[Cdt-l] Update from Grants from Brian and Martina NB

Tue May 19 14:04:40 CDT 2009

Hi folks,
we have just arrived in Grants after some interesting hiking north!

>From reserve there was some water cannisters on H12 at the CDT crossing- maybe 8 litres (we had water from reserve so didn't use any).

The spring south of Mangas Pk is ok but we took water from the tank 200ft above rather than the spring water which ran out after about 30 seconds.

Mangas Pk pretty much has no water or fire look out there. We camped and the views were nice. There is a well at the bottom of the tower which you could get some water from but regard it as a last resort.

Down to Pie Town there was another water cache at a cattle grill about 10m short of Pie Town and the Animal Center has a cooler box with lots of water 6.4 short of Pie Town.

We reached Pie Town at 4.30, half an hour after the Pie-o-neer cafe had closed after hiking about 26 miles. Thankfully, Stan from the cafe opened up and let us in to have pie and ice cream which we greatly appreciated. Nita was also very helpul to us. THANK YOU.

>From Pie Town to Grants we didn't use any 'natural' water. We hiked 16.5 miles to the Thomas Mtn Ranch ( again thanks very much folks!) and got water there. We hiked through Sand Canyon and dry camped. Quite mellow up there and far better than the road.

I think we did about 50 miles through Pie Town on gravel roads and it ranks as the hardest and dullest walk yet. We looked longingly at the beautiful Saw Tooth Mts to the east. I think Jim Wolf's book mentions that the trail may be repositioned over there. If so it would be a great bonus and excellent looking hiking territory.

Anyway from Sand Canyon there is a solar well running at the road to the north. We next picked up water at the start of the Zuni lava trail where Gordon (the support for Troll et all) dropped water for us - thanks Gordon. 

The canyon rim trail was excellent and the bushwack down to the arch was fun!

The Zuni lava trail was again excellent- it took us 4 hours of laid back walking (the trail leaflet says 6-7 miles). Probably best done early in the morning as it gets really hot here.

We went through the El Malpais VC and got water here ( and hitched to the ice caves and crater and back - really cool (!) and worth the visit). We then took a JLey purple variant over to Bonita Canyon from the VC and dry camped. There is a number of jeep roads around there and we x-countried it a bit, got lost and found ourselves eventually in Bonita canyon. Nice mellow country though and recommended for scenery and sure water at the VC.

Hiked down Zuni canyon early this morning and again nice scenery.

I broke my camera on our travels so we are going to try to get to Grants Wal Mart to see what is available. Oh- 2 thunderstorms with much needed rain in the last 2 nights so maybe there will be some more water out there.

Happy hiking
Brian (and martina) from scotland

--- On Tue, 19/5/09, Melanie Simmerman <jennylind50 at yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Melanie Simmerman <jennylind50 at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Cdt-l] Trail Angel Robin in Grants
To: "cdt cdt" <cdt-l at mailman.backcountry.net>
Date: Tuesday, 19 May, 2009, 4:13 PM

To all CDT hikers,
I personally am so indebted to Robin at the Chamber who swooped in and saved me in Grants. I had a foot injury (turned out my left metatarsal was broken) and she drove me to the hospital, picked me up again, helped get me dinner, let me use her computer for 3 hrs, offered to help me out in any way, and got me a ride ultimately to Sante Fe where I got a bus to Colorado so I could stay with friends to recuperate.  She was nothing short of amazing and generous. If you are passing through Grants, please be especially nice to Robin, stop by the Chamber (near the Library) and say hi and thank her for her extraordinary help to hikers. I know she helped Mr. D, JB and others while they stopped in Grants. I was not expecting very much in Grants, it seemed a bit dreary, yet I got so much help from strangers - Dennis at the Sands Motel, Robin, Bill my ride to Santa Fe, and the wonderful elderly couple who run the laundromat. It's very heartening to find so many
 nice
people.

I also bumped into the Thomas' at the Arch on Hwy 117; they saw me and came over and introduced themselves. I was able to personally thank them for letting us get water at the ranch.

I'm experiencing the same outpouring of generosity in Alamosa. My friends are not even home yet, and their neighbors are helping me too. It is very humbling.  

My hope is still to be able to do my flip up to Glacier in June and salvage my trip once the foot has healed. I still have to see an orthopedic surgeon and hope that this break is pretty routine and will heal quickly.  

Hi, to all my friends hiking north. I miss you all. Be safe. As I drove up on the bus from Sante Fe, I was trying to see how much snow was in the mts that are close to Chama. The bus didn't go through Chama, so I could not see what Cumbres Pass was like. I could see more snow there than in the eastern mts which only seemed to have patches up at the summits (Santa Crista Mts?), but I was not entirely sure which route was the CDT west of where the bus went (via Antonito). But, it is around 80 degrees in So. Co. and much warmer up north. I heard on the news that there is rapid snow melt and flooding in northwestern Co. which might be good for you all once you get to the northern Colorado mts.

_______________________________________________
Cdt-l mailing list
Cdt-l at backcountry.net
http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/cdt-l/attachments/20090519/d5dacac5/attachment.html 