Start: Silver City
Stop: Gila Alternate mile 5.4
Today’s Miles: 13.2
Total CDT miles: 153.4
Man oh man, my bed at the Palace Hotel was definitely fit for a queen. I slept so good, even if I did toss and turn a good bit. I think maybe I’m not getting into a deep enough sleep, but I’ve been having this issue for awhile.
I was up and getting ready by 6:45. We left our packs at the hotel and then walked to a Mexican food truck that serves breakfast burritos. Yall, I FINALLY got my damn burrito. And it was quite good! Chorizo, bacon, potatoes, eggs, sour cream, and cheese. Yum. Pebbles got the same, and we ate them across the street at the bus stop.
A few minutes after demolishing our burritos, the bus came. The driver didn’t even charge us! Then again, he didn’t charge anyone else, either. Sweet! Thirty five minutes later, we were let out at Walmart. We had an hour, exactly, to get our resupply for the next 3 days, plus 4 days of food to mail ahead to Pie Town, and all of the other odds and ends we needed.
When I say we were down to the last second, I was running out of the store and Pebbles was asking the driver to wait for me when I came barreling out with my 3 grocery bags of things. The cashier had zero sense of urgency, and she was struggling with the scanner, lol! I had already resigned myself to needing to Uber back when I saw how long it was taking her to get the barcode of my ramen noodles just right. Haha, bless her though, because she did pack my bags perfectly.
Anywho-no harm no foul-because I made it! It was the same driver, too. Not sure why I find that interesting, but I do. He was super nice and dropped us back off where we originally got on. We went back to the hotel, packed our stuff and organized everything to ship out-then checked out and walked over to the post office.
A box of small things to send home: my inflatable pillow, my travel eye mask, and a couple other small things that I can’t recall right now. The other stuff, food and extra toothpaste, was shoved into a medium priority box and shipped to Pie Town. We won’t be there for 12 more days (after today), but we’ll resupply at Doc Campbell’s in a few days. Apparently they do have a good resupply, just “pricey,” however, I doubt it’ll cost more to just buy food there than it would to pay $20 to ship it from the post office today. If it is, oh well-we’re supporting local businesses!
We started walking to the gear shop in town, and thankfully, all of this so far has been a part of the trail, or at least, part of an alternate.. “Little Walnut Alternate.” I ended up getting new shoes from the gear store-Topos-since my Altras are literally already falling apart and my blisters are only seemingly getting worse. These Topos felt really comfortable in the store, a better fit overall compared to the Altras. Fingers crossed tight that they stay great!
The guy at the store was wonderful, he gave me a tiny tube of super glue and some Velcro so I can make my gaiters stick to my new shoes. (I’m about to do that right now). We left the store and continued on Little Walnut, all the way to the Gila National Forest picnic sight. We had lunch, stretched, froze in the shade and wind and started sweating in the sunshine.. ohhhhh the perks of no humidity!
We had 7.5 miles at least to go, so we hiked out of the picnic area around 2:30pm. The trail hit the official Gila Alternate Trail (pronounced like Heelah) which basically was the continuation of the dirt road we were already on. It meandered through the forest, a few trucks went by us, the wind blew. It was really nice. And then the trail turned onto a forest service road. Whoever made this thing, clearly loved riding his ATV up and down and all around.. because this road/trail was a steep mess. Very loose sandy rocks, big ruts, steep inclines and even steeper declines.
Once we made it to the spot we hoped our first “naturally running” water on trail would be.. our hopes were smashed as the riverbed was bone dry. The even sadder part: there was great camping right there, too! We checked our app, and according to the recent comments there would either be water in half a mile or a full mile away. Onwards we walked.
At the half mile mark, I decided to go down the bank and check-so many comments said “dry” while others right after would say “plenty of water here.” And there was good camping, too. There was a large pool of water, covered in algae of course. First “natural” water on trail, but definitely not flowing water! I was able to scoop 2 liters into my CNOC bag, even though it was nasty with lots of floaters in it.. and creepily 2 little swimmers. Thankfully, the filter works pure magic, because none of the gross stuff made it into my water bottles!
We set up our tents and had dinner.. potatoes, woo. While we were chatting, we heard some crashing about down near the water. I went to investigate: cows! I think they’re the same cows we scared earlier on trail.. they must have ran up this way. They sure are big ole skittish girls. That’s ok, though.. I was a big ole skittish girl when I first heard their crashing about!
The sun is going to set behind the mountain, so it looks like we’ll be missing a cool sunset. It’s a little chilly and moths are absolutely all over my tent. I hope I don’t have to get out again tonight. My blisters are still rough, but the new shoes definitely seemed to not make them worse, maybe even helped some too, although I was limping some that last mile of hiking (also the reason I was determined to find water sooner rather than later-I didn’t want to walk any farther!).
My thighs are also still chaffed, so I’m loaded up on new Destin diaper rash cream. Currently, it’s stinging, but maybe it’ll help here soon! I think that’s all I can come up with tonight. Tomorrow will be a bit over 16 miles if all goes as planned. And I think we’ll reach the Gila River at some point tomorrow, too! I’m excited and also nervous for the 8 trillion times we’ll have to cross the water.. maybe I’ll try to count it. Hmmmm..
Ok, that’s it for real! Good night!