The Continental
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January 17th US/Mexico Border (Go to Pt 1) Actually, very little about these last few days of the trip was turning out the way I had imagined. Stormy weather wasn’t a part of my fantasy finish and neither was ending the trip alone, with blistered feet, and mud-gobbed boots. The symbolic irony of my situation wasn’t lost on me, but I thought it all a bit harsh. Oh well, I fluffed-up my down-jacket pillow and pushed everything else aside, I was going to Mexico in the morning, come hell or high water.  I awoke at dawn and peered out of the tent to see the same, thick blanket of ill-tempered clouds hanging low in the sky, but I didn’t sense rain in the air, and it was calm. My morning proceeded as usual with a granola and powdered milk breakfast before dropping the tent and packing away the last of my gear.
 I started off for the border following along the same jeep trail as the day before and noticed straight away that the mud had firmed-up considerably and wasn’t near as bad, in fact, the three days of mud stuck to my boots finally dried and flaked-off: the blisters were all but forgotten. Clearly in my sights was the white, obelisk, boundary monument, which grew larger as I drew nearer, and the last mile was pretty blank; only me and that boundary marker, little else. About an hour after leaving camp, shortly before 10:00am, I reached the International Boundary Monument at the Mexican border. The date was Tuesday, January 17th, 1978. I dropped my pack and looked around, thinking, ‘This is it! I made it!’ I reached out through the fence and touched the monument.  Looking south, all I could see were the plains of Mexico. The wheaten grasses lay dormant across the valley, fading into a horizon of heavy, somber clouds, and a mild breeze swept over the prairie. Strung along the borderline, the barbed wire fence stretched east and west across the plains to as far as I could see, and the monument stood on the other side of the fence in Mexico. Somehow, it seemed fitting that my last act of walking the Continental Divide would be to climb over a fence. The barbed wire was in decent shape and strung-up fairly taut, so it was easy to climb - and then that was it. I was standing in the northern plains of Mexico and my Canada to Mexico pilgrimage was over. Maybe the Divide’s ridgeline remained a bashed-up fantasy, but I was here, damnit, I had made it to Mexico.  With my camera propped on my pack, I stood out in the grasses of Mexico with my fists thrust up into the air, ala Rocky, and let the camera take the final picture of my trip. Having imprinted the moment, I climbed back over the fence, then milled around the monument, waiting for the light of God to shine down and illuminate my soul, because after 3,000 miles I was certain that must be part of the deal, right? Nothing. No parting of the heavens, no light of God, and I didn’t feel any different at all. All I felt was a sudden sense of urgency to get the hell out of this valley before it started raining again. I gathered up my pack and started back out towards the Fitzpatrick Ranch. And that would have been the end of my story except for one last thing. Probably an hour and a half after leaving the border, as I was heading for the ranch, I spotted a vehicle off in the distance coming towards me. As the vehicle got closer my hopes began to rise, thinking maybe one of the ranchers was coming out to give me a lift. I finally stopped and waited for the vehicle to reach me and that’s when I noticed it was a white Ford Bronco with ‘Border Patrol’ emblazoned across the side. Mmm… didn’t see that coming; maybe a plane or something had spied me messing around out by the fence. The Bronco pulled to a stop in front of me and the agent called out from inside the vehicle for me not to move as he got out of the car. Standing by his SUV, he looked me up and down, then said, “Good afternoon, can you tell me what you’re doing out here?” Gawking back at this armed and rather formidable looking guy, I wasn’t sure if he was going to buy-off on my Continental Divide story, or not, “Well,” I replied, “I’ve been walking the Continental Divide, from Canada to Mexico… I started in Canada in May… and… well, I just got to the border, about an hour ago, or so… and now I’m walking back up to Animas.” The agent digested this for a moment then asked me to remove my pack and open the top flap and unzip the side pockets. He continued standing by his vehicle and asked, “Are you carrying any weapons… guns, explosives, anything like that?” “No” I said. Then the agent wanted to know if it was okay for him to look inside my pack. I shrugged and said “Sure.” He stayed by the SUV and had me unload everything out of my pack onto the ground and when the pack was empty he took it from me and inspected it thoroughly, inside and out, including the aluminum frame, padded shoulder straps, and hip belt. When the agent was done with my pack he turned to the items on the ground and meticulously scrutinized the rest of my stuff. When there was nothing more to inspect, he turned his attention back to me and finally said, “Okay, this all looks legit to me. Maybe you did walk down here from Canada. So, I’ll tell you what, if you want, I can leave you here to go on your way, you’re in no trouble, or I can give you a ride up to Animas since I have to drive back that way, anyhow.” Halleluiah, Halleluiah! “A ride sounds great! Thanks!” My lucky stars were shining bright that afternoon because it turned out the agent was actually driving back to their office in Lordsburg and he ended-up taking me all the way to the bus station, where forty-five minutes later I was on a bus to Albuquerque. By supper time I was checking-in at an airport hotel. That evening, showered and fed, I sat in my hotel room and could hardly believe I had started the day deep in the Animas Valley, two miles from Mexico, with mud on my boots. I sat in the dark by the large window in my room, mesmerized by car lights on the roadway below, thinking not much more than ‘Now it’s over.’
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January 16th & 17th US/Mexico Border (Go to Pt 1) Maybe 10 miles away, the border was within striking distance and my mind started screaming at me to hurry-up. So I did, adrenaline pushed me into a power stride as I took-off down the road, plowing through the mud like an angry man after vengeance. Surprisingly, this supplemental blast of energy lasted for nearly three hours, but by four o’clock, as I approached the Fitzpatrick Ranch, all of that energy was spent, along with any reserves I had left. I was exhausted and my feet ached; I wasn’t going to make it, not today.  My map showed the Fitzpatrick Ranch, and I could see a few buildings off in the distance, but my memory of the deserted, Johnson’s Trading Post was still vivid and I was pretty leery of any outposts touted by the 250 map. Nearing the property, though, I discovered a real, operating ranch and decided to head for the ranch house to bum some water. In the yard I was met by the real McCoy, Rancher Fitzpatrick.
