From Mexico to Canada on the Continental Divide Trail

 I'm enduring a process that I intend to see through, and might be interesting to describe. Basically, the experience overwhelmed me physically and mentally. In that state of "just trying to keep up" with the moment by moment demands of the desert, I had to jettison the dreams of what the trail "should be" in my mind. Who would undertake something like this without first building up a dream world of what they expect it to be? I certainly did that. While I expected to be tired at the end of each day, I didn't know the extent of the challenges in the way of recovering for the next day. It's pretty easy to do a "big day." Because you go home to a warm, dry bed and all bodily systems recover so nicely that you don't even know what they required to achieve that. For example, the problem of "monkey butt." Normally, we all know how to deal with the bathroom and such things. But day after day, being hot and sweaty and certainly without sh...

It was great to finally be going north of Lordsburg! Gogo and Blueberry had the room next to mine and the walls are thin enough that when they woke up, I woke up. They've been traveling at a similar pace to Slim and I, but with a curious schedule... From 4 am to 11, then again from 6 or 7 pm to 11 pm or so. Once I woke up in the night thinking cars were driving on the road far away, but they were the headlamps of Gogo and Blueberry. I rolled over and went back to sleep... No need to holler out at people late at night! It's great the way our paths cross and recross. We can always recognized Slims enormous feet and huge stride. Information travels up and down the path. The feeling of community is amazing.  So Slim and I headed north, then east across often trackless desert, always climbing gently. It was beautiful the way Lordsburg receded, and multiple days of the hot, blasted country we'd been through opened up. Big Hatchet Mountain shimmered blue in...

Here is a picture from Thursday when we were dropped off. It was 10 in the morning, and the heat was climbing... We were eager to leave! I'm wearing the green shirt. On my right side are Ruiboos, Brock, Bass and Bad Noodle in the lower row. Bass is a chef in Portland. Ruiboos and Brock are from England, and this is their honeymoon! On the other side, Caveman is on the monument too. He's hilarious... Unfortunately, also very fast, and after today I might not see him again... He headed out tonight for Silver City. Next to him are Slim, Michael on the far left, and Brainstorm on the bottom. Slim, Brainstorm and I will head out in the morning, along with GG and Blueberry. It's amazing to see high mountains in the far distance, shimmering in the haze... And know that not only will you reach them... You'll pass even those mountains by and keep moving north. We are all dreaming about pine trees on the slopes of Burro Mountain, which we'll probably reach Tuesday...

Wow, so much has happened. I'm laying in a grassy field as the sun goes down, camping alone, and the wind threatens to take away anything I don't either tie down or hold in place with my body weight. But this is normal in this place of extremes. I've had brutal heat, where hikers share beloved memories of the tree at mile post 18, or the little overhang of rock that gives shade to three people. Wind storms, blowing sand... Everything is dirty and it's hard to believe it will ever be clean again.  The landscape is too big to fit in a camera. It's not the scene before you, it's the totality of wind and sun and mountains visible in the distance for days. We keep pushing on... There are five water caches along the route, refilled by volunteers. We still need to occasionally get water from a farmers tank. I slept by cache three this morning, and reached cache four after 12 miles. I'm sleeping with some of the water from cache four, plus I ...

I've had a good time here in Lordsburg. Arrived in the early evening, found Charlie in the room and discussed myriad gear topics. We had similar thoughts on many things, for example agreeing on the importance of olive oil for warmth when sleeping, as fat in the diet at dinner time lights the big logs in the fireplace of the body. Beautiful sunset, great Tex mex dinner, then sleep. We got up at 5:30 and I walked with him to the shuttle rendezvous, meeting the drivers and other people. They took off and I contented myself with a day alone. I bought food and other supplies like ibuprofen and nail clippers. I met some other hikers in the store. Hilariously, one guy had the trail name Baby Jesus. I've met several people coming back through Lordsburg after the first leg from the border, and... Well... No one had anything good to say. Lots of sunburned legs, folks saying I'm smart to wear pants. The heat is apparently intense and demoralising. One guy said "by the end of the ...

