First CDT impressions

Day 2

Date: 25.04.2022

CDT Mile: Mile 17.6

Miles hiked: 13.4 Miles \ 25 km

Alarm is set for 5am, I got up at 5.15 am. It's still pitch dark outside. The night was not too bad, but I first have to get used to sleeping in the tent and on this little mattress again. My air mattress is size small so it only covers till about my hips - to save weight of course! As soon as you move, you fall of that tiny thing! I got up this early cause I wanna enjoy the mornings and not rush. We aim for a 6am start hiking. I make a breakfast drink with coffee still in my sleeping bag and enjoy the stars and the silence. Then I take some time to stretch and pack my stuff together. Simple thinks he has seen some hikers passing late at night, but later we figured out it was a drohne by the boarder patrol checking on us! As

We hit the trail shortly after 6am. Around 6.45 am the sun finally appears. Is not hot out yet, perfect for hiking. The views are beautiful until shortly later some strong winds reach us, making it harder to move along. But we can escape in a riverbed, which turns out to be our trail for nearly all day. Its a sandy and rocky ground, sometimes hard to walk on, but otherwise hiking is very easy here. No steep uphills or downhills make a wonderful hiking day. After 5 miles we stop for a longer break of more than an hour, while Pitch, another hiker passes. He hiked the PCT with his daughter also in 2018, but we must have missed each other. Feeling refreshed we hike till the water cache a little off at Mile 13.8, which we reach at 11am. (Note: A water cache is an animal safe metal box with water caches stored inside, which are maintained by locals for us hikers. There is hardly any water in this first section from the CDT starting point to Lordsburg. Without these water caches every 15 to 20 miles it would be impossible to hike it.) Lunch time! I had salmon creation with Ritz salt crips, Chips, a mozzorella string and candy peach rings😁 Welcome to hiker food! I really didn't miss these salmon/tuna packages in my live... We find a single spot with shade and crawl under a tree. And then we nap, but all these flies give me a hard time! Boarder patrol drives by (this time in a car) and we shortly chat. They are everywhere here, checking on illegal immigrants from mexico, as yet there is no fence and hence a good way for mexicans to illegally enter the US. Around 2pm the first hikers turn up which started today at the Monument. Crazy, they didn't even had time to take a seat. They just refilled their water bottles and off they were. At 3pm we hiked out again. It's hot and I try my hands free sun umbrella, which works great! We run into 3 more young hikers (there are a lot of elderly hikers out here with 55+ years old, so I enjoy seeing some younger folks out here too!). While most hikers choose to hike along the alternate dirt road (road of shame as it's called also), which we came with the shuttle, I wanna hike the official CDT trail. Its a 10 minutes backtrack a little uphill, I guess that's why many people take the road which is just at the water cache (it's actually more cause it takes longer, trail is often not visible, bushwalking, and ups and downs to hike). The trail is nice but wild! Very often there is no trail visible and we have to navigate with our app. And scratch our legs on all the cactusses and bushes. Only 2 miles in we find a beautiful spot with shade and decide to take a break. It's still too hot at 4pm in the sun. And there is really no shade out here. Shortly after us Mercury, another thru hiker turned up, resting with us for a while. He hiked the PCT totally 4 times and the AT one time. My friends back home, Shangwe and Laura, aka Boss and Hoss, hiked the PCT in 2020 and they got to know Mercury too! A good hour later we hike on again until we reach our camp site at Mile 17.6. We are tired from today, cook dinner and soon later crawl into our tents. Good night!