Grants to Cuba, NM — walk with kait

Day 23 - 5/22 - Zero day in Grants, NM

We took a zero day in Grants and did our errands, resupply and did some yoga in the park which was nice. We ate a ton of yummy food.

Day 24 - 5/23

Today we woke up, enjoyed a leisurely continental breakfast at the hotel, and packed up our bags before heading out to the trail.

The road walk out of Grants was pretty boring, but once we got to the Mt Taylor trailhead it became much more beautiful. We started climbing and saw some great views.

We only did 17 miles today to the water cache, saving the summit for the morning. We camped with our friend Driver and enjoyed a beautiful tentsite among the aspens.

Day 25 - 5/24

Our morning began with immediate, beautiful climbing. It was quite cold but we worked up a sweat summitting Mount Taylor, at 11,300 feet. We enjoyed a break from the wind in a little crater at the peak and ate a ton of snacks.

On the way down the mountain, the already steep trail was covered in snow, some fresh from the snowfall a few days ago and some old and icy patches. I was pretty nervous coming down but only fell once and the snow patches did not last very long. Soon we were road walking up another hill and entering some beautiful meadows.

Day 26 - 5/25

Most of today was spent walking on forest roads through beautiful mountain top meadows. The trail has been really beautiful this section.

The day ended with a steep descent, which I was not looking forward to. However, once we got there, a gorgeous vista opened up to us and we could see so many beautiful rock formations over the valley we would be walking through tomorrow. The descent was fun and beautiful at every turn.

When we got to the bottom, I was expecting to camp at a small spring off trail. Instead, I found a sign that said trail magic. There was an older couple following that sign, but I didn’t see Driver, who was just ahead of me before I took my last water break with Wonder Woman. I waited for Wonder Woman and Radio to catch up and we started to investigate the trail magic. It was an amazing car camping set up with delicious IPAs, homemade tacos, sodas, and waters. We even took shots together at the insistence of our hosts! It was so great, perhaps the best trail magic I’ve ever encountered. The timing could not have been more perfect either, as we were just pulling up in the early evening to our supposed campsite. We enjoyed the hospitality and conversation for a while until it started getting dark, and we wandered off to find a place to camp. We didn’t even have to go to the spring as the trail angels had brought water for us!

Day 27 - 5/26

Today we planned to do our first 30 mile day, as the next natural water source was 30 miles from our campsite. There was a cache in between, but I didn’t want to rely on that.

We set off on an early start and today was so amazingly beautiful. I felt a little bad waking up a little cow family that was sleeping on the trail - but they were really cute.

The vista we were greeted with yesterday we walking through, up and over rock formations and really getting to see some unique landscapes. It was a really fun day!

We’ve had such gorgeous weather lately that the little thunderstorm in the afternoon didn’t dampen our spirits too much. We got to the spring and then camped a little further down the trail.

Some curious cows peeped over to our campsite while we were eating dinner but thankfully, they couldn’t get past the gate.

Day 28 - 5/27

Today we woke up to a warm morning and walked 10 miles (including a nice big climb up out of the basin we were in) until we hit the road to Cuba.

5 miles later we reached town, and settled into a motel (they charged us per person - no bueno), got McDonalds and beer, per usual.

There are about a billion other hikers here, everyone killing time afraid of snow in Colorado. We had an epic dinner out at the Mexican restaurant in town - with Armstrong, Mouse, Dutchman, Driver, in addition to our normal crew of Radio, Wonder Woman and Dan. Great times were had by all!