And the roadwalk continuous

Day 24

Date: 17.05.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 446.8

Miles hiked: 21.6 Miles / 35 km

A new hot day is coming up. And a lot of dirt road walking too. We did see a couple of jack rabbits in the morning and a donky😁 We are hiking to the next water source in 6 miles, a solar well, and are lucky it already operates by 8.30am. There is no single cloud at the sky and the heat is rolling in. The desert trees and bushed, which we could enjoy so far on this stretch, are now gone, there is no shade any longer. And the roadwalk is forever! Shortly before lunch we are finally done with road walking, as we are taking an alternate route, the Cebolla alternate. There is more water on this stretch and it cut's off some roadwalking. But little did we know that the 'trail' on this alternate consists mostly of sandy trails. Also the first few miles were a sandy dirt road and no trail yet. We first hoped the trail will change soon, but when we stopped for lunch, all crawling under a big tree to get some desperetaly needed shade, we soon realize that the trail is not gonna change its consistency soon. But the landscape changes slightly. We are hiking between small hills, there are more trees again to find shade, however to hike in deep sand sucks. It's hard to move on, for sure no fast hiking possible, it's very hot also on your feed, because the sand is super hot. But it's luckily not a very long stretch. In the afternoon we reach the next water source, a brown, muddy pond! Mmhh yum! But once filtered, the water is clear and actually tasted surprisingly good (or maybe we are just really desperate for water and everything would taste good!)! Just my filter is clocked up now with all that dirty water. I have learned my lesson with all the rather bad water sources along the trail so far and filter more water than needed, to clean my filter with that water. And it does really help. My filter is clean again afterwards.

We hike on a couple of more miles, leave the trail and find ourselves back on dirt roads. Also the alternate was more on dirt roads than trails really. But the official route would have been worse, with pavement road walking too and no muddy pond for water.

Exactly were we planned to camp tonight, we run into Tralbrain, the german hiker! As there are no designated camp spots for the CDT, you have to check the topography on the app and hopefully find a suitable ground to set up tents. This looks like the best flat spot for the next couple of miles and we apparently had the same idea.

That was a rather long and very hot day, with more roadwalking than expected. Time to rest now!

... The coyotes were out tonight and their howling put us to sleep...