Part Eighty Seven

     January 6th - 12th                    Silver City, NM                               (Go to Pt 1)

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, because near the confluence, the stream ran wide without enough rocks to hops, pushing me right back into the river.  

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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.

Unlike the Gila River, there wasn’t much water running through this canyon and by the time I’d reached Apache Creek, there was no running water at all.  Watching the stream dwindle, I’d made sure to fill my water containers before for it completely vanished.

I camped near the dried-up wash of Apache Creek, pulling from my pack a small bag of fresh vegetables I’d gotten at the market to perk-up my evening meal.  Radio had great reception with a selection of stations, so after supper I lounged outside the tent in my sleeping bag, listening to music.  Sitting out under the open sky felt a lot more comfortable than sitting at the bottom of a cold, dark canyon.

The next morning I sat studying my maps before heading up the wash.  I could see that the Continental Divide wasn’t very far-off and the 250 map showed the remnants of Apache Creek as still being the best route.  

Tracking along a faint trail, I started up the gravel wash, glad to have another perfect day for hiking - mid-fifties with a light breeze.  As I got closer to the Continental Divide, the valley flattened out until Apache Creek became nothing more than pebbles in the dirt.

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.

Not long after lunch, though, and quite inexplicably, the jeep trail just up and quit, turning to dust out in the middle of an open flat, which left me in the foothills, guessing at my location. I knew I wasn’t that far from reaching the main road between Silver City and the Gila Cliff Dwellings, and 

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.

Then I had to calm down a bit; I was making a gigantic, mental leap from Silver City straight to the Mexican border and I needed to reel that shit back-in.  There were still a lot of miles between here and there that I needed to think about that first, so after a long, wistful look at the Mexican border, I folded-up the border maps to focus on those that would get me out of Silver City and down to Lordsburg.

Click on the map for a larger image

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.
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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.

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Go to Part 88

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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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