Last night I woke up to realize I was actually cold. For the first time all trip, I could truly curl up in my sleeping bag and fall asleep without waking up dripping in sweat. We were finally in the mountains.
As usual, the day was be spent hiking from water source to water source. Today especially, they were few and far between. Today also brought our first significant climb up to the top of 8024 foot Burro Peak.
As we went up in elevation, the landscape changed dramatically. What had mostly been bushes and cacti turned into small trees and eventually tall pines.
As usual, today was hot and despite the cool breeze at the higher elevation, it was tough to beat the heat. Luckily, our next good water source was an RV Park (Burro Mountain Homestead) that also has a store with ice cream and cold drinks.
What goes up, must come down and at least a couple of people decided that the CDT wasn’t for them this summer. Another person in our group was feeling terrible and got a ride into Silver city. People were dropping like flies.
After I got to the RV park I got a bit of good news that one hiker, Tommy, was still hiking. He planned on getting a ride into town because of a hurt knee. After learning some stretches to help with the pain, he decided to give it another go. He made it to the RV Park and still felt pretty good.
We enjoyed some snacks and drinks with the local residents. These deer must be fed often because they loved us and would barely leave us alone.
The RV Park was a nice enough break that we decided to stay the night. The next water isn’t for 18 miles and it’s really nice to camp somewhere with water, flush toilets, and a shower.
There’s even an activity center with games and things to do.
Before we knew about the water situation, we had planned on getting to Silver City tomorrow. Now it might make a bit more sense to break that up into two days since we didn’t get as far today as planned. With about 35 miles to town, I might just decide to go for it. I’ve walked farther for a cheeseburger.