Cuba, NM to Abiquiu, NM

Photos - click here

The night before we left Cuba, we picked up our mail drop and organized all of our resupplies for the next stretch. One of the more interesting items in the mail drop was sandpaper from my dad. Since I am hiking in Chaco sandals, one of the challenges I have is building calluses that are too large. While calluses are normally a good thing, once they get too big they split, crack, and bleed. This was a serious problem I acquired on my PNT hike, gaining over 10 cracks in my feet. Personally, while the cracks are very painful, I prefer them over blisters and rub from ill-fitting boots and/or shoes. So, the sandpaper is a works-in-progress experiment to see if I can keep the calluses small enough to not cause problems. I spent about an hour sanding my feet and was amazed at the results. I was optimistic for the first time that I could make it through this hike with a minimal number of cracks. We’ll see, but so far so good!

DAY 1
We awoke prepared for another adventurous day. Gathering our belongings, and dropping off our keys, we left the modest Cuba Lodge and headed to the Bureau of Land Management to get some maps. The facility was closed due to a meeting, so we did the only logical thing to do: had breakfast at the little diner across the main street. After we ate we made our way back over to the parks building and purchased the maps. Our plans of leaving early were once again foiled! We escaped at noon, and had milkshakes from McDonald’s on the way out.

We walked the road for a very long time, passing a woman’s prison. The day was a hot one, bringing back memories of the very arid Deming. We were stalked by 2 chows, barking if we didn’t scratch them, and finally we met the trail. It was tremendously steep and we eventually climbed to over 10,000 feet in elevation- a new record! The terrain was very different compared to what we had experienced so far in New Mexico- it was a lush, green forest with beautiful streams in the San Pedro Wilderness. Formerly we had problems finding water, now we had issues avoiding it. Streams were overflowing, flooding the trail and Dave and I spent a little bit of time diverting some of the streams back along the water bars and stream beds, off of the trail. David also did a little maintenance along the way, pushing fallen branches to the side of the trail.

As we ascended we began seeing small snowfields- the first of our hike. The irony in that was that we were blazing hot earlier in the day, and now we were seeing snow. As we continued to climb, we reached about 9250 feet in elevation, and the snow fields started to cover portions of the trail. It was about this time that Dave realized that he had lost his third pair of sunglasses on the hike- which he had just purchased the day before. A little problematic if we were going to be doing snow travel since the reflective properties of the snow is extremely harsh on the eyes. It was also at this time that Dave and I both had very unhealthy digestive reactions to either the milkshakes we had earlier, or the breakfast we ate. Now digestive problems are no one’s friend, but for the hiker, dehydration can be a serious issue. Well, I guess we came out here for the challenge, right? Yeah, right.

We continued to climb and were amazed at how much snow we encountered. With map, compass, and GPS in hand, we navigated our way along the trail (which was buried under snow more often than not); often stopping to check and double check our work making sure we were on track. We were definitely on track and doing well in terms of navigation, but between the late start and the snow travel, we managed only 10 miles instead of the planned 20. Eventually we reached a small clear area where we decided to sleep. David and I had become quite cold, so we changed and retired to our tents to try to get warm while Dave heated up water for our dinners. We had the luxury that night of having lasagna, beef stroganoff, and beef stew, courtesy of a wonderful care package sent by friends from Bellingham (thanks Tom, Karen, Adam and Rose!) No typical pasta dinner tonight- and thank goodness- we needed something special to get warm and cozy. By the time we were finished eating, it was after 11pm, and we crashed hard.

DAY 2
We woke today to wet and frozen footwear and looked forward to a day of more of the same. The snow was so beautiful, but the runoff from the snowmelt made for a very wet experience. Dave and I still weren’t feeling well, but we trudged forward. We hiked about five miles in snow and crossing runoff creeks with freezing water (brrr!). We didn’t see trail, but the snowline was low enough so that we could see trail junction signs and CDT posts in some areas. We had a great stretch of about a mile where CDT posts were visible the entire way, making our navigating job much easier, but that quickly changed when we reached the tree line.

We began descending and immediately missed our trail. Somehow we managed to get considerably too far east during our descent, which set us up for a lovely 5 mile bushwhack to get back on track to our next known point. We had to lose about 750 feet in elevation before our bushwhack no longer included snow. I was personally relieved as we were all post-holing in the snow- usually up to a foot or more, but sometimes up to our hips (post-holing: the snow can’t hold the weight of the person, so when one steps on the snow they fall through to the ground, rather than being able to walk across the top of it). During the bushwhack we found footprints and many trails that appeared and disappeared again. We figured it was a hunter or another hiker who also got off track- no sane person would be where we were….

