Day 54- Black Canyon

Nice and peaceful this morning when I got up. Ready to tackle another day here in New Mexico. I would be entering the Gila National Forest today. Amazing how much forest I have seen so far in this state. I imagined more desolate and open countryside instead. New Mexico is typically referred to as the toughest state to ride on this route and I can confirm that. Not the highest passes to cross, but lots of steep, up and downs, on rough, or muddy terrain.

I didn’t have a particular place I wanted to stay tonight. It would either be in a primitive campground, or wild camping. Really no difference from my perspective.

Dried up mud road

It was a similar ride as yesterday, although I was feeling a lot more energetic and positive. I stopped at a bridge at a stream and found a good place to sit and have a second breakfast. Three cars pulled up at the other side of the bridge and got out to walk around a bit. One of the guys came over to ask me about my trip. He has genuinely interested, especially when he told me they were following the Great Divide themselves, and wanted to do as much off-road as possible. Two of the vehicles were capable 4x4’s. One a Jeep, and the other a Ford Bronco. The third was what looked like an old VW hatchback wagon that needed a new paint job. I spoke with the driver who said that he rescued it from a junkyard in Moab, Utah. It had been sitting there since 1989. He replaced the engine with a Subaru one, and changed out all bushings, rubber mounts, and suspension. It still however was still two wheel drive. I was impressed with his enthusiasm and desire to take his project on such a grueling trip to the Canadian border. Wise of him to do it with his friends who could pull him out with a winch if needed. I warned them about the “mud” too. I liked their spirits about taking something like this on!

Converted VW

The afternoon started to bring on dark clouds earlier than expected. I was in the Canyon part of the forest with those rocky, up and down roads. I had passed the flatter section earlier that had that dried up, mud full off deep ruts from vehicles trying to get through. I was thinking about the trio I had met earlier, and how they would fare if it got wet there. I could hear thunder, and the dark clouds were to the sides of me and behind, but still relatively clear straight ahead. I was not in a good section to stop anyway, so I kept pedaling.

Later that afternoon I saw a sign for the Black Canyon campsite, so I pulled in to take a look. It was right at the bottom of a long downhill I had just done, and the start of a steep, and long uphill. There was a pretty good size creek next to the campsite that had water flowing nearby. The place had picnic tables and even a small portable toilet which was unusual. As soon as I stepped off the bike it started to rain. Well, that made it clear I should stay here for the night, and not tackle the muddy uphill in the rain. I got my tent pitched pretty quick and put all my stuff in the vestibules on the side. It was still only 4pm, but it made no sense standing outside in the rain, so I climbed in, put on dry clothes, and had an early dinner. I never got out until the following morning.

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Day 53- Gila National Forest

The Toaster house was busy with all of us getting ready to head back on the road. The Irish duo left the earliest with plans to make Silver City in two days. That was pretty ambitious given the distance (185 miles), the rough terrain, and basically no services along the way. They were young and had packed lightly, so I am sure they could do it. Hamish and Jess wanted to take more of their time to coincidence with finishing in Columbus around the 7th of September. They estimated it would take them between 4-5 days for that stretch. I had told Hamish the night before that I planned to head out separately today and try to get to Silver City in 3 days. It is always understood by us all that you should go your pace and comfort level. It had been pretty rainy lately in this part of the state, and I didn’t want to stay out there longer than needed, and risk the mud. I packed extra food and water in case I did get stuck out there.

Irish dudes

Just me and my shadow today

I left Toaster house with my heavily loaded down bike, following the tracks left in the sand by the Irish guys ahead of me. Another beautiful morning, but maybe that sounds like a broken record by now. The country side was varied throughout the day with denser pine forests, to more open plains. The roads, were rocky and dusty, which was annoying when a vehicle passed by too quick, and the wind was blowing in the wrong direction.

Getting ready to be dusted

I did arrive at midday at a remote church that had water available for cyclists. They had routed a long hose over the fence, so we didn’t need to open the gate. The problem was that that hose had been baking in the sun for the whole morning, and it was quite hot. I let it run a bit to see if the temperature would go down, but I was also conscious to not waste too much, especially in a place where water meant life. I filled my water bladders with that warm water, hoping I wouldn’t need it today, and let it cool a bit overnight.