"And now you’re here telling me you just walked down from Canada. Well, now… ain’t that somethin’!” And the rancher and I looked at each other like ‘No shit!’ I figured the two guys going to Canada were most likely the same guys Craig and I had run into in southern Montana. With my water bottles filled, the rancher offered me a premature congratulations for getting to Mexico and when I heard the words “Congratulations on making it to Mexico” I felt one, last zap of adrenaline and departed the ranch with a false, energy burst, again thinking I could make it to the border before days’ end. That energy burst, however, did not last, flaming-out two miles short of Mexico. I couldn’t go any further, I had to stop. From where I quit for the day, I could see the white, international boundary monument sitting on the near horizon but spending another night out on the Divide really didn’t bother me much, either. The chaos of ‘real life’ was looming and I was in no hurry to embrace that part of crossing the border.  Sitting around my camp that evening, much of the ecstatic energy I’d felt throughout the afternoon was spent and I was starting to think about how I was going to get back out of the Animas valley. I knew, at the very least, I would be hiking back up to the Fitzpatrick Ranch and maybe from there I’d get lucky enough to catch a ride with one of the ranch hands going into Animas or, better yet, Lordsburg. But if I didn’t get lucky with a ride from one of the ranchers, then I would have two days of walking just to get back up to Animas, so the trip really wasn’t over at the Mexican border. With my mind prepared for a long day of hiking after reaching the border, I then began to think about going home and what that was going to look like. Right off, I’d be living with my parents and, obviously, that wasn’t going to last. I knew Hal and Dona would be thrilled the trip was over and happy to have me home again, but they’d also be expecting me to get a job and show some measure of adult behavior after I got back. Thinking this over, it was pretty clear I had no plans, no money, and an affinity for dirtbagging… so, at least I had that going for me. Then I got to thinking about seeing my outdoor friends back in St. Louis and, at first, that was an exciting thought, until an uneasy feeling started to poke at me. Craig and I had told everyone that we were going to trek the actual ridgeline of the Continental Divide, like right on top of it, and I hadn’t done that at all. I mean, it wasn’t like Craig and I hadn’t tried to stay true to the Divide, and for a couple of backpackers I think we did better than most, it was just that, in the end, what I’d really done was walk from Canada to Mexico with the Continental Divide mostly in sight, and parts of it not even that. Rocky Mountain National Park was coming back to haunt me, followed by a string of other mountains along the Continental Divide which I had not traveled across. And then there was the hitch-hiking. Berthoud Pass in Colorado had broken my trip in two, and that right there would erase everything else, but Berthoud Pass wasn’t the only ride I had accepted, or that Craig and I had taken, because we, and I, had hitch-hiked all over the place trying to get out for supplies and then back up into the mountains. Hitch-hiking was unavoidable but who knew what other people would consider as acceptable ‘put-in’ and ‘take-out’ points, because on this trip, we didn’t always go back up into the mountains the same way we’d come out. Then there was the question of what do with this adventure when I got home. Probably a slideshow but already some were telling me I should write a book, my Mom in particular, and I just didn’t see that happening. Shit, except for the Hobbit story and a few throw-away novels, I’d barely even read a book, how I was supposed to write one? Not likely. In the middle of fretting about all this stuff waiting for me back in St. Louis, I suddenly stopped, realizing what was missing from this final picture… Craig. Craig had always been a part of my mental image of reaching the border, you know, the two of us shaking hands in Mexico, and now he was MIA. Thoughts about St. Louis went to the wayside as I began to think back over the trip and reflect on some of the extraordinary experiences I’d had over the past 9 months, with Craig being an indelible cohort in much of my highlight reel. I flashed back to our very first day on the Continental Divide while we were still inside Canada, sitting in the snow high on Forum Peak, completely mind-blown/shellshocked, eyes wide as saucers, staring dumbly at the carnage left behind by a cornice-triggered avalanche that had practically wiped us out only six hours into the trip. And the mental image of what our faces must have looked like got me to laughing, and laughing right into a giddy mood. For some reason, I got to thinking about the rancid block of cheese back in Montana that Craig and I had kept eating day, after day, after day, while being stupefied as to why were sick every afternoon, until one of us Einstein’s finally figured out it was the cheese that was making us sick– but only after feeding off of it for a whole, freaking week - and that got me to laughing even more. My chuckling entertainment continued with me and Craig in the Anaconda Pintler Range, crushing a stiff pace all day long while thinking north was south and south was north – I was clutching my sides, picturing the look on our faces when we finally figured that one out. And then there was the Leadbetter Ranch where Craig and I had fled for our lives like idiots in the face of horseback-riding horses while our host, Jill, laughed herself into hysterics… and that recollection had me in tears, laughing myself silly. Thinking about the horses at the Leadbetter Ranch got me to thinking about the wild horses in Wyoming’s Red Desert and that led to my last image of Craig on the Continental Divide, sitting slumped over on his pack in the barren emptiness of the Red Desert, clutching his right knee, and that washed all the giddiness away. Actually, very little about these last few days was turning out the way I had imagined. Stormy weather had never been a part of my fantasy finish and neither had ending the trip alone, with blistered feet, and mud-gobbed boots. The symbolic irony of my situation wasn’t lost on me but I thought it all a bit harsh. Oh well, I fluffed-up my down-jacket pillow and pushed everything else aside, I was going to Mexico in the morning, come hell or high water.
January 13th – 16th Animas, NM (Go to Pt 1) I fixed my usual tinned meat and starch for supper then sat outside the tent, just staring south toward Mexico. My mind was no longer leaping straight to the border as it had been since leaving Silver City but was actually stalled, not wanting to proceed any further than where I was now sitting. Knowing the end was imminent gave me a weird feeling, like I suddenly wasn’t sure if I really did want the trip to end. Once I crossed that border, my life would go back to ‘normal’, and that was a strange thing to think about – work, school, and everyday life still felt a million miles away, except they weren’t.
