It's starting to get real — Adventures With Samson-The-Bear

On 5/24 I did 14.7 miles to Ghost Ranch. On 5/25 I did 7.2 miles to a cow pasture. On 5/26 I did 30.4 to a pine covered saddle. On 5/27 I did 28.8 to a Mesa. On 5/28 I did 26.7 to Chama, NM

Listen to "The Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + The Machines. It's a good song to move fast to and reminds me of changing seasons.

After leaving the Chama River I walked to Ghost Ranch for a resupply. Ghost Ranch is an outpost in Northern New Mexico where people can visit the ranch and do day hikes, ride horses and see chimney rock. It's also famous for being the summer house of Georgia O'Keeffe and while at Ghost Ranch you can see a lot of the landscapes that inspired her work. At Ghost Ranch I picked up a resupply which included some of my snow gear including snowshoes, micro spikes, an ax and heavier clothing as the upcoming mountains between GR and the state whose name I won't mention were covered in snow. Unfortunately the first 35 miles out of GR were still in the desert and it felt silly to be fully loaded with snow gear while still walking through box canyons and sandstone monuments, but you never know what this trail is going to throw at you.

After leaving the last of the desert we climbed in elevation and bounced between 9 and 11 thousand feet and after the first day I was constantly on snow. I was walking through groves of aspen and depending on the elevation they had either just started to bloom or were still in their dormant winter stages. The snow pack was about 2 feet, and on the South faces it was melting quickly, so much so there were many streams not listed on the Topos and they were raging. A lot of the streams were also running under the snow making it slightly sketchy crossing all of the snow bridges. While walking this section I ran into several herds of elk, a few mule deer and even happened to walk up on a prong horn sheep (we were both equally surprised).

I left Ghost Ranch with a sizable crew. We all spent the night in the same cow field the first night out and got up together. The next day I had to dig a cat hole and the crew got in front of me. I started to catch up with them, and saw them cross a ridge-line only a quarter mile in front of me. When I crossed the ridge-line I saw no trace of them and pushed even harder to catch up. I crossed a road later in the day and some loggers told me the group was in front of me by an hour! I was surprised I had not caught them and pulled a 30 mile day trying to find them to no avail. The next day I got up at 4 in the morning to try and catch them before they broke camp, but again I never ran into them. At this time I had no idea if they were in front of or behind me. I spent the rest of this section by myself crossing the snowy mountains. At times it was eerie to be alone with nothing but the wind but it was also very peaceful in the snow, (except for the snow storm, that wasn't a tranquil experience). I wrote notes in the snow for the group incise they were behind me to let them know where I was, and figured I would see them in town if they were in front of me.

The group ended up catching up with me in Chama. I beat them by about a half a day. They also did not know if I was ahead or behind them and left notes for me with rocks. It wasn’t until they saw my notes and foot prints that they knew I was ahead but since I pulled such large miles looking for them they couldn't catch up. We still aren't sure how I got ahead of the group but I decided after this minor snafu I was going to get a satellite messager (I am literally the only one on trail without a Garmin inreach, who knew people cared about their safety so much).

After crossing many mountains and valleys I finally crossed into Colorado! It was an awesome feeling to be done with my first state and to enter the mountains that made me want to do this thru hike in the first place). With New Mexico complete I now need to focus on how I'm going to tackle the challenges ahead!