Miles hiked 0
The famous Cumbres&Toltec Railroad
The weekend was a mix of pleasure and work, even out here as a thru-hiker I have responsibilities to deal with such as speaking on behalf of the CDTC and representing ALDHA-West and the various companies that support me on trail. I spent the better part of Saturday preparing for our talk that evening about the CDT in New Mexico, which was held at the brewery in town. Due to the slow internet speeds and technical difficulties of making a presentation on an iPad I felt like my day was spent as an IT monkey more than a hiker.
At 9am on Saturday me and a group from the house that included Karate Kid, 2-Ply, Ledge, Bandit, Snorkel, Sweet Potato and a few others headed to the train station to see the start of the Chama Narrow Gauge Steam engine and to celebrate the town of Cama and the vet’s on hand for Memorial Day. The festivities were a great and true piece of Americana. The town had all of us thru-hikers come up for a photo and the town treated us like we were some special kind of explorer out in the mountains.
Big John tries out his pack with extra snow gear
The talk at the brewery started out a bit rough, in the long list of technical difficulties we experienced the TV would not work with the laptop for 30 minutes Myself, Bandit and Buttercup stood in front of the bar BS’ing our way through a talk that had been prepared and practiced. Finally, Teresa came back with a new cable and we were able to get the slide show going. We talked to the crowd of mostly other thru-hikers and town folks about New Mexico; its beauty, wilderness, and the amazing people we met along the way. Afterwards we rolled back to the rental house where we enjoyed a steak dinner to get us all fueled up before hitting the trail.
It was a great way to celebrate Memorial Day and get some well needed rest. The weekend had an air of caution to it as the next section we were entering is the San Juan mountains which are full of snow and have turned back many of our friends. We all had a few butterflies in our stomach before heading out but we rested as best we could and sorted our gear one final time before passing out.
Allgood, Let It Be, and Snorkel all catching up, I hiked some of the Appalachian Trail with Let It Be in 1996
