about the trail itself

I must apologize for dwelling so often on my own wispy and subjective thoughts about practically any subject but the trail itself, and the land it passes through. Maybe it's because, (like a hen pecking upon a line of seed laid out before her) these subjects are my chief occupation through long days, I crave some other kind of "food" when I lie down to rest. Therefore I am an unreliable witness to date on what really happens here. I'll try to redress this error!

When we have a trail, it is signposted by the CDT symbology, sometimes with a colour metal plate in blue, black and white. Other times the acronym is carved into wood. In one case, I think it was in the forest above Cuba, a beautiful woodcut of the symbol was made with a lathe and affixed to a tree.

At other times, we have stakes in the ground, with the tip painted white, or sometimes with a dab of blue. In the Chihuahuan desert of the "boot heel" we had these stakes, but no trail. From one stake, I would scan the horizon, then walk in the direction of the next one, usually placed at the crest of a small rise such that the eye finds it easily. Beyond that upward glance, I had to keep my eyes down, for the cactus spines will go right through a tennis shoe and into the foot! The desert is so obviously shaped by torrents of water, because you'll cross sandy depressions called "washes" 30 times in a mile. Walking in sand is tiring like walking in snow, so we get out of these things as soon as possible. Though every time I lost the way in the desert, it was on exiting a wash. Footprints go in all directions on the other side, and it takes about a minute to discern the "majority way" after that.

The paths are pleasingly narrow, and especially in the forest, run on a good surface of sandy dirt, pine needles and bits of gravel. And well maintained! Many low branches have been sawed-off from scrub trees close to the trail, letting me look around occasionally which is very welcome.

The other kind of surface, and one which, disappointingly, threatens to appear as the majority of the tread in New Mexico is something like a road. These don't have CDT signs. I've probably walked 50 miles of hard asphalt roads (brutal in the afternoon, reasonable in the morning), but several times that on dirt or gravel. Both of these have their defects. Dirt can be pleasant, but sometimes become two deep wheel ruts with painfully sloping sides, leaving me constantly guessing where the least bad place to walk is. Gravel is full of sharp stones that hurt our feet, clad as they are in the lightest weight running shoes we can get. So we walk with great attention, doing a kind of matrix neighbor analysis to find the least spiky places nearby to place the next foot. After many miles, the feet are sore anyway, and even the slight washboard humps in the surface are regarded with discomfort. It pays to look for shoe tracks, often on the extreme side of a gravel road, because the ground is softer there and sometimes still quite level.

By far the worst situation has been the abandoned road across slopes in hilly terrain. Several times I've stood, exasperated and despairing, wondering if I'd do better making my way through the forest on the side. The roadbed has become a graveyard of grapefruit-sized rocks, where the ankle is easily twisted... Where one hops first with energy and dexterity between the most level surfaces, but after a mile with great weariness.

Sunset on Mount Taylor.

A rancher at the Davila Ranch explained it to me as he brought in a case of eggs for the fridge. He said those roads are, essentially, errors. For the mountain is a pile of unconsolidated rocks, and after a few hard rainstorms, the surface is already destroyed: the dirt which provided a convincing simulacrum of "road" washed away, so now it looks like there might still be a road there, only one foot lower, only it's covered by those "ankle-breaker" rocks I already mentioned. It rains again, then the real road is two feet under a double load of such rocks. And so on.

He said Texans have a habit of coming in the fall to hunt, and heartily advocate the building of another road. Well, this is the inevitable result. I consider these tedious and dangerous, and indeed, I've bushwhacked several times through steep forest if I can save a half mile of walking on them.

So, to walk across New Mexico is to feel somewhat "beat up" by the roads, and more or less gratified by the trails. People tell me Colorado has no road walking. I'll believe it when I see it!

There are two upsides to walking on a good road surface: miles go quickly, and you can look around. The latter point may seem a bit silly. After all, don't you look around plenty as you hike, whether on a road or trail?

Sure you do! But things are very different on a multi-week journey. The pack, with its heavy five day supply of food means a mis-step is more painful. The 12 hour "workday" means already bruised feet become very sensitive. The lightweight footwear, which allows us to cover more miles, is unforgiving of error, unlike those heavy, clomping hiking boots with strong ankle support and thick soles that allow you to trod over nightmarish surfaces with ease.

At least for a weekend. And for under 15 miles a day.

Plus, we all carry a load of blisters or other injuries which mean we're protecting one part of the foot or another, so the blind date between surface and walker becomes highly individualized. And then these compensations bring a second order, often serious problem. People have had to leave the trail because in compensating for injury A, they promote injury B, then C, and finally run out the chain of causality to a surrender point. I'll wander into town and nod sympathetically (for I know I can easily be next) at a story that begins with a blister, and ends with an inflamed tendon in the hip, or worse.

"Do you know Uphill?" I was asked.

"Yes, that guy is amazing. I see how he must have gotten his trail name," I said, having met this incredible athlete on Mount Taylor.

"His foot is broken! He's getting surgery now in Albuquerque...a stress fracture."

Boah. This is hard. The repetitive motion with too little variation, unless of an even more harmful, eccentric and asymmetrical type... It wears us out, even as strength builds, too.

The body becomes a welter of processes, a system of differential equations, a striving for homeostasis in an environment that gleefully changes everything up, cackling perhaps, at your unwillingness to slow down, ever. So far I am holding up well, and consider myself lucky. But I'm also wary of changing things. Often, new gear is the source of difficulty for people. Or old gear, stretched too far.

Ya bored yet? Hee hee!