Day 18 (May 13, 2021)

Into Reserve (1.1 miles)

I awoke to the sound of a nearby turkey, which isn’t nearly as annoying as a rooster.

It was only a short 1 mile walk to Highway 12 for my first attmpted hitchhike, to get into Reserve, NM for a food resupply. My hope was to get into town and back out on trail within a couple of hours. Though a short walk, I saw both an elk and a coyote in the way to the Highway.

Short story — my first hitchhiking attempt was a failure. After two hours of limited traffic and not even a brake light, I gave up and used the text capability of my Garmin inReach to organize a paid shuttle into town. The main little hotel in town offers this service. The bad news was that it would take three more hours. Oh well. I kicked back under a tree to wait.

Apologies again for photos — I took none in town. A summary:

• Decided to spend the night since it was 1:40 before I got to town.
• Nice room at The Frisco Lodge.
• Two restaurants in town. Ate a lot over two meals at one of them.
• Resupply at the only small grocery in town Next segment to Pie Town only 40 miles/2 days, so not much needed. The store owner is very friendly.
• Laundry
• Backflush my water filter.
• Met other hikers, including two young ladies that started the same day as me. One’s father was there and offered to bring me to trail tomorrow with them. Yeah!