I never expected it to get below freezing in New Mexico, but my frozen shoes and socks proved otherwise. They were so frozen I couldn’t even put my shoes on and I hiked in my sandals for a couple miles.
Now that we’re out of the canyon, we’re back in cow country. The trail took us up through a cow pasture we ended up accidentally driving the cows about a mile to a pond.
Every time we tried to go around them they would run faster. Eventually we just decided it was easier to go with it and follow the cattle.
After passing through some pastures, we ended up in a pine forest walking on forest roads for most of the day.
There were a good amount of people out and some people in their sweet camping SUVs topped off my water. I noticed a refrigerator in the back of one of them, but they didn’t offer me anything from it.
Eventually we got out of the woods and we’re back in the cow pastures. Our only water was a massive tank with some solar panels to power the pump for the well.
Luckily the water was flowing out of a hose so we got fresh well water instead of the water the cows are drinking.
As the day wore on, we made it back to the forest and I saw 2 antelope/pronghorn.
We’re almost done with the Gila River Alternate route. Tomorrow we get back on the CDT and make our way up to Pie Town. We should be there in about 2.5 days.