May 28, 2025

To Pietown Road Alternate mile 26

Hiked today: 21.2 miles / 34.4 km

Well, not much to report today. Pretty much all road walking. We started around 6 am and hit our first water replenish after about 5 miles and then on up a steep slope to near the top of a mountain. The trail headed off onto a rough dirt track with a long descent until we reached the next water – another solar powered well. We filter all the water we collect and, as mentioned before, this is a slow process.

Just a note on the trail: we have an app called Far Out that shows us where we are in relation to the Continental Divide Trail. It also shows us many possible alternate trails. We have chosen the alternates quite a bit due to the land being very dry. Sometimes the alternate tracks have taken a route that crosses a river or that passes a ranch with a cow pond or well whereas the original trail (the red line on our map) is often higher ground and drier.

We commenced our hike later than most people in order to get to Colorado with the best chance of being able to safely cross the snow fields. Unfortunately this put us in a hotter and drier situation here in New Mexico.

Anyway, we finished today stopping at a hiker friendly ranch called Davila which is run by John (Daddy Long Legs). He allows camping on the land or alternatively you can sleep under a shelter shed with dirt floor. There is another shed with gas hot plates, kitchen supplies, and even some food.  Another has a hot shower, another a toilet, another has washing machine and dryer and power points for recharging devices. All this just for a donation. We will sleep in our tent and tomorrow will start off early to see if we can get to Pietown before midday in order to collect the parcel we sent there.