07    Grants - Cuba     173 Kilometer

Grants

Cuba                            173 km

The weather was kind of helter skelter in this section. I left Grants early in the morning in sunshine. The ranger station at the northern end of town is unfortunately not open on weekends. So I had to pinch water from next door, a self storage compound with an outside faucet. After a longer road walk on asphalt passing the Western New Mexico Correction Facility I finally reached the trail. Up and up it went until reaching the Horace Mesa in Cebola National Forest. Here I decided against going over the top of Mt. Tailor and instead took the "official" route. Next day the Mumm's water cache was heaven sent. And the all day not ending wind /storm with cloudy sky hiding Mt. Tailor seamed to make my decision not to go over the open top the right one. Next night I staid at Laguna de Cosme. A big dry meadow. And while I had dinner two big bucks showed up grazing. They didn't care about me. Next morning it started snowing. Nevertheless it became a great day. The water at Ojo de los Indios was good. And for the night I made it down from the Mesa. BLM Rangers had a lot of prescribed burnings. I saw smoke and could smell the fires. The rangers gave me some bottled water. And later a Rancher gave me some more water. This stopped me from needing to filter water. It was a bit warmer this night as I was down from the mesa. Next day I followed Ley's purple route. A lot of road walking but hardly any traffic. This night my water bottles froze almost solid. What a cold night. While I think it's partially the elevation it seems to be part of the overall weather pattern as I could see on The Weather Channel. In the Motel in Cuba I had a warm and restful night and of course good food in town.

Up on Chivato Mesa CDT passes through Aspen

Fresh snow on Chivato Mesa in the morning

BLM water tanks in area with prescribed burning to reduce risk of major wild fires

Rock formation near CDT

Rio Puerra, Cuba

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