Leaving pie town on a full stomach was hard, but the drive to keep our daily milage seen us through. Sometimes though, it's not just the milage, but just not wanting to get sucked into the vortex of town. Nita's Toaster House is quite the comfortable place, and New Mexico at this time of year is not so. So we strapped on our packs, loaded with food and water and hit the long dusty road.
After reaching around 5 miles, we found a group of juniper trees that wasn't decorated with cow shit at its base and crawled like desert dogs underneath its branches. I slept like a rock after stuffing myself with new foods, sent to me by my friend Bink.
The next morning at 5:30am we were at it again. We spent most the morning making our way to the Thomas's Ranch, where we helped ourselves to cool fresh water in company of a couple of Donkeys.
We then spent the better part of the day, dumbfounded in the Ley Miles that drug on forever. Later that day though we dredged through sand up to a 12th century pueblo that was converted to a 16th century shack that is now in ruins. We saw some petroglyphs and made our way up a Mesa. Soon we were dredging in more sand down Sand Canyon where I found a piece of Indian pottery.
The next day started and ended on roads. But in between we climbed up on the Narrows Trail that 4 miles ended with a long rock scramble down. The view of a natural arch was awesome.
After another short road walk we were walking cross a lava field that looked like a war zone from another planet. The cracks and caves were something to be seen. I broke my camera after the Arch and really was disappointed.
We ran into our first thru hikers in that maze of lava stone. They were going the same way in a opposite direction. If you guessed, they were on the official route.
After we exited the cheese grater stone from hell we began climbing anothe wonderful canyon to a nice cool camp.
This morning I charged into grants via the Zuni canyon. Fueled by the desire for good food, I made great time. Both canyons were very beautiful and a change in ecosystem's is definately beginning to show.
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