October 27th
While I might’ve been able to push and finish in 3 days, the rental car agency was not open until Monday so I felt I had the opportunity to travel with no time pressure hanging over me.
I grabbed a breakfast at Kranberry’s restaurant. This was a middle of the road diner with a few southwest accents. After leaving the restaurant, the town disappears quickly. There is a side road that leads to an abandoned mining town called Shakespeare. Just before reaching the town cemetery, the trail appears off the road and a CDT hiker immediately starts following white signs atop metal posts. For some reason, this first section of trail seemed to be through the broken glass capital of New Mexico.
The terrain was rolling desert hills. Oddly, there were fenced off areas about 100 feet square. The only thing I could guess was old mining operations where they did not want hikers or, more importantly, cattle falling though on this BLM land. The only other interesting thing heading out of town was a lone individual standing on a hill. I assumed he was border patrol because he kept looking around.
Six liters of water is 12 pounds. After a couple hours I began to purposefully drink water to lighten my load. When I reached the first water cache, I downed a liter of carried water and replaced half of it. The water caches in this area are stocked fairly regularly, but I always play it safe with water and carry enough for at least 18 hours. There was a register/log book. It was interesting to see the northbound entries. Many were eager to get to town and there were some lengthy entries. In contrast, the more current entries were from southbounders that were very brief. I have a rough theory that journal entry length is inverse to miles traveled.
Towards dusk started looking for campsites. In the desert, it takes a surprisingly long time to find places to camp. One pictures sparse vegetation and sand, but the reality is many prickly plants and sharp rocks. I ended up finding a clear, sandy area in a field of dried grass. It was at the base of a small hill and overlooked I-10 on the horizon. I ended up collecting enough sticks to have a small fire before calling it a night. It was an interesting contrast between the fire’s yellow light, the moonless sky above with innumerable stars, and the steady, silent movement of truck lights out on the interstate.
Around 11:30, I thought I heard something in the grass near my tent. I yelled “Go!” and about 30 or 40 hooves scampered off. It was javelinas. I got out to make sure they hadn’t gnawed on my backpack. While out there, I heard a set of heavier hoofs and some sharp exhaling coming from the hill. Although my headlamp was not strong enough to spot it on the hill, I knew it was an antelope. I breathed out loudly through my mouth. This was met with a loud breath from the dark. I breathed loudly again and was met with a breath from the dark. I am sure this could’ve gone on for hours, but I crawled back in my tent (mostly) confident that nobody has ever been trampled inside their tent by an antelope.
backpacking over the hill 