Grants to Santa Fe!

From Grants, we had to go up almost 3000 ft of elevation. Good thinng we had two days' worth of water, plus this baggied beer!

Flora changes a lot with altitude. Starting out in dry and dusty desert, we ended up in this beautiful pine forest.

After dropping elevation a bit, we camped with cactuses, overlooking the valley. Finally got to enjoy this beer!

Crazy volcanic mountains. This spike is lava that cooled inside a volcano, and then the outside of the volcano eroded away.

It is still unclear to us why some of these roads exist at all.

Terrified cows.

Back to the desert. Mesas and cool rocks abound.

Camping on a plateau at sunset, after a hard day that should have been flat, but the arroyos that crisscross the desert are surprisingly hard to cross without bridges: the road would suddenly and very steeply dip in to these canyons and then just as steeply emerge on the other side.

Third day out of Grants.

Cuba had wonderful Mexican food.

Leaving Cuba, NM on our way towards Santa Fe. This sign didn't tell us anything we didn't know already.

Steep climb out of Cuba, then steep hills all day.

We met some other bike tourists! This group from Albuquerque is on a seven day trip.

Luke came and picked us up about fifty miles from Santa Fe! we really appreciated not having to camp in the mountains, where it was raining and snowing. Instead, we got to stay in Luke's cottage at the Audubon society center. Big improvement!

On a hike up to Atalaya mountain. It was snowing!

Arabs and Wolves

On the 4th day of our trip we noticed that we hadn't spoken to anyone but ourselves since our parents dropped us off in Mimbres. We started a new language, a combination of German and cockneyed British, but eventually stopped having anything to say. Our luck was about to change...

The day started out normal- we spoke to some cows. After about 15 miles, though, things got weird. A government truck pulls up, and a man in military fatigues lets us know there is a drill going on ahead, so we may see some men dressed as Afghans with fake weapons up ahead. "Nothing for you to worry about!" he said, "I just don't want you to be alarmed!"

Somewhat alarmed, we continued biking.

Next a UPS truck stops as we are looking at our maps. "Lost?" she asked, friendly enough. We assure her that we are fine, and she lets us know that something VERY WEIRD is going on ahead. We asked her if it had anything to do with the military, and she said yeah! there are three Arabs ahead, just walkin down the road! She had already called the neighbors and the marshal. We let her know what the government vehicle told us. She appeared relieved, and wondered if she should call the marshall back.

The UPS truck encountering some "very weird" shenanigans on the road.

We passed the three "Arabs" with large weapons another mile down the road. They were walking towards us, and we passed without feeling too alarmed.

Next a game warden stops to talk to us. At this point, we are wondering if everyone thinks that we are stopped, as we are moving so slowly. Literally no one stopped to talk to us for 4 days before today! The game warden already talked to the UPS lady and heard all about the "Arabs" and put his bulletproof vest on for the occasion. He was tracking a wolf in the area, he said very proudly.

About ten miles along, the state police pulls up. He asks us if we saw anything "unusual" that day. We told him the whole story- why the military wouldn't tell the state police about this is beyond us. He asked for directions, explaining that he was not from around here, and we, feeling like experts of the area as we had literally talked to EVERYONE that passed us that day, explained where to find the VERY WEIRD situation.

We never found out whether the State Police arrested the military, or the military declared war on the UPS, or what. We could only hope we were not invaded by "Afghans" and no one had told us.

That evening, the night before going to Pie Town (our first town), we arrived at a campsite with picnic tables and another camper! The other camper offered us cold Deschutes Organic Ale! We spent a night trying to remember English and playing cards with Eric, who works mapping the Continental Divide Hiking Trail for the CDTA. It snowed on us.

-Cate

Dusty First Week

Here are some pictures from our first week on the Continental Divide route! It has been a strange and interesting mix of desert landscapes, mountainous pine forests, and volcanic lumps on the horizon. Enjoy!

