Day 26 (May 21, 2021)

(Best Western Safe Stay to Mount Taylor Alternate 3.4, 21.1 miles)

Time to get back on trail. After milking the continental breakfast at the hotel all I could, I headed out. My hotel was on the southern end of town and I was headed north and Grants is spread out. This included a hike down historic Route 66. The walk was more enjoyable as I shared it with a couple of hikers from Quebec, Canada. My initial water carry was light as there was a water spigot at a dog park on the north side of town. (Hikers and dogs welcome...)

The day started off cool and overcast. The forecast called for winds in the afternoon and possibly some light rain. At least the temperatures were good for a hike. The road walk out of town was OK as there wasn’t much traffic. The road goes past a prison. An employee at the gate called out wishing me luck on my hike. Shortly after that, a sheriff’s deputy stopped and asked if I was OK for water. Nice folks.

The CDT trailhead is about 5 miles north of Grants. It was nice to be back on actual trail after all the recent road walks. Almost immediately at the trailhead it began to rain. It was light rain. Light rain is annoying because you don’t know whether to put on your rain gear or not. Since the trail was climbing, the exertion from that would mean hot and sweaty with the rain gear. Without would mean just damp and cool. I tried the rain gear and quickly began sweating heavily. I stopped and took it off, just getting wet but staying warm by hiking. And the rain was only intermittent.

The trail climbed up a ridge line that led to a large flat plateau area, with Mount Taylor in the background. The CDT stays on the flank of Mount Taylor, but there is an alternate that goes to the peak that many hikers take. I wanted to take the alternate as well. The only problem for me was where to camp. Reaching the summit meant a 22 mile day, which I know I can do but wasn’t sure I could with the big climb involved. Mt Taylor is 11,300 feet tall. And the forecast was for wind gusts to 40 knots on the mountain. Hmmm...

The trail was nice and mostly nicely marked. The rain was not really a problem except for one thing. There had been just enough rain to make the top layer of dust on the trail sticky. This sticky layer would build up on the bottom of my shoes until it got too heavy and would come off in clumps. Of course this would happen randomly on each foot, making for on odd sensation in my gait. Some of the clumps would launch off the back of my shoe and hit the back of my legs. It was just a strange feeling, but didn’t hold me up.

Several hikers I had met in Pie Town and Grants caught up to me at the start of the Mount Taylor Alternate so we took a break together and then started up. There was a water source part way up so with another good source on the descent so water planning was not a problem. After the water source, we got one more rain shower and the wind started to pick up. True to forecast, it was strong, but the trail was in the trees for now, which provided some protection. The other hikers are faster than me and quickly pulled away. We all wanted to camp at the summer for an epic sunset and sunrise.

That didn’t happen for me. I am really slow on steep climbs. There wasn’t anything technical about the trail, just very steep in places. Between the steepness and higher altitude, I was sucking wind. Also, in exposed areas, the strong winds were obvious. Worn out and worried that camping at the summit would be no fun, I decided to find a campsite. Just a thousand feet below the summit I found a little tree protected area in a saddle and set up. I watched more hikers go by as I set up; there was no going to be a large group on the summit.

It was really a epic campsite I had. I fell asleep to the wind whipping the trees around me. Normally the wind abates as the sun sets. Not tonight.