 Starting-off after my noon break, I was hobbling to get started and dismayed by how sore and achy my feet were, almost as if they were boycotting the last 40 miles and determined to make it as painful as possible. After 3,000 miles, I was going to end the journey by limping my way to the border and that had never been part of the plan but, as I was soon to find out, everything else was about to go off-script, as well. When I finally reached Animas late in the day, I was surprised to actually see buildings. There was a truck leaving a Post Office and a few other dwellings close-by, which I was scoping for water spigots when I noticed a windmill a ways further down the road. I decided to hike down to the windmill to make camp, figuring I’d find water in the tank, which I did.  As I set-up my camp, I noticed the clouds were lower and heavier than they had been earlier. The sky had been overcast all day but now there was the appearance of an actual weather front on the horizon. And sure enough, during the night a fierce wind kicked-up, howling across the plains to batter my tent and spin the windmill blades to sonic levels, making it sound as if the whole thing were about go airborne.  When I started rousting about the next morning, wind was still punishing the tent and when I looked outside, the sky was dark, like dark-dark. As the sun rose, black clouds lying out on the horizon turned blood red, signaling foul weather out ahead. I messed with my feet then hobbled about, waiting for the pain in my boots to dull out.
Around noon I stopped to give my feet a break and get something to eat. I sheltered under my cagoule with my back to the wind and searched the clouds as periodic breaks would raise my hopes, only to regress back to rain. By now, the impervious clay floor had trapped the rain into ponds, everywhere, and in just a few short hours the entire valley had been transformed into a sea of standing water and mud.  Nonetheless, you’d think being as close to the border as I was, I’d be hell bent on getting there, circumstances be damned, you know, a real ‘come hell or high water’ situation, but instead, the wind, rain, mud, and aching feet turned the afternoon into a ‘fuck this’ situation, so after lunch, that’s exactly what I did. The border wasn’t going anywhere and the price per mile I was getting in this mud was too high. A ways further I saw an old, bent tree offering a measure of shelter for my tent and headed there to make camp. Pulling over turned out to be a good call as the weather only worsened during the afternoon with more driving rain and strong winds battering my tent throughout the rest of the day. Ensconced inside, listening to Radio, I found out the Dallas Cowboys had beat the Denver Broncos in the Super Bowl, as if my day weren’t glum enough. Intermittent rain and wind continued into the night but I had already decided, short of a hurricane, I was headed to Mexico in the morning. Period. Fortunately, when I woke-up, I heard nothing at all, no wind and no rain; I poked my head out to see the sky was still thick with clouds but rain did not look imminent. Okay, well, I guess this is it. I checked-in on my feet and the blistered skin was still angry but there was nothing more I could do about it, so I booted-up, packed away my gear, and stepped back out into the mud. It’s amazing how creative nature can be in crafting obstacles, sometimes major obstacles, where not a care in the world had previously existed. I was in a flat, wide-open valley with not a single obstacle standing between me and Mexico, except mud.
Well, this was my ‘come hell or high water’ day, so I had to bear down and focus my energies on hiking the mud. Clouds overhead remained low but the valley was open and I could see the rolling mountains raising up on either side with Animas Peak out to the east. 
Maybe 10 miles away, the border was within striking distance and my mind started screaming at me to hurry-up. So I did, adrenaline pushed me into a power stride as I took-off down the road, plowing through the mud like an angry man after vengeance. Surprisingly, this supplemental blast of energy lasted for nearly three hours, but by four o’clock, as I approached the Fitzpatrick Ranch, all of that energy was spent, along with any reserves I had left. I was exhausted and my feet ached; I wasn’t going to make it, not today.
January 12th - 13th Lordsburg, NM (Go to Pt 1) The next morning was miserable; grey, sunless, cold, windy, and missing only a nice, rain/snow mix that looked certain to come. About four miles beyond my camp, the road crested a rise where it crossed over the Continental Divide and I stopped to gaze south, certain I was looking off into Mexico. Immediately, my mind raced straight to the border and I had to quickly rein-it back, because from the high ground I could also see Lordsburg and it was still the rest of the day away. I had to remind myself, Lordsburg before Mexico.  The endless miles of dead straight pavement were utterly mind numbing, particularly since I was trying to keep my idle mind from wallowing in daydreams of standing triumphantly at the Mexican border which, of course, was impossible. Nonetheless, I tried to keep my eyes down, repeating the mantra of the day, ‘Lordsburg before Mexico’. Under abysmal skies, I finally reached the outskirts of town late in the afternoon and, by then, I was convinced that being lost in the desert with no water was preferable to walking paved roads. It had been a demoralizing two days, watching cars zip by to cover in 20 minutes what would take me all day to walk. Plus, the boredom on paved roads was bottomless, much worse than on backcountry roads or trails. Getting from Silver City to Lordsburg was a forgettable experience of empty miles. In Lordsburg, I got a motel room; I suppose I could have camped in a barren field behind the motel, but I chose to sleep inside the motel, instead. The next morning I woke-up early to sun breaking through and the prospect of favorable weather. This was it: Countdown to Mexico, and I was ready to roll.  I walked south out of Lordsburg on a beat-up and potholed, dirt road that seemed a sure bet for the road shown on my map. Cruising along at a decent pace, I followed this dirt road for maybe 4 or 5 miles when the driver of a truck, coming in opposite direction, slowed to a stop and a weathered-old, white geezer asked “Where’re ya goin’? You lost?”
