog. The mini usb cable I brought to connect my GPS to my laptop wouldn’t allow the computer to see the GPS. Could be a charging only cable, no data transfer. I walked to a few stores before realizing nobody carries these in stock anywhere. I called my dad and had him throw in a known working cable into my next resupply box.

Later in the afternoon, the RV park’s camp host Kat offered to take a few of us hikers up to Walmart. The folks at the RV par are super hiker friendly! Bought my food for the next section and picked up a super lightweight pair of sandals to wear in camp. I also picked up another set of headphones since the earbud fell out during the last section. I gots to have my metal music!

I spent the rest of the evening going through my bounce box and resupplying items in my pack. Back on trail tomorrow!