October 24th
Walked out of Silver City early in the morning. 13 mile highway walk carrying a lot of water. This was becoming an unpleasant refrain. A few miles out of town there is a famous CDT sight: The driveway lined with old toilets. Not sure what point the resident is trying to make, but it is a unique idea.
I passed an old copper mine. There was an explanatory visitor site explaining how the mine was being reclaimed. There were lots of words and pictures, but to my untrained eye, it looked like they just smoothed the sides, put on some topsoil, and threw down some seeds to see what might grow. Surely, it will all work out.
Americans have a hard time with mining. Almost universally, we dislike the environmental and visual impacts. Nobody finds a copper strip mine appealing. However, none of us seem to be willing to give up electrical devices. Heck, we can’t even agree to get rid of the penny (although I know modern ones are mostly zinc).
Later, around midday, I left roads and entered forest. A couple times, I encountered two or three isolated cattle. I am never sure if they escaped the round up and are going to try to survive over winter or if the rancher leasing the land will come back and get these stragglers.
I reached the top of Burro Peak in the early afternoon. There were some nice views and a few great old trees. I believe I even saw the Hatchet Mountains which are right near the end of the CDT. It was a good moment. I thought back to June when I was in Montana and could look back and still see the mountains of Glacier National Park. Maybe I would finish this thing.
There was one natural spring, Mud Spring, that had good, plentiful water despite the fact the protective coverings and fencing had been destroyed. Later still, when the trail approached a road, a trail angel had left some water for CDT hikers.
I noticed a large bank of clouds to the west and concluded the night would come a little quicker than normal and the sunset would not be too pretty. So, I found a hill top, pitched the tent, and ate dinner by a small fire.
Sure enough, the large cloud bank turned out to be a storm. Desert storms are powerful. My tent was flapping oddly. Eventually I went out to find some of the stakes had wriggled loose from the rocky, sandy soil. To my surprise, there was even a half hour of fairly heavy rain around 2:00 and some lightning. Thank goodness I wasn’t cowboy camping.
backpacking over the hill 