Trekker's Log, May 26-28, 2007

5/26 – 28/07, Saturday – Monday, hiking days 20 – 22
Segment 15, NM 163 to Coyote Peak Stock Tank

We were taken to the trailhead by Sheriff’s Deputy Stan Thompson, since the highway leading to the trailhead was on one of Stan’s regular patrol routes. Stan was very gracious to help us out in this way. The first assistance he gave us was a case of helping with an “emergency.” This time he helped us just out of the goodness of his heart.

During this three-day segment we learned a lot about trail-finding, about being resourceful when things don’t go right, about depending on our GPS and guidebook, and about the rare but glaring misprint in a publication. We also began to use what we had learned previously on this Challenge hike.

The trail was well-marked, for about the first quarter mile, to a fence line. At the end of the fence line, we found no more trail signs for many miles. We were on our own, studying the guidebook as we went along, looking for the roads, mountains, and streams described in it. On the second day of the hike, we climbed a fence because we knew we were in a direct line with the saddle on the side of Pelona Mountain and the terrain on the other side of the fence looked more negotiable on the way. Suddenly we saw a CDT sign, and we were on fairly new trail that took us to the saddle by way of three or four nice, easy switchbacks.

Once on the saddle, we found a cairn, then two other cairns. One cairn led to nothing; the other had a definite path beside it. We chose the cairn beside the path. About five miles later we discovered that we had been hiking on an animal trail and were well off course. We finally realized that we were on a segment of the CDT that has not been constructed. We bush-whacked back and forth, following the general direction of the trail as described in the guidebook, and got reasonably close to Coyote Peak Stock Tank at the end of the third day of hiking, but without ever seeing another trail sign.

As stated, we read and re-read the guidebook entry for this segment, finally figuring out that there was a one-digit error in the printed coordinates for the Coyote Peak Stock Tank. Before we figured that out, the GPS was telling us to go in exactly the wrong direction! On the morning of the fourth day, I woke up realizing that there must have been a misprint, for most of the coordinates included W108, but the one for Coyote Peak Stock Tank included W107. When the 108 was entered in the GPS, we learned that we were just about one mile from our destination!

So, all is well that ends well, and our hike of this segment ended on a bright note. When we got to Coyote Peak Stock Tank and looked back, there WAS a sign, and a trail leading in the direction from which we had come. As stated earlier, we learned a lot about getting to where we wanted to go without trail sign and sometimes without trail. This segment is definitely part of the 60% of the New Mexico CDT that is not yet fully constructed or marked! The topo map had not really helped us. The guidebook was, indeed, helpful in spite of the one typo. We would not have reached the end of this segment without the guidebook, the GPS, and what we had learned earlier about trail-finding.