Category: Trip Journal

• CDT NM 2025 Day 30, Tuesday May 6
• Start mile 742.9, underneath a fir
• End mile 738.7 Hwy 64 near Hopewell Lake
• Miles walked: -4.2

Snow came down throughout the night. Look back at the last post, and the rock in front of my tent is no longer visible.

I get ready and start hiking. The going will be tough, but one final night should put me close enough to Cumbres Pass to finish the hike, and then hitch to Chama to celebrate.

Instantly I run into trouble. Powder comes to my knees as I struggle forward, then to mid-thigh, and then a drift comes to my waist.

The trail is often invisible, as blowing drifts of snow obscure the subtle dip that shows me my route. Snow continues to fall, the stubborn dark gray clouds refusing to moving on.

With a sigh I turn around and head back the other way. I can shelter at a pavilion at Hopewell Lake and wait for pickup by Cairn in a few days, when the highway is clear. With rationing my food should last a few days if I am not burning fuel hiking.

The way backwards is much harder than yesterday. Luckily I had been on a dirt road most of the route, and can sometimes see the way, with ample help from my navigation app. Slogging through loose powder is exhausting– this is why snowshoes were invented.

Hopewell Lake is barely visible in the blowing snow, and Hwy 64 is invisible, though completely clear just yesterday.

I try to hike to the lake, but the trail is invisible, and I posthole up to my waist, the powder trying to take my shoe.

Just then two snowplows come by, clearing half the road, and three cars follow them. I jog back to the road, and another car comes past, and I hitch “to anyplace with a motel”. Trail angel Ben is heading past Chama on the way to Colorado. Perfect. On the drive we talk of many things, of farriers and fungi.

The Y Motel lets me check in early to grab a shower, and I stop at nearby Finas’s Diner for lunch.

Tomorrow I head home.

Finished audiobook Recalled to Life, by Robert Silverberg.

• CDT NM 2025 Day 29, Monday May 5
• Start mile 722.1, underneath a fir tree
• End mile 742.9, elevation 10.3k
• Miles walked: 20.8

I woke up to 6-8 inches of fluffy snow everywhere.

The strategy is to hike all day to keep warm, and to make as many miles as practical under challenging conditions.

In 8 inches of powder I can still make out the trail, though it takes all my powers of concentration. I can see the trail below, can you?

As the day progresses I notice areas that did not receive as much snow as where my tent was located. Or was it just starting to melt here– I am not sure.

Dark gray clouds block out the sun all day, except for a glimpse of blue sky in the evening. Is this weather system really going to snow for a third straight day tomorrow?

The Rio Vallecitos is a wet-foot crossing.

Hopewell Lake does not have any fishermen today, wonder why?

I had worked on a section of the CDT from Hopewell Lake to the highway a few years ago, with a ton of other people, as part of a gathering to celebrate a completion milestone of the CDT in the Carson National Forest. Strange, today the trail looks different.

The trail resumes in mixed conifer plus aspen, with regions of meadow, in wet sticky snow. Footpaths and two-tracks were flooding due to snow melt.

Finally I give up, and shelter under a fir tree, where there is still a patch of ground without snow.

Finished audiobook The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway.

• CDT NM 2025 Day 28, Sunday May 4
• Start mile 703.3
• End mile 722.1
• Miles walked: 18.8

The route crosses high meadows and heads towards trees. Several two-tracks and paths and turns make navigation tedious.

Elk cross by shyly.

At another highland the trail much improves, with no road intersections or turn necessary.

Then, suddenly around mile 713.5, the electronic map no longer shows the correct position of the trail, and I cannot find the correct path, and must go cross-country over many blowdowns.

Finally, near Upper Canjilon Lake, the map corrects itself. Several people are out fishing.

A loud chorus of frogs practice at a nearby pond.

The day is overcast, and turning cold. The route passes into Vallecitos, an area with mixed meadows and forests, like San Pedro Parks. Like that area, there are snow crossings and swampy areas and flooded footpaths. And we are at a similar elevation, around 10k.

Snow begins, dry pellets at first, then wt sticky snow.

Eventually the wet snow is too much for me to keep warm enough while hiking, so I make an early camp underneath a fir tree, and hope for better conditions tomorrow.

Finished audiobook The Singing Bone, or The Adventures of Doctor Thorndyke.