Finally we found a fairly well defined trail and took it all the way to our GPS waypoint that we had plotted. We weren’t on the CDT, but we were more than happy to be hiking a clear trail. Once we reached our trail junction, we hiked another 4 miles to a grassy, emerald-green meadow along a muddy, silty river- our campsite and water source for the evening. Because of the snow travel and bushwhack, again we only managed 10 miles. It had taken 2 days to cover what we had planned on being a one-day stretch.

DAY 3
The next morning started with a road walk from the mountain we had descended the day before to a mesa that we would traverse later in the day, but almost immediately we missed our Forest Service road junction, walking an extra 1.3 miles to the nearby Forest Service Station. I thought it was off trail and was excited to see it, thinking I was wrong. Nope. Oh well. It was a Saturday, and therefore closed, but the water spigot was in great use and the porch was covered, so we had a lovely break, and emptied the silty water from our bottles filling it with pure delicious spigot water.

We hiked back to our road and climbed steeply uphill. Freezing yesterday, and fending off heat exhaustion today. It was simply amazing how diverse this stretch was in beauty, in challenge, and even in temperature. Despite being a day behind, it was truly amazing.
We summited the mesa at just over 8,000 ft and had a wonderful break in a cool meadow, enjoying the shade of a large tree and a nice breeze. Eventually we hit another trail and were going to head down the other side of the mesa to camp when we happened upon three women from Youth Corp, contracting with the CDTA to create trails and do trail maintenance. They were from a camp of 10 and we talked trail talk with them, thanked them for their hard work and service, and headed downhill.

Dave’s leg was getting a little sore for reasons unknown, so we moved slowly and then stopped about 2 miles later. We were at a lovely campsite with a beautiful stream, and even had a small flickering fire to fend off a few random mosquitoes.

DAY 4
We continued on the same trail crossing our creek nearly 15 times until we reached a Forest Service road that would take us to our next town destination- Abiquiu. This was an easy 15 mile hike, but it nearly killed us it was so hot! We would find out later that it was 95 degrees in the shade, and we were hiking in the sun. Our trees were gone, replaced by sagebrush, and our cold temperatures replaced by blazing heat. The one interesting thing about this road was that we encountered more outdoor enthusiasts on this road than on our entire hike to date! There were white-water rafters, kayakers, mountain bikers, and one road biker. Apparently the Rio Chama draws a crowd…

We finally reached our main road to hitch into town and got a ride from a generous man with sodas and water. We were so parched it was a blessing. We didn’t actually go into the town proper of Abiquiu- we went to a place called Ghost Ranch. This divine place is a Presbyterian spiritual center that boasts a paleo museum, classes ranging from spiritual well-being to painting, and was the inspiration and summer home for Georgia O’Keefe. With the cliffs towering above us in only the way southwestern cliffs can, I could understand the inspiration. The colors were so vivid and amazing, and though we would only spend an hour at the ranch, I could have spent days. While we were there we re-hydrated ourselves and then Dave and David met two motorcyclists while I was on the phone with my parents. Casey and his girlfriend offered for us to stay with them when we get near Denver- people are so generous!!

Though we only hiked 15 miles this day, it ended up being a very long day, since we decided to jump ahead to our next town of Chama to pick up more supplies and use it as our base of operations for the next few days. It took over 2 hours to get our first hitch- our longest wait yet. In my time hiking I’ve waited over 3 hours before, so I was annoyed but not too worried. Dave and David, however, hadn’t waited this whole hike more than 20 or 30 minutes for a ride (we’ve been SO lucky), so I’m not sure they were thinking good thoughts….

Our first ride dropped us off 15 miles south of Chama and we waited maybe 10 minutes for our next ride. Ah, back to “normal”. In the interim, Dave had a sunscreen explosion in his pack and went to use some paper towels from the closed gas station where we were dropped off. A man in the building next door yelled at Dave to put them back, so Dave walked over to the man and offered to pay for the paper towels “No! You don’t pay! I don’t want money! Put them back!” Well, I think this was our first unreasonable person we met in New Mexico. Dave continued to be polite, the man continued to insist that Dave put the paper towels back. Not deterred from thinking that people in New Mexico are just the absolute nicest, or from the fact that he needed the paper towels, Dave eventually disregarded the Paper Towel Nazi, and used what he had already grabbed to clean his pack. We decided that we better not push our luck by trying to use the garbage can, however….

Quickly (thankfully) we got our next ride from an outdoorsman- skier and rock climber. He was very nice and was even willing to talk with David about how he should never drink and drive and what horrible repercussions can follow. Of course, this was after his court-order breathalyzer beeped in his truck and he had to breathe into it. He dropped us off a mile or 2 short of town proper at a lodge, and we quickly went to Dairy Queen, ate, and then crashed.