Leaving the pavement! Signs say "no services next 120 miles" and "expect delays of up to four hours." But, we continued anyways! Our first week has been tough but beautiful. So far this route has been very remote but social. We have met a good amount of Continental Divide through-hikers. There is very little water and CDT hikers have to average around 20 miles a day, so we are very happy to be biking. The roads are unpredictable- rocky, sandy, steep, but definitely not muddy.


Our first campsite at Black Canyon Creek. We went a really tough 25 miles the first day. No, but really, it was tough.


Beautiful rock formations throughout the Gila National Forest. Our only company the first 4 days were the cows.


Our second campsite which turned out to have poison ivy.

Rocky roads.

A very windy day. this is after getting through ten miles of the most amazing headwind I have ever encountered. 70 mph gusts! We rode through a lot of dust storms...eyeballs, teeth, and between the toes (as well as everywhere else) was coated with dust.

The only windmill or cattle trough with water so far. Don't look into these, lots of animals get over-eager and drown in there.

On the way to Pietown, NM.


The Toaster House in Pie Town. Nita, our host, raised (and birthed) 5 children in this house, and now lets through hikers and bikers stay there. She stocks up the fridge with beer and frozen pizzas, and asks only for donations. A very nice spot.

Pie Town has two pie shops, but no groceries, convenience store, or other services. Only pie.

The Toaster House has lots of toasters. Go figure!

Where did my tire go?

Lava Falls in El Malpais National Monument.

La Ventana in El Malpais.

The Next Adventure

Hello friends and family! This Panda Blog is about to change its course. Previously I have vaguely recounted some adventures--this summer in Alaska, traveling down the west coast this fall, and in Bolivia and Argentina this "winter." The next three months, my sister Cate and I are going to try something entirely different. Starting tomorrow, we are getting dropped off in Mimbres, New Mexico, where we intersect the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route! We will get dropped off with two mountain bikes and begin biking north, following the Continental Divide through to Canada (hopefully).

We say this is something entirely different even though three years go we went on a bike trip of similar length with our other sister, Liz. The three of us set out from Seattle and biked for two and a half months across the northern United States. That trip brought us through small towns every day, and gave us a sense of how people lived outside of the cities and in between the coasts. This trip, on the other hand, is a bikepacking trip that, according to our book, will bring us to roads that are "so remote, so lacking in traffic, that it's hard to imagine why they were built in the first place." In other words, we will get a sense of how bears live outside of the cities and in between the east and west coasts.

Reading this was not scary at all until we realized, yesterday, that the first segment of the route has no towns or services for five days (and limited access to water). After five days, we arrive at Pie Town, New Mexico, a small town with no groceries, but a post office. We are mailing ourselves a resupply.

Nevertheless, Cate and I are very excited, though we will miss our by-far-the-most-responsible-sister, Liz pants. We have prepared by buying a lot of food and some brightly colored articles of clothing, to fight boredom of course.

Anyways, the past week my parents have been driving us from California to southern New Mexico. In between panicky trips to various REI's and grocery stores to get ready for our trip, we have found some pretty crazy sights that we definitely would never have found otherwise. I will let our pictures speak for themselves!

Putting our bikes together in Topanga, CA with my expert bicyclist and bike mechanic uncle.

Family unites for wedding in Laguna Beach, California.

Camping in Hidden Valley, Joshua Tree National Park.

Hike to Lost Palm Oasis through the hot desert was...hot. Lizards abounded and we even saw a tortoise. We welcomed the shade of the palm trees, and had a very pleasant lunch here.

We managed to make it to Joshua tree during the few weeks a year when the Mojave desert is in bloom. It was beautiful, and completely foreign.

Chiricahua--one of the craziest places in the southwest.

Climbing the fanciful rock spires was lots of fun.

In the rock spires at sunset.

Finally, we went to the Gila Cliff Dwellings near Silver City, New Mexico.

Native Americans built over fifty buildings in these cliffs 700 years ago! They only lived in them between 1270 and 1300, a pretty short time for all the effort they put into it. No one knows why they left, but it's possible they were scared of heights.

In the caves.

Thanks Mom and Dad!