Our campsite was at 9500’ on a ridge emanating from the top of Mangas Mtn. The wind blew all night, beautiful white noise to sleep by as it flew thru the pines and firs. In the morning I could hear wild turkeys gobbling in the distance in two directions about 90° apart. The temperature wasn’t bad, but the wind made it feel quite cold. But something else was radically different. There was a solid, slate grey cloud cover, the kind that makes a Western Washington boy like me run for a rain jacket and umbrella. But, this is New Mexico and clouds don’t necessarily mean rain. There was none in the forecast. Still, after nearly three weeks of clear, blue, cloudless skies, it was a shock.
The route today was nearly all downhill. Pie Town lay about 25 miles away, just a little too far to my liking. At about 11 miles is a place called the Davile CDT Rest Stop. That was our second destination of the day. The first was the spigot along side the road with which to refill our water bottles.
Every step of this section is road walking. It was a rough piece of road with tons of loose rocks, but a truck with good ground clearance and 4WD could negotiate it.
About 4 miles from where we camped we heard a truck approaching from behind. As he passed the driver asked if everything was okay. We said yes, but then I asked if he could take my garbage. I was still carrying the Gatorade and water bottles plus the coke can from the drive by trail angel from 3 days before. He looked surprised but said sure. He opened the back door of his truck and I dropped all my accumulated garbage in a box he had in his back seat. We chatted for 5-10 minutes about NM life, hunting-he runs a guide service-and his 20,000 acres he owns. He drove off and we kept hiking until we reached the faucet. Sure enough, right along the road as described in FarOut there stood a faucet. We only had about 6 miles to get to the Davile Ranch rest stop. I topped off and we continued on our way.
At about 11 miles for the day a small sign on the right side of the road announced the CDT rest area.
We walked through the junipers to find a grouping of small interconnected metal sheds all set up for hikers. One had a rack of canned goods, three propane stove burners, an assortment of pots and pans and silverware. There was an outdoor sink, an enclosed toilet room, a shower room and a room with a fridge, two washing machines and two dryers. In the fridge we’re about 6 dozen eggs, 20 pounds of potatoes, onions and garlic. Also, there was WiFi and electrical outlets. We immediately plugged in our batteries, phones and PLBs, then I changed into a pair of gym shorts I was carrying, striped off everything else, grabbed all clothes from my pack and did a load of laundry. I had been wearing the same clothes for 9 days straight, sweating in them 10 hours a day and they needed a little washing. With batteries charging and clothes washing, I grabbed four eggs from the fridge and scrambled them. Once eggs were consumed I tried to upload my blog posts, but the WiFi was so poor I could not.
The owner came by, checked to see we were okay, went through a quick check of the place, garbage levels not bad, still plenty of food - normal maintenance stuff. Then he sat down and talked with us for well over an hour. I asked why he built this little paradise for hikers. He said his daughter and he did it because they were tired of seeing hungry, filthy, exhausted hikers staggering up the road. He drilled a 600’ deep well to provide water, had an electric pole put in to bring electricity, installed a toilet, hot water tank for the shower and laundry, etc. what a kind and generous man. Everything was free, although he had a donation box out and signs saying how to donate via PayPal or Venmo.
We probably stayed 3 hours charging and washing, then packed up and headed down the road with the intent of getting 5-10 additional miles so as to be within 5-8 miles of Pie Town so we could get to Pie Town early the next morning.. The post office is only open 8:30 to noon, although Magic Mike had grabbed our resupply boxes from the post office yesterday and put them in the hiker hostel called the “Toaster House”.
When we were about 6-7 miles from Pie Town we stepped gingerly over a barbed wire fence into a field with brown grass and junipers and stealth camped for the night below the branches of a big juniper far enough from the road as not to be seen (although this wasn’t really necessary as I had only seen two cars (trucks) go by in the past seven miles of walking.
The wind was blowing heavily as we each crawled into our tents and “got horizontal” to rest and relax the rest of the evening away. Another amazing day of meeting kind people. Want to see people at their best? You don’t see many, but the ones you do are top notch. Come hike the CDT.
The various buildings at the Davile east area
Even the kitchen sink.
The shower
The laundry
The guy who built all this for those starving, exhausted hikers straggling by his property each day.
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