NM: Narrows Trail to Grants, 8 miles (with hitch)

Oh what a night!

The moon was not quite full, so had that oblong look as if a face turned slightly away, yet still looking down at me. It lit up my lair next to the downed tree and its cushion of needles. The stars were less brilliant, but they sparkled none-the-less and I picked out constellations.

Sounds as if I didn’t have a good night’s sleep, but truly, I slept deeply and so cozy, the night finally warm.

I stay awake as the moon sets a deep magenta over the lava fields. At sunrise, I awake with the
skkkkddd of a Juniper Titmouse and begin to break camp.

Thank the goddess for my miracle water. Now I’ll be able to take that spur hike and see what the fuss is all about. One camp find the lava fascinating, another just felt slowed down and irritable. I will plan to get myself to a road and hitch out. A full-on cheater, but life is way to short and mine is getting shorter!

Somehow when Dwight dropped me off yesterday afternoon and I climbed straight up to the mesa without hesitating, I thought I’d missed the arch altogether. I kicked myself for being impulsive and moving too fast, until I realized this part of the trail is called the Narrows Trail and the next upcoming section, the Arch Trail ought to have been a clue.

And there it is! Wow, huge and magnificent even if in shadow at the moment as the sun rises.

Technically not part of the El Maplais (the Badlands) National Monument, the arch is sandstone from two periods, the Jurassic Zuni and the Cretaceous Dakota. Easy for me to sit here and write that but it’s important to point out that those two epochs started 160 million years ago with a gap of 60+ million years in between.

OK, maybe I don’t feel all that old.

As I round the bend and take a look at the massive cliffs ahead of me, I realize the notes by previous hikers are not exaggerated. Getting down is not going to be easy.

Part of the reason is that the trail is not well marked. I have one cairn at the top and then just a chute heading straight down. I go slow and take it easy, looking everywhere for some indication of the way forward. A cairn at this time would be nice.

Aha! There’s one. But it appears to be sending me over some cliffs. The real trouble with going down is that you have no idea the grade as you descend. We often use the term “cliffed out” to refer to quite literally reaching a cliff that will be impossible to descend without a rope.

I try a few steps, climb over rocks, look around and then try again before giving up. Help! I’m stuck! No one is up and about this early and I can see almost to the parking lot where not a single car is parked.

OK, baby, you’re on your own. If down doesn’t work how about a traverse? What seemed foolish a few moments back now makes more sense. It’s steep on the sides though I could probably maybe most likely catch a fall.

I work my way across circling this chute to the right and yes, indeed, this is the way down. There’s a cairn! Right where I don’t need it. More like a confidence cairn than a directional cairn. I’m quickly down now and on a paved path.

Later, friends tell me how hard it was to climb up, a real scramble. I’m sure it was, but at least you can see the way from below and hurl yourself forward, down is a while different story.

At the road I stick out my thumb. It’s only a few miles to the trailhead, but why walk a dangerous stretch of twisting highway when I could instead use my time to explore the lave fields.

A car stops within minutes and a couple asks me to pile in back with their sweet bulldog, happy for face scritches. The man warns me he has a gun, though it’s stored in a lock box, one I’ll be sitting next to.

He is also really excited I’ll be walking the short, 7+-mile Zuni-Acoma Trail. He has yet to do it and finds it daunting. I tell him I’m not carrying a piece, but instead carrying four liters of water. Still, he gives me his cell number in case anything should happen out there. So much kindness and generosity on this hike. It really has me bowled over with gratitude.

The start of the trail is grassy and easy. I begin to wonder if people are making a bigger deal out of this than they ought to. That’s the one problem with thru-hiking – you’re constantly thinking about getting where you need to get to. Cross the mountains before the snow, leave the desert before it’s too hot, end the trail before you get fired.

There’s less time to linger and enjoy. Perhaps that explains why I hitch the boring and truly dangerous roads, to allow me more time to enjoy the beautiful sections rather than run through them.

Is this section beautiful? Weird, mysterious, other-worldly, frightening. The native people built cairns to ensure they’d find their way through. When the Spaniards arrived with horses, they dared not pass. Huge cracks in the lava are camouflaged by shadows and are easy to trap a foot or break an ankle.

At the start, a sign asks me how I’m feeling upon entering. After talking to the driver who looked young and hearty but still felt trepidation, I’m a bit unsure.

Within a mile, I come to the actual lava, like a tidal wall 12 feet tall frozen in time. I climb on top and notice that the cairns are not just piles of rock that could easily hide amongst this vast pile of rock. Instead the trail managers have stuck a broken limb at the top like a flagpole. It’s much easier to see, especially with so many cairns. Thank you trail managers!

It’s easy walking, though slow up and over the lava. Extrudes in strands, it dries into odd formations. I do need to watch for the large cracks which open to the ground below, maybe 10 feet. Trail manager here too add debris to create a little bridge. Grasses and cacti push their way through the rock and will eventually turn this pile back into dust.

The view back to the mesa is stunning and more mesas appear ahead. I am sad to really only have the time and energy for this small bit of trail. El Malpais boasts ice caves and quirky vents to see. That will all have to be saved for another time.

I meet one couple along the way asking if I have enough water and telling me they met another single woman walking the CDT. She signed into Toaster House and also waited out the cold weather, though left before I arrived.

It’s around this time I discover how much easier it is to walk on this rock with rubber tips on my trekking poles. That all goes well until one of the forever cracks steals them.

The best part of the trail is walking on the mass of lava. As I progress and my energy flags, the lava is less blocky and more piles of rocks. It’s harder walking and less interesting. I make sure I’m drinking enough in the intense heat. No water here or much shade, though I do manage to find a few pine trees working their way through for a break.

But my plan is to hit the highway and hitch into town. What’s left is road-walking and I need to be home, cleaned up, in good form and ready to host a concert from the stage in two days. My plane leaves from Albuquerque, so it’s a long bus ride first, then a flight home. Tomorrow will be a long day.

The final bit of trail only has a few remnants of basalt though mostly flat in scrub with the highway off in the distance. I think about how lucky I’ve been on this trail, meeting wonderful people who helped me just as I needed it – even my buddy Toast from the PCT who made a comment on my Facebook post and got the idea in my head I could get as far as Grants and tie up the two parts of the CDT I’ve walked in New Mexico. Certainly makes it easier to get home!

I put my thumb out on the tarmac and play a game Tamir taught me last summer in the Pyrenees: “Trust life!” he said, then told me to imagine exactly how great it will be when a car picks me up and I’m safely at my next destination, clean, well-fed, happy.

And my game too, that I’ll get a ride within ten cars. Yup, number five slows down and takes me to town. What a lovely guy too who makes sure I’m checked in at the motel before taking off.

I am one lucky blissful hiker.