To get back on track, I had to go cross-country up a sandy wash, over the foothill, and down a draw to the other side. At the bottom of the draw I ran across a pretty sketchy dirt road but it was heading south, so I figured it must be the road I was looking for until several miles later when it flamed-out in the brush. Oh, for crying out loud! How hard could this be? I was in an open valley with nothing to obstruct my view, so where the fuck was that road? I didn’t need the road to make things easier, water was my problem; the only chance I had of finding water out here would be off that road in the way of holding tanks, so I was going to have to wander around until I found the damn thing.  Before long, I spied a wood, utility pole off in the distance and from there I was able to find my way out to the last road in America leading into the boot-heel of New Mexico. When I finally did step out onto the road, I could hardly believe it; this was no two-track in the sand, this road saw traffic. I just stood there, totally perplexed as to how I had missed the only road out of Lordsburg going to Animas, and when a truck drove by at, I don’t know, maybe 40mph, I was downright embarrassed for myself. As for my actual boot heels, there was friction going on in my boots that afternoon, god only knows why, and not long after hitting the road I could feel hot spots on my heels starting to rub up into blisters. Blisters? Seriously? At this stage of the game? I had thought I’d grown out of blisters by now. Plus, it made no sense, I’d been in these boots since Chama, so what gives? Who knows, I didn’t make it to a laundromat in Silver City, so the last time my socks had been washed was in the Gila River, and before that, Grants. Whatever, I obviously knew I should stop and deal with the blisters before they got bad, but did I? No. Nope, impatience ruled and I just went ahead and let the last several miles of the day rip those blisters wide open, making sure they would be ripe and tender by the time I got into camp. I ended the day near a windmill with a holding tank, a little disheartened by having lost the sunny, morning skies of Lordsburg to an overcast glumness by late afternoon.  After getting the tent pitched, I pulled off my socks to inspect the damage and could hardly believe I was sitting there, only three days from Mexico, with fucking blisters. They weren’t as bad as some I’d endured but they definitely needed some doctoring and were going to make for tender feet in the morning. I fixed my usual tinned meat and starch for supper then sat outside the tent, just staring south toward Mexico. My mind was no longer leaping straight to the border, as it had been since leaving Silver City, but was actually stalled, not wanting to proceed any further than where I was now camped. Knowing the end was imminent gave me a weird feeling and all of the sudden I wasn’t sure if I really did want the trip to end. Once I crossed that border, my life would go back to ‘normal’, and that was a strange thing to think about – work, school, and everyday life still felt a million miles away, except they weren’t.
Interestingly, though, after a few miles, the canyon began to fade until I was in more of a narrow valley than a canyon, and no longer wading through the stream. I followed the Gila River to where the Black Canyon tributary entered, then left the Gila’s east fork to continue up the Black Canyon.
From here, I had my detailed maps to work with, though it wasn’t critical since all I had to do was hold my bearing and I’d intersect a road to the east, which I did around mid-afternoon. There was a Forest Service campground just off the road, so I decided to make camp, thinking I might find water at the campground but not surprised when I didn’t.  In the morning, I took the gravel road south and west as it followed the Continental Divide for the next 13 miles. It wasn’t hot up on the plains but it was certainly dry, with water nowhere to be found. By now, at least half of my water supply was gone, probably more, and I didn’t know where I was going to find my next source. What I did know was that the top of the Continental Divide in southern New Mexico at this time of year was a lousy place to be looking.  As the afternoon wore on, I spent my time fretting over water. Nothing that hadn’t already dried-up showed on my map and I was in National Forest, so there would be no begging from the locals. I was starting to think about how I was going to ration what water I had left when down the road I spied a holding tank, right on que. After reaching the tank, I still had time left in the afternoon to bag some more miles but I was content to make my camp in a pasture near the tank, besides, I wasn’t exactly sure where I was going next. The gravel road I’d been following was about to T-bone into another gravel road, and from there my route was unclear. In the morning, I walked down to the road junction, then turned south and went for maybe a mile when I saw a jeep trail take off in the direction I wanted to go, so I followed it. This turned out to be a lucky guess as the trail generally followed my compass bearing for the rest of the morning.
the cross-country terrain was manageable, so I just stayed with my compass bearing until I came out onto the road. Down at the road, I started hiking toward town and was surprised to discover Silver City wasn’t that far away.  Back in Silver City, I gave my new friends, Mel and Jesse, a call and ended-up crashing at their place. In the morning, I went to the Post Office to collect my last supply box of the trip and in the box were the final, remaining maps I needed to reach the Mexican border. I’d been visualizing Mexico for a long time but, up until now, the concept of walking over the border had lived only in a dream, walled-off by a million, real-world obstacles that had securely blocked it from becoming a reality. Unfolding the maps out onto Mel and Jesse’s living room floor, and actually seeing the Mexican border on my field maps, was a jolt. I mean, holly crap, there it was! A real-life manifestation of the dream. Adrenaline surged and I felt like grabbing my pack and sprinting post haste for the border.
Unfortunately, what the maps showed was that for this last, and final stretch of my Continental Divide trip, I was going to have to start with two days of my most hated and despised nemesis, paved, road walking. State Highway 90 followed the route I would have taken anyway, even if there had been no road, because it was simply the most logical way to get down to Lordsburg. In the morning, Mel and Jesse drove me out to the edge of town where we said our good-byes and I thanked them for letting me stay at their place with a twelve pack of beer. We all promised to stay in touch, which we never did, then the boys drove away and I turned down the road, wanting this day to be over before it had even started. The weather wasn’t very pleasant with overcast skies blocking out the sun, chilly temperatures, and wind. I may have been on a state throughfare but aside from the asphalt it was hard to tell, the road was empty. By late afternoon, I had made it out to White Signal, about the halfway mark between Silver City and Lordsburg, and made camp near a pasture, water tank.  That night, a cold and inhospitable wind blew across the plains to batter my tent, while inside I lay snug in my bag, finishing the last of the Hobbit book. And the last of that book was not particularly easy to finish because the story just wouldn’t quit, almost as if Tolkien couldn’t find his way back out of the fairytale, or didn’t want to. At long last, though, out on the dark, barren plains north of Lordsburg, I finally finished the book, the end to the ‘Lord of the Rings’ trilogy. Aww… goodbye, little Hobbits.  The next morning was miserable; grey, sunless, cold, windy, and missing only a rain/snow mix that looked certain to come. About four miles beyond my camp, the road crested a rise where it crossed over the Continental Divide, and I stopped to gaze south, certain I was looking off into Mexico. Immediately, my mind raced straight to the border and, again, I had to rein-it back, because from the high ground I could also see Lordsburg, and it was still the rest of the day away. I had to remind myself, Lordsburg before Mexico. Go to Part 88
January 2nd - 6th Gila NF, NM (Go to Pt 1) I continued splashing down the river until the canyon finally grew dark and there was no longer any choice but to set-up camp near the water. I was fairly certain it wouldn’t rain during the night but being trapped at the bottom of this dark, narrow canyon gave me the creeps. Maybe I wasn’t cut-out for canyoneering.