DAY 5
Days 4, 5 and Day 6 were supposed to be hiking days from Abiquiu to Chama, but we took 4 days instead of 3 to get to Abiquiu, which really messed up our schedule. The reason being, that we are to fly north and start hiking south to avoid snow in a few days. We no longer had 3 days to play with so we decided to come to Chama to “slackpack” (hike without pack weight) the missing stretch in 2 days- 55 miles total. There are actually 2 routes through here, and the 55 miles would be an uninspiring highway road walk. Not thrilling, but still a sense of accomplishment when the day is done. The other route was up on forest service roads and about 80 or more miles. While this would have been more scenic and preferred, the CDTA guidebook warned that there were many land disputes in the area, which is why their route was on the road- so as to not offend land owners until the disputes were settled. Not thrilled about road walking, but less thrilled about people yelling at us for trespassing, we opted for the road walk.

The one caveat to all of this was that Dave’s leg was hurting more and more, and we weren’t sure why. When he woke this morning, I only had to see him take about 5 steps across the room to know that our 2-day slackpack wasn’t going to happen- he could hardly walk. Missing the two days isn’t that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things- after all; we will be hiking south to this point, getting here again and making up those miles about 2 months from now. But if we had hiked it we would have completed all of New Mexico- a milestone we were all looking forward to attaining.

After some brainstorming, poking, and prodding, we decided that he definitely didn’t have shin splints, but may have (1) something wrong with a tendon or (2) have some sort of after effects from walking into the cactus a week ago. We decided to be productive, cleaning all of our gear, and sending David around town to do about 1/3 of the chores that needed to be completed. He would do his work today and have free time tomorrow, while Dave and I would work on cleaning up what we could at the hotel room and then do town chores the next day. The benefit to this was that Dave’s mom (Barb) was coming to visit and David could have some alone time with her while Dave and I were working, and Dave could do chores while getting a ride, so as to rest his leg.

So we had a leisurely day and were expecting to see Barb late in the evening, but her travel plans didn’t go as smoothly as planned, so she grabbed a hotel south of us and would meet us in the morning the next day.

DAY 6
Barb showed up in the morning with gifts and goodies in tow (food, of course- a hikers best present to get!), and new shoes and socks for Dave and David. She looked great and it was wonderful to see her. As if her being there wasn’t wonderful enough, she also treated us to breakfast, took us to the Post Office, and then dropped me off at the library while taking Dave and David to the doctor’s office to see about Dave’s leg. It’s been a few hours and Dave just visited me in the library as I am typing this. Apparently he is going to live. Yahoo! It turns out the doctor has seen this problem many times before- attack of the Chollo cactus!! Apparently the chollo cactus hosts some type of rosin at the end of its barbs, and Dave’s leg has been trying to isolate the rosin and protect his body. This resulted in swelling and pain, but no permanent damage. Left unattended the injured area would eventually swell considerably, increase in pain, fester and then barb would be released. Dave, who was trying to get psychologically geared up to have his leg lanced open and have the barb removed was thrilled to only have to have a steroid shot. Not too thrilled that he had to get the shot in his butt, but I thought it was funny….

It turns out the steroid shot will reduce swelling and inflammation for 5 weeks, which will benefit not just his leg, but also the rest of his body from the rigors of hiking. (No fair! I want one!!) He can hike again, and while he will have some pain at first, there will be no damage and no restrictions to his physical activity. Whew! The best part of all of this? The doctor said there were two things that would help expel the cactus quill the fastest- better than any topical prescription he could write. Copenhagen and alcohol. So Barb, Dave, and David are off to get the good, and apply them topically to Dave’s leg. Personally, I think there might be a little drinking going on too. Tequila specifically….

So that’s all for now. We will finish laundry and packing things up tonight and grab some dinner and tomorrow we will head to Albuquerque, making a few stops along the way. We hope to visit the town of Abiquiu, hit REI to get more supplies, and even catch the new Star Wars flick. The day after tomorrow we will fly north, and then start this crazy hike-thingy all over again in a completely different environment and different part of the country.

I have to say personally, that there have been so many extreme challenges this first 5 weeks, but I think we have done a great job in overcoming them. New Mexico, which can be very harsh in a windy, hot, and dry way, has been amazingly kind to us. The landscapes and natural environment have doled out the mildest of experiences. The people of New Mexico have bestowed their generosity upon us during our times of greatest need- even though they didn’t even know it! We have been so lucky to have experienced this combination as it has given us a chance to get past all of the other personal physical challenges that we have faced to date. I don’t expect Wyoming or Colorado to be nearly so forgiving, but with 5 weeks of experiences behind us, I think we are all considerably stronger, resilient, trail-wise, and ready to take it to the next level. Rock on!!