The bus driver: Okay we'll stop here in Deming a few minutes and you can get out of the bus, but it's very important: no McDonald's. Do not go into McDonald's. In am hour we will be stopping for a longer break in Lordsburg and you can go into McDonald's there, but I repeat: no McDonald's here. Do not go in, I repeat, there is no going into the McDonald's here. Hee hee...I really, really wanted to ask: Could I run into the McDonald's right there real quick? Just for some fries, or maybe a milkshake, I dunno.

I'm finally in country that looks like the trail. Desolate mountains riding behind downtown in Mexico. My great grandfather was the first judge here, and his sister, Mary Irene Stanton is famous as the finder of the library. My grandpa was born here in 1910. It's amazing to see this place. People are friendly and have time to talk. An old man asked to use my phone because he was tired of walking on a lonely street... But then he forgot the number to call... I told him I live and Germany and he said "ich liebe dich." 🤣 Stanton Street and the post office... I walked about five miles though the city.

My sister Cathy lives in Oklahoma, where there is wind, hail, tornados... Where the weather is a member of the family. One too loud, too often present, and yet who shapes the character of life in a way that cannot be denied. She said the forecasts are terrible... And the slick TV presenters never pay the price for being wrong over and over. Unlike the rest of us, who are damned three times in the best case of a good effort, and who rarely escape the mark of the lash for a perfect score. I had a sudden thought. It was this: we live only because we cannot be forecasted. Only in the crevices where calculus fails is there room for humanity to grow... Unnoticed by the too-intelligent. Invisible to the world-spanners who design perfection. Who make no room for a Santa. For a church or a wasted day kissing her under the lazy summer sun. Thank God they cannot predict the weather. For if they could, the prices of each thing would be fixed, and fixed too high for life. Chaos is our protector. Wh...

Somehow I never saw miracle on 34th Street before. It was a great movie! As the beaches of Germany recede, I'm struck by the slow joy that rises from goodness. For example, the Macy's toy department manager who has to reconcile the lack of immediate profit derived from a real Santa Claus sitting with the children, with the admiration of the mothers for the store for putting the children ahead of profits. He gets a "headache" because he knows where goodness lies, but his job is to value the material over the spiritual. This is how it works! Goodness trickles out like a incipient creek high on an anonymous mountain, eventually creating a torrent of problems for those who consider themselves the worlds managers. They will do all they can to dam up the creek... They will use dynamite. But it doesn't matter. There are too many creeks. Too many hills. There is the stillness of every human heart, where the Choice is made. And mostly made correct, once the stakes are high...

Barbara dropped me off... My poor sweet one... She got over COVID last week, but is still coughing and even had a fever yesterday. She's going home and right back to bed. My mind is definitely on the trail. In a way, I'm not even excited right now... Just ready to get this thing started. I've been lazy in the last few days... Suddenly damn tired of the same walks and trails I've used so well to train. I got in 365 miles of walking since the latter part of January, but that meant a lot of seeing the same place over and over. I could walk from Markt Schwaben to Munich blindfolded now, lol... I am always refreshed and lifted up from my claustrophobic thoughts about the logistics of this thing when I recall how lucky I am to get to do something like this. If I look at the media and culture, I see wailing and unhappiness everywhere. But we live like princes of the realm. If we can't enjoy ourselves now, then what hope is there ever of enjoying life? When I say enjoy, I d...