In the morning I could see my first river crossing while still in the tent and temperatures were in the low twenty’s; pretty frosty weather for playing in the river. The foot of my sleeping bag was damp from sheltering wet boots, and putting-on my wet socks was again cringe worthy but not as bad as the iced-over wool I’d stuck my feet into yesterday.
My sleeping pad got the worst of it but the hood of my down bag had also gotten soaked, and that was pretty unforgivable. What a careless, boneheaded thing to do since there was no reason to be cooking inside the tent to begin with. I had plenty of out-loud words to say about this mess as I drained water from the tent and did what I could wring-out the rest.
Water levels in the river had been rising incrementally since yesterday as I continued to pass more spring-fed tributaries. When the current hadn’t been over the top of my boots the going wasn’t too bad but now the water level was over my boot tops and that drug my feet down with water weight and resistance.
I found a perfect campsite just up from the hot spring pool, pitched-up my tent, and spent the rest of the afternoon soaking in my own, private, hot tub. And it was awesome! The canyon was no longer a sinister place to be and all of its original enchantment returned. Above, soaring pinnacles from the canyon’s rim pierced a lazy, blue sky, and around the hot spring, everything flourished. I imagined the Gila River Canyon as being over-the-top spectacular in springtime, but even now, during this dead time of year, the variety of trees, bushes, and vegetation were still intriguing.  Gnarled oak and pinyon trees grew where they could across the rocky cliffs, and manzanita in spots that caught enough sun. All across the soaring canyon walls, life sprouted from the most unlikely of places and the hot spring was an oasis of luxury where I could relax and take it all in.
I left my hot spring camp early the next morning and not long afterward the canyon bottom widened to let the river meander through open meadows once again while the canyon walls diminished until they were nothing more than rolling hills bordering the valley. I reached the Gila Wilderness Visitor’s Center early afternoon then humped it down the road a short piece to make camp at Forks Campground. This was after the New Year and there were very few people at the campground, but just the fact that there were any people at all made me feel a bit self-conscious, what with them lounging outside of their Winnebago, eyeballing this hippie and his pup tent.
The next morning, sparse traffic leaving the Gila River Canyon resulted in my spending hours by the side of the road waiting for a ride, such that, by the time I finally got to a market in Silver City, it was mid-afternoon. At the grocery store, I got to talking with a couple of guys who looked to be about my age and it turned out they had just moved to Silver City from St. Louis and, surprise, our respective high schools had competed against each other in sports. When I told them what I was doing in Silver City, trying to finish my walk to Mexico, they insisted I stay over and hang-out with them, which I did. My new friends, Mel and Jesse, had already been thinking about a visit to the Gila Cliff Dwellings, so they were happy to drive me back up to the Gila River in the morning to resume my trek, dropping me at the confluence of the east and west forks. The west fork canyon was the canyon I had just come down and the east fork canyon was next. Naturally, I was starting the day in a dry pair of socks and boots that did not stay that way for very long. Near the confluence, the stream ran wide, without enough rocks to hops, pushing me into the river then leaking water over my boot tops - picking-up right where I’d left off. Go to Part 87
December 31st – January 2nd Gila NF, NM (Go to Pt 1) Instead of mountaineering, I was going canyoneering. When Craig and I had planned this trip to walk the crest of the continent, the last thing I expected was to find myself on a multi-day, canyon trek. However, I had been gambling with water sources ever since crossing over into New Mexico, so following the Gila River gave me a lifeline free of water worries.  The canyon started like most; a shallow, narrowing valley, sprouting a few rock outcrops before etching deeper into the ground. There was no trail leading into the canyon and the early going through open, mixed forest was beautiful, feeling both untamed and mysterious 
All day, dark clouds had laid heavily across the sky but as Radio and I settled-in for supper, the tail end of the stormfront I’d been under for days finally cleared out and stars soon appeared. The starry skies brought a precipitous, overnight drop in temperatures and silvery frost across the meadow in the morning. Sun was beginning to find its way down to the canyon floor and the entire scene that greeted me that morning was full of energy and I was stoked to go canyoneering.  Starting out, the canyon floor was still fairly broad with the shallow river running down a rocky riverbed, but as I wandered further into the canyon, side springs began to feed more water into the river, causing an incremental rise with each passing spring, of which there were considerably more than I would have guessed.
As the day wore on, the coils of the river tightened, forcing me into even more river crossings until my patience with the ever increasing rock-hops was starting to run thin, then I got pinched into a spot without enough rocks to hop. Damnit. My experience and common sense told me to keep my boots dry and, without question, I had always taken-off my boots and socks for a wet, river crossing.
The canyon was also starting to give me sensations of claustrophobia; being trapped at the bottom of a long, deep chasm, like I was, felt completely foreign to me, and not particularly comfortable. Above was only a ribbon of sky, and the shady canyon walls seemed to grow oppressive as the afternoon waned. I found a rocky perch for my camp that was well above the river and while I wasn’t expecting rain, I didn’t want my camp turning into flood debris if it did. I mean, I didn’t know, maybe it would require a biblical-type rainstorm to dangerously flood the canyon, and I knew the chances of that happening mid-winter were nil to none, nonetheless, setting-up a camp down by the river made me nervous.  Once the tent was up and my gear unpacked, I sat down to remove my sodden boots and socks. I had an extra pair of dry socks and camp booties to put on but I didn’t know what I was going to do with the soaked footgear. I figured temperatures would fall below freezing overnight but I wasn’t about to put that soggy mess into my sleeping bag, so the socks and boots sat out all night. Needless to say, I was not happy with that decision in the morning. I only had the one extra pair of dry socks, so those were going back into the pack, and my pathetically frozen socks had to be thawed over the stove before I could then proceed with the fantastically cringe-worthy sensation of putting them on. Then there were my boots, frozen-up stiff as plywood and also requiring thaw time around the stove. I spent an easy half an hour just putting on my damned shoes and socks.