The color of the hose should have warned me this would be hot.

It was a hotter than usual day, and I began to feel the effects. I made a number of rest stops under the shade of trees whenever I could find them. I then started to look for places to camp, even though it was still relatively early in the day. I found a place and just rested on a log in the shade. The sun was still pretty high in the sky, so I didn’t want to put up my tent in the heat yet. I had simply run out of energy, so forced myself to eat some food, even though I wasn’t that hungry. I finally decided it would be better that I try to make more mileage today, if I wanted to get to Silver City the day after tomorrow.

Funny how quickly the body can recover. It took a couple miles, but I got my energy and spirit back, and was making good progress again. Besides the early mornings, I like the late afternoon’s for riding. The sun was now closer to the horizon and the light made everything more pleasant. Even the few side-by-sides and trucks that passed me waved and slowed down to not kick up too much dust. I was feeling good.

I finally was forced to pull off the road and set up camp before it started getting too dark. What looked like a crap day, turned out all right in the end. 🙂

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Day 52- Pie Town

We got up fairly early to get a head start towards Pie Town today. Although Grants didn’t live up to expectations, it still was good to get a rest day in our push towards Silver City, which was at least four days away, with minimal to no services. It was also not sure where we could resupply with water. Pie town would have water for sure, but not clear where afterwards. My bike was pretty heavy with all the extra food and water.

The first 30 miles of the route was another detour around a reported muddy section that a retired park ranger told us about. Later another couple who had taken that route confirmed that was still the case. The first part of the route was along the Malpais area which had a volcanic eruption a few thousand years ago. It was a nice road with not much traffic. I have found traffic in general in Mew Mexico to be a lot less than other states, and in most cases more polite drivers too. Maybe not as popular, although we did see a lot of hunters dressed in camouflaged clothing, since elk season had just started. We stopped at the Malpais ranger station, and the “Ventana” national arch which was really neat to see.

”La Ventana” arch

The dirt road was a bit on the washboard side which can really slow you down quite a bit. Other than that all was reasonable good with some steep climbs along the way, and more loose sand than we had seen so far. Pie town is mostly famous for both GDMBR riders and CDT hikers for having a shop that makes these delicious pies, and a place where you can stay called the “Toaster house”. The closing time on Google for the pie shop was 4 pm, which we would unfortunately miss today. Bummer! That is really the only food source in the whole town too.

A bit later in the afternoon we were caught by these two Irish riders who were packed lightly on their bikes. A brother of one of them was taking some of their luggage in his car as a support vehicle. We chatted for a bit and they mentioned they were trying to get to the pie shop before it closed. I yelled after them to get an extra couple of pies for us too.

Later a pickup truck with a volunteer firefighter emblem stopped us and said that we could probably make it to the pie shop before it closed at 5pm. Just a “few” hills in between. What! Did Google lie to us. Still, we were struggling at the end of the day and knew that we couldn’t get there by 5 pm either. We saw a group of horses at the fence beside the road looking curious at us. I had brought a couple apples along and thought it might be a good opportunity to share parts with them. There were two who were not afraid of us and enjoyed some good snout rubs. I broke off a couple pieces of one apple and fed it to them. Initially they were somewhat reluctant like the had never had that before. However, as soon as they tasted it, they obviously wanted more. The other horses suddenly became interested and I gave the other half of the apple to Jess to feed them. It was funny to see them chewing and smacking their lips even after they ate their pieces. Probably because of the sweet juicy taste. I bet those horses will come running to the fence every time they see a cyclist now.

Not long after another driver stopped when we were with the horses letting us know that the pie shop will be open until 6pm since it was Friday before Labor Day weekend. Just past that big hill she said. Well, this time I decided to try to get there, afraid the Irish dudes might not have gotten our pies thinking we could make it there in time. One thing I am beginning to better understand is that when someone from New Mexico says “just beyond that hill”, they really mean hills with a capital “S”. I know it was at least three of them before I reached the store at exactly 5:59. I ran in only to have the nice lady tell me they had shut off the stove and were closing. “What about the pies?” I asked desperately, and still out of breath from the hill sprints. Then she mentioned the Irish guys and that they had bought a couple extra for us. Phew! Ok, now to find the Toaster house with our pies!

