The End of the Trail

October 31st

I slept better than I thought I would.  I feared I would constantly wake up, but I didn’t.  For the first time in a long time, I got up immediately when the alarm on my watch went off.

I was packing steadily in the dark. Backpackers have a routine of what items go where in their pack.  As I was reflexively putting mine in order, it occurred to me it does not matter.  I won’t pack or unpack again  for the trail.

I noticed back up the trail a faint light.  It was a headlamp.  I figured it was probably another southbounder heading to the finish.  But, this close to the border, I did not want to wait around and find out it was something else.  I covered my lamp, finished packing and took off at a pretty good pace.  When I felt like there was some distance, I turned my head lamp back on.

Not to be graphic, but nature called.  This would be my last crap on the trail.  Trust me, I dd not get sentimental.  I was not going to miss the ritual of digging, doing, covering, and then sanitizing hands.

The trail came to a large cattle tank.  I went over to check it and it had some good water, but I still had two liters from the last cache.  At this point, the trail left the gravel road and the final section was real trail.  There was some faint tread. However, the direction was east and the rising sun made sign spotting difficult.

I managed to come across a lonely cow.  At first she called out to me hoping I was the herd.  But she realized I was a human and charged off a short distance.  Last cattle encounter of the trail.  Not going to miss them, either.

Eventually the sun rose enough that I could see the outline of the posts and signs.  At this point I started getting a little excited and quickened my pace.  My rational mind said it was stupid to hurry since it was only 7:15 and the shuttle out would not come until 10:00. My emotions, however, were urging me to get this over with.

Then, I caught the outline of the monument marking the end.  I could see it had an informational board and some type of canopy.  I walked a little bit faster.  I was walking as fast as I could without running.

I made it to the monument.  It was not an excessively emotional moment for me.  I was happy.  I was proud that I had accomplished what I had set out to do. It felt good.

I sent a satellite text to a couple people, put my foot through the fence to touch Mexico (before the Unity Wall is built), and then did what modest, contemplative, thoughtful people like me do:  took some selfies.

About 45 minutes later I saw two figures coming down the trail.  The headlamp I saw did belong to CDT hikers.  As they got closer, I could see it was Sweet Baby James and Moon Light Lady.  It was good to see people I had hiked with off and on finish at the same time.  They were jubilant and much more emotional than I had been.  I think the sense of shared accomplishment for couples must be huge.

They did have an exciting story about waking up at night to some noise outside their tent.  Four guys dropped their huge backpacks and ran when SBJ shined his headlamp on them.  He immediately recognized the situation as drug smuggling.  He and MLL packed up as quickly as possible and bushwhacked up high and spent a sleepless night on a rock outcrop. They tried to report the encounter to the Border Patrol and the CDTC, but nobody was particularly responsive.

I took a few pics of them and also of our shuttle driver when he arrived. None of us had been able to find champagne in Lordsburg, but they toasted each other with miniature bottles of Jack Daniels.

 

The shuttle driver, Juan, showed up ahead of schedule.  He was dropping off a CDT Section hiker.  We happily got in his vehicle and began the rough road out.  Until it hits pavement after an hour, the ride can be quite exciting.  A Chevy 4 door with Texas plates was abandoned with a crushed oil pan, serving as a silent testimony to the wisdom of a high clearance 4 wheel drive vehicle  as the preferred way to travel.

As we were on the road, we drove by a solar well and stock tank.  I craned my neck, trying to see if the tank held water.  Then it hit me.  I did not need to check all possible water sources.  I was done.

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I suspect some people take these long backpacking trips searching for something or trying to leave something.  Cheryl Strayed tried to use backpacking as a transformational tool in her book/ movie.  However, while I enjoy the time to think through things, I never expect any big epiphanies.

Nevertheless, I think I did end up learning one lesson on this trip and it is consistent with the blog name.  Initially, I found myself wanting to go fast.  I wanted to keep pace with the younger backpackers and post big miles.  It seemed to me I had always been competitive, wanting to be the alpha male.  Wanted to be good at basketball in high school, working my way up the corporate ladder quickly, retiring before age fifty.  In Montana when I had a leg infection, it infuriated me to have a bunch of other southbounders passing me as I limped along.  I was going nuts when I had to rest for a few days in town while the medicine went to work.

But somewhere in Colorado, I realized I was not going to keep up with the faster hikers.  And that was OK.  I concluded that when you are young you want to live life fast.  But as you come to grips with the fact your physical body has peaked, you don’t want life to go so fast.  You want life to go well.  When I focused on the hike and not the speed, I truly began to enjoy backpacking over the hill.

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Thank you for following along.  I don’t understand WordPress  statistics, but it looks like well over ten people have read this blog and that’s not even counting my Mom, but I have a sneaking suspicion she just looked at the pictures.  Your indulgence for poor writing is very much appreciated.  For example, I pride myself on a unique style of writing where I changed tense often and will use incomplete sentences. To keep the reader guessing.

Also, blogging from the trail is difficult and I was  not up to the task.  In addition to the obvious challenge of being beat every night, there are others.  For example, not using up all your battery or lacking connectivity.  I do not offer this as an excuse, but I hope it puts the long periods of silence on this blog into perspective

I may  post another entry like “Advice to Future CDT Hikers” (and perhaps a gear review) at a later date.  Those are pretty nerdy topics so a non-backpacker won’t be interested. However, I may  very well conclude that those topics are like checking out water sources and not something I need to do any more.

 

Sincerely,

Kevin or “Wait Up”