 As I progressed, the trail continued to establish itself until I was satisfied it wasn’t a game trail but rather a bonafide thread leading back out to civilization, which was reassuring. Around mid-day, as I was merrily wandering along the trail, I was startled to come across a couple camped out in one of the small meadows, and delighted to take a leisurely lunch break at their camp. I told them a little bit about the trip I was doing but mostly they talked while I listened. They wanted to know if I had been able to keep up with any current events during my trek and the only thing I knew about current events was that, presumably, Jimmy Carter was still president, after that, nada. Well, two hours later I knew a whole lot more about people I’d never heard of who were creating events for which I had no context and, of course, I had nothing to say about all that. They kind of reminded me of Radio in that, after a while, I was ready to switch the station. Just before leaving, I asked how long it had taken them to get there and they told me two days.  As I left the couple’s camp, I noticed my boots were on their way to drying-out since I had managed to stay out of the river all morning, but just as the little stretches of meadows had appeared, so did they disappear when the canyon walls closed-in again, forcing me back into the river.
Go to Part 86
December 28th - 31st Quemado, NM (Go to Pt 1) I stayed over at the boarding house a second night and the following morning I was again disappointed in the weather, but it wasn’t exactly raining, either, and I was anxious to get out of town; shitty weather or not, I was behind schedule and had to move-on. I packed-up my stuff, placing the rain gear on top, and set-out from Quemado under heavy, wet skies.  Recent rains had turned dirt to mud and the mucked-up road I was following climbed for several miles through a flat but ascending valley with sweeping mesas rising up on either side. Eventually, the two mesas converged to narrow the valley into a gorge and for the first time since leaving Chama I was back in tall pines with New Mexico’s, North Plains finally to the rear.
 After crossing the river, I climbed up out of the valley along a narrow, flat ridge, separating two canyons. As I rose in elevation, the fog began to thin out just enough so that everything around me became visible but blurry, without definition, like walking through a watercolor. It was actually very cool and by the time I’d reached the ridgeline, I was floating between a sea of clouds below and a blanket of clouds above.  While I’d been sitting in the rain down along the Tularosa River, snow had been falling at this elevation and I hiked through several inches while crossing the ridge over into Cox Canyon. By the time I had dropped into Cox Canyon, the lowland fog had dissipated but overhead, the thick clouds remained grumpy. Once in the canyon, I hiked a few more miles before coming out to a delightful campsite at the edge of a small meadow where making camp seemed like the right thing to do.
About an hour down the road my water worries relaxed when I spotted a holding tank not too far off, but when I got there I found the water iced over with a thick layer frozen across the top. ‘Godamit, it’s always something.’ I looked around and rustled-up a hefty rock with a jagged point to break through, then filled my containers with cold but stale water.
The trail I was following eventually ended at another jeep road which I decided to take since the road was also heading southeast along the ridge, the same as I was. I had been meandering along this jeep road for some time when I was suddenly jolted back into the moment by a pick-up truck bouncing its way toward me. I was surprised because I’d been following jeep roads through the hinterlands for nearly two weeks now and this was the first truck that I’d actually seen one on one of these roads. Naturally, I was curious as to where this truck was coming from, and the guy behind the wheel was at least as curious as to where I was going to. He pulled over, rolled down his window, and asked, “Hey, are you okay? You lost?” Mmm… “Where you headin’?” “The Gila River Canyon” I finally replied. The guy just grinned and looked me up and down like I was nuts. We chatted for a bit and when I told him I was walking to Mexico from Canada, the dude just grinned back at me like, ‘Yeah, right, and I’m driving to Mars.’ He let me know there was a firefighter’s base just a few more miles down the road but added, “You won’t find anything there, though, it’s all locked up for the season.” “Okay, thanks.” I replied. The guy pulled away but then stopped again and called out the window “Hey, how are you fixed for water? Do you need any?” Sure enough, I do. He only had a quart with him but was more than happy to pour it out into my water bottle, a gesture that made me realize I hadn’t met a single jerk on the entire trip; the people I’d met along the way had always been friendly and helpful.  I made it to the firefighter’s base right around camping time and was pretty sure that the locked down facilities wouldn’t stop me from enjoying the amenities. The building looked to be an old army barracks and I went around trying windows until I found one that was unlocked. Yeah, baby! I climbed through the window, pulling my gear in after me, and set up shop on one of the bunks.
Finally descending from Elk Mountain’s southeast ridge, I dropped into Snow Canyon and was glad to finally find some water a little ways down in the gully. Snow Canyon did not last very long and I was rounding Snow Lake at the mouth of the canyon in short order, headed for the Gila River Canyon. Instead of mountaineering, I was going canyoneering.  When Craig and I planned this trip to walk the crest of the continent, the last thing I expected was to end-up on a multi-day, canyon trek. However, I had been gambling with water sources ever since crossing over into New Mexico, so following the Gila River gave me a lifeline, free of water worries. Go to Part 85
The beginning of the canyon wasn’t much more than a gravel wash but as I wandered further west, the chasm grew deeper, with steep canyon sides and rock cliffs above.
I was an uneducated geologist but that never hindered me from trying to figure out how the landscape was created. I had seen some pretty crazy land features over the months and always there was the question of “How do you suppose that happened?” Good trail food for thought.  Other than the novelty of the gorge, the day passed without note until I emerged from the southwestern end of the canyon mid to late afternoon to make camp along the edge of a lava bed. The lava bed was a barren, alien looking place stacked with a chaos of sharp, lava rock that looked sinister and nearly impenetrable.