~Leslie

Info on Cuba from: http://www.cubanewmexico.com/index.shtml
The area currently called Cuba has a long and interesting history. Native Americans have occupied the area near the village for hundreds of years. In the 1700’s Spanish ranchers and farmers settled the area. There are many large ranches and farms in Cuba and the surrounding areas. Cattle, sheep, and goats are the primary livestock raised. There are several stories that explain how Cuba got its name. One story claims that the name came from the Spanish word for water tank/trough, Cubeta Cuba was once surrounded by a great deal of water. Another popular story claims that the name came from soldiers who had visited the island of Cuba and felt the landscape resembled that of the island.

The Cuba area is known for its wildlife and beautiful views. Cuba, and indeed all of New Mexico, is known for its spectacular sunsets. If one were to look at the nearby mountains during a particularly good evening they would think they were afire from the red glow of the setting sun. Cuba is also an ideal area for hunting, or wildlife spotting. Herds of elk, and deer roam the nearby foothills, and the Jicarilla Reservation. The high number of large private ranches in the Cuba and Lindrith areas combined with high deer and elk population attracts hunters from all over the world.
 
The village of Cuba has a population under 1000. However, it serves an area with a population approaching 5,000. It is also a favorite stop for travelers on NM 44/US 550, a major highway connecting central New Mexico with the Four Corners region. The village is at the base of the Nacimiento Mountain Range and at the edge of the Navajo Reservation, Jicarilla Reservation and the Jemez Pueblo. 

Info on Abiquiu from: http://www.abiquiuinn.com/Area%20Attractions.htm
The area around Abiquiu has been a gathering place of tribal people since before the Anasazi settled here more than a thousand years ago. In addition to ancient Pueblo Indian ruins, the area includes: the mosque at Dar al Islam, the "White Place" or Plaza Blanca, painted and photographed by countless artists including Georgia O'Keeffe; a Benedictine monastery nestled in the beautiful Chama River canyon; and an Eastern Greek Orthodox monastery at the foot of imposing Pedernal Peak. The Ghost Ranch is close by and features 17,000 acres of hiking trails and a dinosaur quarry. Abiquiu Lake, Heron Lake and El Vado Lake all provide swimming, fishing and boating in spectacular physical surroundings.

Surrounding Abiquiu Inn is 1.6 million acres of the Santa Fe National Forest to the South, and 1.5 million acres of the Carson National Forest providing wilderness hiking and camping from Abiquiu north to the Colorado border. The Chama River provides fishing, picnicking, white-water rafting and canoeing.

 
Info on Chama from: http://ourworld.cs.com/HistoricJails/chama.html
"Chama's history includes lumber and logging, cattle ranching, sheep, and gold and silver mining. Today Chama is a town of about 1,250 people with Rio Arriba being the third largest county in the State. The average altitude in the area is 7,800 feet so, unlike many arid parts of New Mexico, there is a lot of snow. The entire area is part of what once was the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant.

The village of Chama itself dates back to the mid-1800s when settlers came into the valley after the civil war to begin logging the land. Bordered by the Carson, Rio Grande and Santa Fe National Forests, the Chama Valley was once covered by a thriving forest. Before the area was clear-cut of timber, the forest covered hundreds of square miles. It is said that the forest was so thick a person on horseback would have had difficulty riding through it. The Cumbres and Toltec Railroad, a remnant of the Denver and Rio Grande, drove the spike that connected Denver with Chama in 1880. The Cumbres and Toltec is still in existence, owned by both Colorado and New Mexico. It is an example of a narrow gauge track railroad. Unlike most railroads of the time, the narrow gauge tracks were built through the mountainous areas in order for the trains to move more easily at faster rates of travel.

During its early years, the town had its share of outlaws and miscreants. One of the gangs operating in Chama was the Charles Allison gang. During their reign they ran rampant through Chama, holding up saloons and gambling houses. They also robbed the railroad pay cars that carried the large construction camps payrolls. Lawlessness was certainly something the people of Chama thought about as can be seen from the following statement, published in 1893 in the local newspaper, the Northwest New Mexican.

"Tramps and sneak thieves will probably in the future give Chama a wide berth. The rope is a desperate but sure remedy." Northwest New Mexican, 1893.

With only one small jail in the town, one can only speculate on just how sure of a remedy the townspeople felt the 'rope' was and how often it might have been used to efficiently deal with lawbreakers. The jail building is small, measuring only 18 feet by 22 feet. Built in 1879, it was used as a jail until 1967. There are two small windows on each side, measuring only 8 inches by 16 inches. The building itself is made of notched and crossed timbers that were hand hewn with a broad ax. Inside the building there is a strap steel cell measuring 5 feet by 8 feet. It is not known where the cell came from or how long it has been in the building, although it does resemble other strap steel cells used during the 1800s, one of which is located in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The jail has been moved from its original location and is currently privately owned.