The toaster house is named that way because of all the old toasters that are hanging on the fence outside. Don’t ask me why someone(s) would do such a thing, but there it is. The house is pretty rustic, but with a lot of character from all the hikers and bikers that have used it on their trips. It is a completely self serve operation with kitchen, bathroom, and bedrooms. The owner only comes occasionally to add more toilet paper, etc. There are several boxes of donated goods and food from others that no longer needed it, or wanted it. I noted that there were a few extra cans of Spam in the pantry.

We had some nice conversations with the Irish guys who live and work in Norway with their families. They also confirmed the PB mud that we had avoided early in the day. Good call on our part. And yes, the pies were delicious! 😋

I picked a spot in the living area on the floor, blew up my mattress and went to bed reasonably early.

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Day 50 & 51- Grants

It was a relief to wake up and not have our scalps missing. 🤣 None of us heard much traffic on the road in the night, and they seriously couldn’t have seen us unless they were looking. We packed up and pushed our bikes through the tumbleweed jungle again to get back on the road. We had made good progress yesterday, so today would be a shorter ride to Grants.

Morning tea time for the Kiwi’s

We passed by the coal mining operation which didn’t have a lot of activity other than this huge surface scraper bucket crane, busily doing some surface level mining. There were remnants of earlier mining operations all over the place. Looked like most had been reclaimed back to nature (hopefully). I did note that there really were no more wild camping options beyond where we stayed last night, so it was good we stopped when we did.

We were all looking forward to stopping in Grants for a couple nights since we had been remote for a while, with maybe the exception of Cuba, but that was a bit of a disappointment. Old Route 66 goes through Grants, so we all envisioned stopping by a classic diner to have an ice cold milkshake. Not much was known about the town by any of us. Some riders like to do meticulous research on all the places they would go through, while we just liked to get surprised along the way.

What did surprise us was the level of mining activity or remnants of such just north of the town. Many had signs of radioactive warnings posted on fences along the road. No real activity to be seen of folks working or machinery. Hmmm. Later on we seemed to see many scrapyards and metal fabrication shops just before reaching the town of Grants. It was an eerie, somewhat post apocalyptic sight. Many junkyard had dogs barking at us behind locked gates as we went by. We finally reached what was dubbed as the historic Route 66, but it was again what looked like abandoned businesses along the route. Where was that magical diner with our milkshakes? Maybe it was further in the center of town? We kept biking until we were what looked like the center of Grants. It was a bit better than what we had seen earlier, but still quite neglected. We saw a mining museum and made note of that.

One of the few Route 66 remnants (it was a junker as well)

Interstate 40 runs just south of Grants so we figured that is where most of the economic activity would be from folks needing to take a break of traveling on the road or wanting a bite to eat. We figured that would be the best place to find a motel. On our way there, we saw many abandoned and run down hotels on the Route 66 strip. Hardly any were still operating. Almost like the place had just been bombed in a war many years ago, and nobody bothered to clean it up.

Remnants of when America was “great”…

We did finally get to what we hoped would be our “promised land” near I-40 interstate. It was better, but there were still businesses/motels that had shut down. Maybe folks were no longer stopping in Grants along the interstate? We did find a pretty reasonably good quality (and priced) motel that was just across the street from a Super Walmart. Not that I would normally deem that as a plus, but for us GDMBR’ers it was golden in getting some much needed food supplies and sundry items. I got a cheap pair of flip flops and some shorts to dive in the pool with (which I never did).

On our rest day we all biked to the mining museum to learn a bit more about this region. Jess had also ordered a bottle of the chain lube I had been using, so we swung by the Amazon locker to pick it up. No, Grants didn’t have a bike shop.