I had wanted to replenish my water supply but since I still had another day’s worth in my pack, I didn’t spend as much time looking for the spring as I should have. Apparently, I preferred to sit around camp and read about Hobbits in fantasyland than find water. Strange priorities, I know, but after Colorado, camping in New Mexico was great! Warm afternoons, mild evenings, and starry nights listening to Radio made hanging out in camp fun again
I had reached the lava beds early in the afternoon and took a break for lunch. In my head, I was calculating through my water rations and starting to regret not having found that spring back at the canyon. My next camp was out in the middle of no man’s land at a water hole shown on the map, but I wasn’t holding out a lot of confidence in finding water out there, and if I didn’t find water by days end, then what would my rations look like?  A two-track jeep trail ran along the western edge of the lava beds for several miles then veered away to head for a cone of earth resembling a giant pimple on the desert’s face. I spent the last hours of the afternoon hiking toward that giant pimple where the Laguna Americana water hole was supposedly located.  I was nervous about finding the water stash but my bearing held true, bringing me right to the Americana depression where, lo and behold, I found a shallow, milky-green, mineral-laden pond. The water wasn’t bad but tasted like it was a hundred years old. That night I laid out under the stars, snug in my sleeping bag, listening to Radio and feeling oddly content in a lonely kind of way. In the morning, I lounged in my bag until the sun had things warmed-up a bit, then resumed my crossing of the North Plains. The jeep trail continued on from Laguna Americana out into the plains, which I was following when I started to notice tire tracks running willy-nilly and it became fairly obvious that no roads were required out here, at all.  The way the tracks wandered, indicated people drove wherever they wanted, and they did so because there was absolutely nothing in the way. The same was true for hiking, the jeep trails were convenient but cross-country was just as easy. I periodically consulted my 250 map for any reassurance it might have to offer and, for the first time on the entire trip, a 250,000 series map was finally being useful. The land features were large enough and separated by enough distance to make the topography I was seeing out on the plains show up nicely on the map.  I followed jeep trails and wandered across the flats for hours and hours, eventually passing the Cerro Colorado Butte where I turned west in hope of locating another holding pond shown on the map. Later that afternoon, I sat around my camp pretty damned pleased with myself for having sniffed-out yet another watering hole in the middle of nowhere, Laguna Colorado. A jeep trail had led me straight to it, but still…  Overnight the weather changed and in the morning it was cold with an adversarial wind in my face. I returned to my lonely trek, having to remind myself that just a couple of weeks ago in Colorado, a little, cold wind hadn’t been such a big deal. Besides, I’d already wimped-out once on account of wind, I couldn’t let myself bail again.  The further south I went the more established the jeep trail became until it was finally a dirt road which, by late afternoon, had terminated at a county, gravel road. My map had shown some sort of settlement called Techado along the county road but there wasn’t much at Techado. I saw a few dwellings not far from the road but I was good on water for the night, so I didn’t go knocking on anybody’s door.  The weather did not improve overnight and, if anything, it was worse in the morning. Dark clouds hung low to the ground and a windblown, sleet/snow-flurry mix came in waves. I had a long day of road walking ahead of me to get down to Quemado where I hoped to pick-up some groceries and spend the night.  As the day wore on, I went between fretting about Quemado being a ghost town without even water to be had, to hoping I’d find a quaint, little Inn, like I had in Cuba. The weather was hardly conducive to a lunch’n lounge or afternoon break’n bask, so I barely stopped during the day, arriving in Quemado around four in the afternoon.
I stayed over in the boarding house a second night and the next morning I was again disappointed to see little improvement in the weather, but at least it wasn’t raining. I was anxious to get out of Quemado, so I went ahead and packed-up my stuff with the rain gear on top, leaving town under heavy, wet skies that had changed the road I was about to follow from dirt to mud. Go to Part 84
December 14th - 22nd Grants, NM (Go to Pt 1) Several springs showed-up on my map, so I picked one in the vicinity of where I thought I was and, for lack of any other corroborating landmarks, guessed at my location, but I didn’t like it. Guesses out here got you lost.
With the 250 map unable to verify landmarks, my next best hope was to run across another jeep trail but, so far, that hadn’t happened either; the afternoon was nearly gone and I was still in the weeds.
Dusk fell into stary darkness, and while I had ahold of this cow trail, now I had to hang onto it in the dark. More than once I had strayed off into the brush but managed to wrangle myself back, hounding the path until it finally descended from the mesa.
Nobody answered at first, even though I knew there was at least one person in there because I’d seen him through the window, so I softly knocked again. This time the door cracked open and a Mexican cowboy stood looking at me. Showing the cowboy my map, I asked “Donde esta…a… road?” The cowboy pointed out into the night and replied, “Dos millas” then was about to close the door when I hurriedly asked, “Do you have any water?” The cowboy looked back blankly, “Water?” I asked again. I decided to pull out one of my water bottles so he could see what I was talking about and turned away slightly to remove my pack so as to get at the water bottle when suddenly the door to the hut swung wide open and, when I looked back, the cowboy was standing in the doorway with a gun. Behind the cowboy was another vaquero who also had a gun pointed at me, not street guns but like old fashioned, well-worn six-shooters. This all happened in a flash when I had dropped my pack to the ground, and while I was pretty shocked, I wasn’t exactly surprised. “Whoa, whoa, whoa…” I said, slowly raising my hands. Then I pointed to my water bottle in the side pocket of my pack and again asked “Water?” I couldn’t come up with the word ‘aqua’ to save my life. “Ahhh… Aqua! Si!” The guy then turned to his buddy and said something I didn’t understand but was apparently pretty funny because they both started laughing. They put their guns down on a small table and the cowboy waved me inside, still laughing and saying “Si, si….” I handed the guy my bottle and he took it over to a barrel in the corner of the room and began dipping-out water. While he was ladling water into my bottle, the two vaqueros continued to chatter back and forth, laughing at something that was obviously me - ‘estupido gringo lost in the desierto with no agua. Hahahahaa!!’ After filling my bottle, the cowboy pointed out to where I would find a water tank and a place to camp. I did remember “Gracias” then wandered out through a pasture to the water tank where I pitched-up my tent. I was wasted. I had covered 30+ miles in 14 hours and I was feeling every bit of it. Too many miles had raised up blisters on my feet and caused an odd strain in a muscle running along my shin bone. My body fatigue was so complete that once my sleeping bag was rolled out, that was it; no food, no Radio, no Hobbits, no nothing… lights out.  Temperatures fell hard during the night and in the morning I just laid around in the tent until the sun had a chance to warm things up a bit. I felt like a train wreck and was lethargically packing away my gear when I noticed one of the cowboys walking across the pasture toward me. He was carrying something in his hand that looked to be a shovel but as he got closer I saw that it was actually a long-handled axe. I waved as he approached and he waved back, still with that shit eating grin on his face from last night, and that’s when it dawned on me that there wasn’t so much as a stick lying on the ground for an axe to chop at. I glanced around for whatever it was this cowboy was planning to chop-up but there was only the metal tank, a few cows, and except for the fence posts, no wood anywhere in sight. Well, ever since that bandito had walked-up on me and Craig in our camp back in Montana, I had felt a little vulnerable and paranoid that somebody might try to rob me of my gear while out in the hinters, and that’s exactly what I thought this cowboy was about to do - kill me for my gear and chop-up the body, why else the axe? And that’s about as far as my instant analysis of the situation had gotten when the cowboy walked into my camp, smiling that toothy grin of his, then past me to the water tank where he began to chop away at ice that had frozen over the top during the night. Ahh… suddenly the world made sense again and I was able to go back to packing my gear while the grinning vaquero cleared ice from the tank.  After leaving the cowboy outpost, it took me a couple of hours to get down to San Mateo and from there, the final road grind into Grants. Grants was a resupply stop-over that would have flipped around pretty quick had not my Mom decided to fly out to Albuquerque The Lost Week My Mom, Dona, taught high school photography and had just gone on Christmas break. Not one to sit around the house, she had decided, pretty much spur of the moment, that she wanted to fly out to New Mexico to see me. When I called home from Grants, she asked me what I thought about her coming out for a visit and I have to say, I was pretty surprised. I mean, I kind of had this Continental Divide trip I was trying to finish but sure, Mom, come on out. A couple of days later Dona flew out to Albuquerque and knowing that the accommodations and amenities in Grants would not be up to her expectations, I ended up on a Greyhound bus headed for the Albuquerque Sheraton Inn. When at last we rendezvoused in Albuquerque, the first thing Dona wanted to do was go gift shopping, naturally. That evening we rode the Sandia Tramway to a restaurant perched at the top for dinner. Seated by huge, plate glass windows, we enjoyed a gourmet meal together with the shimmering lights of Albuquerque spread out across the valley below. The transposition of the desert I had just walked out of to this four star restaurant overlooking Albuquerque was mind blowing, as was the kaleidoscope of people. While lingering over coffee after dinner, I gave my Mom a Christmas present that I’d pick-up at one of the gift shops; a silver bracelet set with a white stone, etched with a small, red cardinal. Dona loved cardinals and she loved the bracelet, and the entire evening really was a very special and unique moment in time together. I ended-up touristing around the area with Dona for a few days, even renting a car to drive up to Santa Fe for a day, before boarding the bus back to Grants. And once I finally did get back to Grants, I had to work pretty hard to yank my head back in the game. Three nights of Sheraton Inn pillows and fluff towels, not to mention the Sandia dinning, had made coming back to Grants to face more desert hiking a real head spinner. When I went to pick-up my resupply box in the morning, it wasn’t very big. Since I already had all of the gear I needed to finish the trip, there hadn’t been clothing or equipment to shuttle around, so the box only contained maps and food stuff; aside from studying the maps, preparations for this next section were minimal and the following morning I got an early start, walking several miles northwest of town to get beyond Grants and out to the Zuni Canyon. Go to Part 83
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Kip Rusk, 1977
Kip RuskIn 1977, Kip Rusk walked a route along the Continental Divide from Canada to Mexico. His nine month journey is one of the first, documented traverses of the US Continental Divide. 
Montana Part 1 - Glacier Ntl Pk Part 2 - May 11 Part 3 - May 15 Part 4 - May 19 Part 5 - May 21 Part 6 - May 24 Part 7 - May 26 Part 8 - June 2 Part 9 - June 5 Part 10 - June 7 Part 11 - June 8 Part 12 - June 11 Part 13 - June 12 Part 14 - June 15 Part 15 - June 19 Part 16 - June 23 Part 17 - June 25 Part 18 - June 27 Part 19 - June 30 Part 20 - July 5-6 Part 21 - July 7-8 Part 22 - July 9-10 Part 23 - July 11-15 Part 24 - July 17-18 Part 25 - July 18-19 Part 26 - July 19 Part 27 - July 20-21 Part 28 - July 22-23 Part 29 - July 24-26 Part 30 - July 26-30 Part 31 - July 31-Aug 1 Part 32 - Aug 1-4 Part 33 - Aug 4-6 Part 34 - Aug 6 Part 35 - Aug 7-9 Part 36 - Aug 9-10 Part 37 - Aug 10-13 Wyoming Part 38 - Aug 14 Part 39 - Aug 15-16 Part 40 - Aug 16-18 Part 41 - Aug 19-21 Part 42 - Aug 20-22 Part 43 - Aug 23-25 Part 44 - Aug 26-28 Part 45 - Aug 28-29 Part 46 - Aug 29-31 Part 47 - Sept 1-3 Part 48 - Sept 4-5 Part 49 - Sept 5-6 Part 50 - Sept 6-7 Part 51 - Sept 8-10 Part 52 - Sept 11-13 Part 53 - Sept 13-16 Part 54 - Sept 17-19 Part 55 --Sept 19-21 Part 56 Sept 21-23 Part 57 - Sept 23-25 Part 58 - Sept 26-26 Colorado Part 59 - Sept 26 Part 60 - Sept 30-Oct 3 Part 61 - Oct 3 Part 62 - Oct 4-6 Part 63 - Oct 6-7 Part 64 - Oct 8-10 Part 65 - Oct 10-12 Part 66 - Oct 11-13 Part 67 - Oct 13-15 Part 68 - Oct 15-19 Part 69 - Oct 21-23 Part 70 - Oct 23-28 Part 71 - Oct 27-Nov 3 Part 72 - Nov 3-5 Part 73 - Nov 6-8 Part 74 - Nov 9-17 Part 75 - Nov 19-20 Part 76 - Nov 21-26 Part 77 - Nov 26-30 Part 78 - Dec 1-3 New Mexico Part 79 - Dec 3-7 Part 80 - Dec 8-11 Part 81 - Dec 12-14 Part 82 - Dec 14-22 Part 83 - Dec 23-28 Part 84 - Dec 28-31 Part 85 - Dec 31-Jan2 Part 86 - Jan 2-6 Part 87 - Jan 6-12 Part 88 - Jan 12-13 Part 89 - Jan 13-16 Part 90 - Jan 16-17 Part 91 - Jan 17 End |
