Part Seventy Nine

     December 3rd - 7th                  Chama, NM                                    (Go to Pt 1)

Unlike most days where every footfall was noted, I was so lost in thought that I hardly noticed I was still hiking when the town of Chama, my first resupply stop of New Mexico, appeared in the not-so-far-off distance.  Cool beans!

I got into town with afternoon to spare and settled into a mustic (musty-rustic), motel room that looked and smelled like a spare room at grandma’s house.  Chama had a café, and walking back to the motel after a cheeseburger and fries, I came across a puppy, maybe six months old, that had been hit by a car and was whimpering by the side of the road.
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Aw, Jeez.  The poor, little guy. I looked around and saw no one, so I scooped up the puppy and brought him back to my room for the night. He was like a blue-heeler mix and I called him Rosco. Little Rosco-Bosco.
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Rosco couldn’t walk and in the morning the motel owner called the vet for me.  The vet stopped by and said she would take good care of him but I suspected that would mean putting him down.  Boy, did that ever blow a hole through my New Mexico euphoria.

I was three nights in Chama with a day to recuperate, and a day for errands.  All of my winter, mountain gear was headed back to St. Louis for good and, from here on, I’d be hiking in light boots and carrying a light pack.  The last thing to do was study the maps to formulate a plan, and that’s when the butterflies would start.

I always got butterflies before heading out and the night before leaving Chama was no different.  The unknowns and insecurities of what I was doing were not easy to get used to and part of the planning process was to contemplate scenarios where things might go wrong.  Identifying potential misfortune in advance, though, would inevitably lead to anxiety and a restless night.

I left Chama early the next morning and caught a quick ride out to where Highway 84 crossed over the Continental Divide, marked only by a lonely cow contemplating the abstract world of nothing from under a solitary, pinyon tree.  A jeep trail got me started but after only a couple of miles the path began to wander away from the Divide, leading me to go cross-country so I could maintain a course toward the Tecolote Mesa.

Actually, there was little difference between being on the dirt road and going cross-country since the scrub and sage grew sparsely across open, easy terrain.  As I approached the mesa I ran across another jeep track in the dirt that brought me up through an open forest of pinyon and pine to the top of the Tecolote Rim.

The weather was ideal, mid-fifties with a light breeze, and my lightweight, Pivetta, desert boots were hiking like bedroom slippers, as was my Kelty frame pack carrying comfortably.  The novelty of being in New Mexico, however, was wearing thin as my descent into the basin started to remind me of other inhospitable areas I’d seen in southern Montana and Wyoming.

Click on the map for a larger image

While reviewing the maps back in Chama, I had noticed the Continental Divide crossing over into the Jicarilla Apache Reservation which, for whatever reason, didn’t really register at the time, and I had viewed the reservation area on the map as though it was still in National Forest.

 Now on the backside of the mesa, I was faced with a fairly serious, barbed-wire fence posted with large signs that made clear I was about to cross over onto the Jicarilla Apache Reservation, and under no circumstance was I welcome.

Well, I had crossed plenty of fences over the past months and rarely had I let private property stand in my way, but this fence had an entirely different feel.  Crossing this fence seemed scarry, not like trespassing scarry but more like fugitive on-the-run scarry.  What I saw on the other side of that fence was a place where one could disappear, never to be heard from again.
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At this point, however, there was no getting around the reservation, I was going to have to climb over the fence and take my chances.  As I started down a dirt road on the other side, it was fairly obvious that in this barren, wide open valley, trying to hide while hiking was useless, so I just put my head down and hoped for the best.

For the rest of the afternoon I followed the dusty road deeper into reservation territory without a sign of anyone, anywhere.  No vehicles, no sheep herders, nobody at all.  I made camp near Boulder Lake that afternoon and hid my tent among some terrain features, away from the lake and screened from the road.

I was on edge that night.  I was a white kid on an Indian reservation where I had no business being. If a Native were to run across my camp, well, I didn’t know how much trouble I might be in.  Maybe they wouldn’t care at all, or maybe they’d have me arrested, or maybe they’d want retribution for 300 years of white-man atrocities.  Fuck if I knew.

The next morning I was awake before dawn and hiking the dirt road by first light. If ever there was a ‘heads-down and go like hell’ kind of day, this was it. I wanted off the reservation and there was only one way get out, and that was on foot.  Maybe I was making much to do about nothing, or not, either way it didn’t matter, paranoia was the rocket fuel.

I spent all day crossing the Apache reserve and while a few, old pick-up trucks did rattle by, no one stopped and no one asked any questions.  I dropped my pack once during the day to quickly rummage through the lunch sack but other than that, my motivation to keep moving outweighed my need to rest.

The day was beginning to run out when I finally passed through the gate at the southern boundary, putting me back into National Forest.  I’d been planning to take a rest stop as soon as I was no longer a poaching, white-boy renegade but by the time I’d crossed out of the reservation, it was too late for ‘rest stops’.  My next stop needed to be a place to camp for the night because wherever I stopped now, that’d be it, I was toast.
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A shorts ways south of the Apache Reservation I found a secluded place to set up my tent with the one deficit of not having water close by.  I knew finding water in New Mexico was going to be tricky so I was carrying with me three containers, enough for 2½  gallons of transportable water.

Before starting out in the morning, I had filled my containers at the lake so that now, as long as I stayed stingy, I’d have enough to get me through tomorrow and down to my next water source at Llaves.  I was bone tired that night, too tired for the Hobbits, and content to just lay back in my sleeping bag and listen to Radio.
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The next morning I was in no rush to wake-up, and after I did wake-up, I continued to be in no rush.  I was still tired from yesterday’s backpacker’sprint across the reservation, and with Llaves only 12 miles to the south I was already planning for an easy day.
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Too bad.

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Go to Part 80

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​The CDTC was founded in 2012 by volunteers and recreationists hoping to provide a unified voice for the CDT. Working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Forest Service and other federal land management agencies, the CDTC is a non-profit partner supporting stewardship of the CDT. The mission of the CDTC is to complete, promote and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail, a world-class national resource. For more information, please visit continentaldividetrail.org.

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