Grants is another town I had a hardte departing. Carol and Hugo Mumm are a couple of great trail angels that really make you feel like sticking around. But after a trip to Walmart, showers and clean clothes, raisins and I walked on out of town to make a few more miles. We ended up camping just up on top the Mesa.
The next day we climbed Mt. Taylor and were dumbfounded how stupid the FS is for not routing the trail to the summit. Taylor was a awesome climb and we captured a bear on a lengthy video. We then saw some wild ponys and eventually made are way back to the official route. I like to call JL's red route the real route though, for he has it all figured out, and you basically hike the most scenic route possible.
Anyways we set ourselves up well for another good day of heavy water loads and blistering heat, but we did enjoy two good water sources. By the end of the day though we were dropping into a deep, and wide basin that was filled with canyons and badlands.
This morning we started at 5 am to avoid a very hot day down so low in altitude. We noticed we were heading straight towards a fire in a distant mountain range. That soon became obvious that we were heading off the other way. The tail went up and down, following cairns, and was apparently new route. It seed to go on forever, but the views were remarkable!
Nearing noon, the heat was overwlming. We were each carrying 7-8 liters upon departure, and that went pretty quick. The temp was 100+ and made walking nearly unbearable. Under our umbrellas we pushed out our miles and were lucky at a road crossing to Yogi some water. We are now camped on top another Mesa with 10 miles to Cuba. Today was as joy as the first couple down by Mexico.
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