The museum was a bit of an eye opener and helped explain the current state of Grants. In the late 1950’s, Uranium was discovered nearby and easy mining access on the surface initially, and then in mines underground. The whole race to build nuclear weapons, and later nuclear reactors caused the town to boom. In the late 1980’s folks suddenly became aware of the environmental and health dangers associated with this radioactive material, and the operations came to a fairly sudden halt. Basically a classic boom and bust. That helps explain the number of abandoned properties in the town. The companies that made a killing during the boom, quickly left to seek other opportunities elsewhere. The people who still live here just have to deal with the cleanup. Sad.

Inside the museum. They had recreated the mining operation underground.

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Day 49- Navajo nation

Again we would need to take an alternate route due to the blasted PB mud between Cuba and Grants. This was a longer multi day, and remote stretch, and not worth gambling getting stuck for multiple days. All of us had already used our spare brake pads, so that was another consideration. The paved route between Cuba and Grants went through Navajo owned territory, and not much reliable knowledge about food and water options. It would take at least two days to get to Grants, so we stocked up appropriately.

The winds were in our favor as we headed out in a westerly direction out of Cuba. This would be a big help since the landscape was pretty barren with no shade either. We made good progress and eventually reached the first reported gas station. The building next to it didn’t look like much, but was surprisingly well stocked with some food and drink options inside. We rewarded ourselves with some cold cokes and ice cream. We asked the person at the counter about any other places like this, and she reported that there was a new convenience store about 40 miles further where we considered camping. Wow! Nothing was even mentioned about that on any of the GDMBR forums, other than “good luck with that” comments.

Finally put on my New Mexico patch

Super friendly shop dog

The winds were still in our favor and we arrived at that next town, Pueblo Pintado, much earlier than we had planned, and that new convenience store was there as told. We asked the attendant about camping options, and he pointed to a field next to the community center. The sun was still fairly high in the sky, and we didn’t want to bake in the heat, waiting to be able to put up our tents. There was no public land listed on our maps further towards Grants, so it was likely we would have to “boondock” on private land if we opted for that. We all decided it would be better to get more miles in and chance our luck on finding a camp spot later.

The road now turned more southward, and we lost our wind advantage. The hills on this section were a bit more pronounced, so our overall speed did slow down quite a bit. It was interesting to see what apparently was a Native American on an e-scooter passing us one way, and then coming back the other way with considerable speed. A couple miles further we saw him pushing his scooter along the road, which apparently had run out of battery power. There was not a single building in sight for miles, so we all wondered what he thought he was doing, and where to?

Fangs of the storm

At one point we were in this wide open section that had some threatening clouds ahead. There was absolutely no cover or place to hide, so we just kept going. It looked there was a gap between two storms on either side of the road, and we just hoped we could squeeze in between. No such luck today and we got hammered pretty quick with rain, hail, and strong winds, with lightning right above our heads. We got our rain jackets on, but the rain had already soaked us pretty good. As far as the lightning, the advice is to get in a lower ditch, and crouch down. However there were no ditches or anywhere to hide, so we kept peddling on. I had regrettably sent my rain pants home and got pelted with hail on my bare legs. Same for Hamish and Jess. I was just worried that the hail would get larger (golf ball size) as we can in the West, and not thinking about the lightning danger. Luckily the storm didn’t last that long and we were safe further down the road. Phew!

The sun was beginning to get lower on the horizon, and we all kept looking on both sides of the road for camp options. Mostly all barbed wire fences and locked gates. I did spot a nice little church along the route what seemed to be a small village. We stopped and knocked on a few of the small houses/shacks to see if we could get permission to camp nearby. Nobody answered their doors so we just waited to see if someone would drive by. After many minutes, and seeing nobody, we decided to continue on a bit further. We knew that there was an active coal mining operation a few miles further, but couldn’t imagine that being a good place to camp.

I was determined to find something before it got too dark out. Finally I noticed a partially open gate at a cattle grate crossing that had this huge amount of tumbleweeds accumulated. We had to dig a path through those weeds and found a couple places to hide our tents behind some large juniper bushes. It sure didn’t look like anyone had been around here in a long time, and all the cow paddies were well dried up.

A few cars/trucks drove by on the road next to us, but we seriously didn’t think anyone couldn’t have cared less what we were doing, even if they could see us. Hamish did have a bright red tent, and he noted he probably should have had one that was a bit less conspicuous, especially on Indian lands. 😄

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