100 Miles down!
Today, we broke (and surpassed) 100 miles, the first real exciting mileage on the trail. Next big markers (for me anyway) are 500, 1000, halfway, and 2660. The last one seems a bit random, but that’s how long the PCT was when I did it, so it’ll officially be my longest hike ever.
It’s a miracle we made it, even but one mile. Last night, Ben and I happened to polish off a bottle (small, but not the smallest) of whisky. Why? Couldn’t tell ya. Just kinda happened. So this morning was a bit of a slow start for the brain, even though we managed to keep timing relatively on schedule. Typically we wake up at 6, and head out of camp by 7:15. We were only about 15 minutes delayed somehow.
After hobbling to the shower for one final cleanse, we went downstairs to have some breakfast. Drank all the orange juice the lady working the breakfast bar could give, as well as some bagels, eggs, and sausage.
As the trail runs through town, we were almost immediately hiking. A few miles of road walking and then the trail veered off to the side and ran parallel to it for most the day, crossed back over, then nudged it again to where our planned camp was. With our weary brains and stumbling feet, we decided to walk the road most the way, as the mileage was close to the same. The hills are slowly turning into small mountains, and we were definitely going up and down way more than the first stretch, but all in all it was a smooth day.
The most exciting part (other than breaking 100) is that Ben experienced his first trail magic!
As we were walking along, a car pulled up to ask if we needed any water or supplies and if we were doing alright. As we’re fully stocked up, and had hydrated for more than one person this morning, we had plenty of water remaining. So we thanked him and his lady friend for the check in, and they began to drive away. As they did, Ben half jokingly yelled out “BEEEEEEER”. Somehow, the lady in the passenger seat heard it cross over the driver and told him to stop and give us a couple cans. Woo! A local silver city brew, to boot!
We began to sip our frosty beverages, and sat down for a break. The downfall to road walking is it tires out the feet much faster, and isn’t always the most exciting of walking. However, as we began to finish up our 25 mile day, the beer dulled our pain (a smidge) and we continued on.
A few hours later, we made it to our camp, which is a larger camping area where there’s a water cache, and a note at the cache about a trail angel setup, who we sadly didn’t see. Their setup was here, but guess they were off for a hike!
As we rolled in, we saw our friend who’s wife is supporting him in the trailer! He was looking fresh and clean, and had just finished up a zero day. He’s going to be slack packing a few sections of trail in the coming days.
Slack packing is a glorious opportunity to hike the miles necessary, without any real supplies apart from some food and water. You drop your gear at your destination, get driven to your last point along the trail and hike back free of heavy equipment.
The most important bit of info he gave us, is about a trail closure ahead of us to Silver City. We’ve been hearing rumbles of a fire closure, half saying it’s closed, half saying it’s not. It seems there’s a reroute in place to bypass the fire, which is pretty standard in these cases. What was truly wackadoo, is that we were told there’s a 30+ mile addition for the reroute. No way jose. What he’s planning to do is walk the road all the way into Silver City from where we are camping, and that sounds like a plan we can get on board with.
A bit of a bummer as it cuts off about 20 miles. But that means we will get into Silver City tomorrow, and don’t have to skip it! Very exciting to hear that. And while we don’t want to cut miles, it does help our cause for getting up north in time for our ladies weekend, dropping the average mileage to get to Pie Town from 23.4 miles per day, down to 21 - an actually obtainable goal without killing ourselves. And, even an opportunity to push a bit further if we’re able to keep crushing miles like we have been (or maybe we’ll just relax a bit. All day by day).
So now we are bundled up, in our tents after having had a much needed ramen meal. It’s going to be quite a brisk night/morning. Mid 30s. Eep. But, Silver City, here we come!