I laid out all my gear. On the top row you see the synthetic puffy jacket. I chose synthetic over down because even though it's bulkier, it is kind of the equipment of last resort in my opinion if you are cold and wet. If the down sleeping bag is sopping wet, it is useless. You could sit in the synthetic jacket and gain some warmth. Then my clothing in a pile: shirt, pants, underwear and socks. Then gloves, and just below the "extra" clothes: pair of shorts, cotton underwear for sleeping, light t-shirt and extra socks. Next is the pack with a warm hat and sun hat sitting on top. Next row is the all important plastic bag to keep the quilt dry in the back. Then the Nemo Tensor pad, mostly obscured by the quilt. The little blue bag is my wind/rain jacket. Then the quilt. Now the very busy section of gear, like the Kindle, the headlamp, power back and cables, tripod, camera (with extra battery), card reader to upload images from the camera through the phone, headphones, final...

  Some pics from the spine, clouds on both sides: Village life: Another sunset in the forest... This was a beautiful sunset. I like my shoes. Warm sun after a night of clouds and fog.

I've always argued that he is the secret at the heart of middle earth. He is the road to enlightenment in that gorgeous world. And in his dance of domestic bliss with Goldberry (who is waiting) he imparts the male vision of wedded bliss, which must be combined with mastery of the world. The feminine view, as always, is occluded, though her song and grace are joy to behold, and must stem from inner joy. So I was delighted to spend a rest day reading the incredible book "in the house of Tom Bombadil," by C.R. Wiley. So many ideas about life in here. Hmm, what else happened? I learned why homeless people always seem to wear too many clothes. I had to wait a couple hours before entering the hotel, and was freezing in the cloud and shadow, even in only a slight wind. The truth is the environment is usually too hot or too cold for comfort. We pop into and out of it from buildings, and it doesn't matter that our clothing isn't suitable. If you live outside you know this ...

I took a taxi to La Caldera after breakfast, and decided to walk into the park because I could see a patch of blue sky in that direction. I headed up mountain to the south under dripping trees, all alone as usual. After about two hours I reached the tree line, 800 meters of steady elevation gain now behind me. Occasionally the warm sun was felt through a thin layer of cloud. I saw a patch of snow, which surprised me. It was good to sleep in a hotel last night! as I went higher, the clouds thinned and I could see the many observatory buildings, looking quite space age.  in the picture above, I'm on a summit which I reached cross country to avoid a military area. My goal is the collection of cloud bedeviled peaks in the upper left. Keep walking! wow, so great to be in the warm sun... Clouds on both sides of me. lots of up and some down here. I was getting tired... very much like the American West, I think. Foolishly, I decid...

On the island, there are a lot of dirt bikers, and they tear up the trails. On the gr131, there are signs prohibiting then, but it doesn't matter. Trails where they don't go are a delight...a narrow path up pine needled slopes. But when they have been there, the path is wide, full of rocks to stumble on, as they seek the unspoiled edges for a smoother ride.  Alas! But it's teaching me something about conscious walking. I really have to think about every step. Over many hours, stumbles and odd angles of footfall on rocks makes the feet hurt. I have to walk like a deer, not the confidant big stride walker of our dreams. Testing, delicate, smaller steps, but rapid. This takes brain power. Occasionally I risk a look up at the surroundings, but always pay for it with a stumble in the next steps. Heading back out after a great rest day.

Remember the movie castaway, when Tom Hanks slept on the floor of his hotel room, after so long living in a cave on that lonely Pacific island? Well, I'm in a Hotel after three nights out in the forest on Tenerife, and I see no reason to go out for tapas  when the is perfectly good food in the room. bread and cheese, tea, and cous-cous. Hmm...I think I'm being affected by the journey! It's been an incredible four days. I took a taxi from the airport to Vilaflor. Bought water and started walking west in a cloud. Here are my days on Komoot: one , two , three , four . In that time, the only contact with civilization was a restroom with running water at noon on the second day. And now, of course, down on the northern coast. In two half days and two full days I traveled 53 miles / 85 kilometers. I had warm sun up on the volcanic plateau, later, misting rain, wind and clouds... But always quiet evenings in a secluded forest camp. Water is a serious issue h...