Day 9: May 2, 2019
Destination: Silver City, NM Mile 161.7
Today’s Miles: 0
Start Location: Silver City, NM Mile 161.7
Trip Miles: 161.7
If I have time tomorrow I may expand more on this. It’s late now and I need to get to sleep!
I spent the day doing hiking chores. I had a great breakfast with Samson, Heatwave, and a girl they met the day before, Claire from Canada. They all slept off of the road into Silver City in a drainage culvert! They then walked the remaining 6 miles in this morning. We ate at a diner called The Drifter. It was pretty awesome! Total dive atmosphere and the food was quite good.
We walked back to the hotel. I got a bus map from the visitor center so I could get to Walmart. I headed there and got resupplied to get to Doc Campbell’s outpost (my next stop on the Gila River alternate), as well as purchased food to send to Pie Town.
I took my food and walked a few blocks to the UPS store. For some of the mail drops on the CDT you have to use UPS because they are the only folks who deliver there. I packaged and sent my box. Tip – if you have to do this, grab a free flat rate box from a post office and bring it to the UPS store so you don’t have to buy a box! That’s what I did.
I went back to the post office on the bus to pick up my new filter and some Leuko tape I had shipped via Amazon. I was worried I wouldn’t get it, because even though it arrived in the morning, it still had to be processed and taken off a huge palette. When I stopped by in the morning they said it might take until the next morning, but to check after 3:30. Fortunately it all worked out.
I spent the rest of the afternoon resting, doing some contingency planning for Colorado, and organizing my gear. I ate dinner with the same gang from breakfast. They are all hiking the Walnut Creek alternate tomorrow. It just shaved off miles, so I’m going to stick with the official route. My first water will be in 16.5 miles, which isn’t too bad.
It was such a wonderful and productive stay in town! I’m grateful for the rest and my blisters are doing a lot better. I’m excited about taking my first alternate and seeing what adventures lay ahead!
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