Pie Town to Silver City

Couple from Tucson taking a break from hiking the CDT 

After a hardy breakfast at the Gathering Place in PieTown we saddled up and headed south toward Silver City.  The weather was near perfect.  Not even a punctured front tire could slow us down too much.  Because I was riding my backup bike I hadn't checked the sealant in the tires before we left and so the puncture didn't seal.  I had brought one small bottle of sealant with me, so I shot that into the tire and got it fixed quickly.

We continued to see a number of Continental Divide Trail (CDT) hikers along the roads leading to Pie Town.  All were looking forward to pie and a shower at the "Toaster" house.

We stopped for lunch at Valle Tio Vences campground.  We were running low on water and the spring was barely a trickle into a horse trough with a lovely film of moss. A group of 5th wheel campers from Belen, NM were there so we asked where we might find water.  They told us about a small pond down the road, but gladly filled us up from their own supply.

We headed on down the road which took us along the western edge of the Plains of St Augustine, a very large high mountain valley where the VLA radio telescope is located.  From the look of the area, there hasn't been much rain or snow in here this year.

Dry camping south of Pie Town

By late afternoon we were running low on water again and in search of a stock tank.  We flagged down a ranch hand and asked about water.  He said he could kick on the pump at a near by stock tank but he had a half gallon in his truck which was enough to get us through the night. He said there was another tank about 10 miles down the road.

After almost 60 miles for the day we set up camp about 4 miles later knowing we could get to water in the morning.  But the lack of water was starting to weigh on our minds.

Really glad to see a stock tank with water

As we continued our trek toward Silver City, we found the stock tank as advertised.  I carry a filter that can clean about a half gallon of water in 2-3 minutes once it is setup... Gravity fed, no pumping required.  With enough water for the day (or so we thought) we headed toward Collins Park and our first siting of a Continental Divide sign.  Collins Park is a large open mountain meadow popular with campers and horse riders.  When I say popular, we saw one travel trailer and 2 horse trailers on a Sunday morning... You are 50 miles from Pie Town and 80 miles from T or C... Middle of nowhere.

Continental Divide at Collins Park

After Collins Park, we entered a long winding, DRY, open, treeless valley.  We descended for almost 20 miles with a fairly strong cross wind over rough roads.  Without a tree in site, we finally broke for lunch at a very inviting cattle guard.  At least it had concrete supports we could sit on while we took a short rest.

As we packed up from lunch a truck came by.  It was a young man and his wife who had been camping in the area.  We asked about how far to water and they indiciated that the Beaverhead forest service office was 10 miles down the road was the nearest place on our route with water.  Just to be safe they topped off our water bottles before heading out.

30 miles of high mountain desert south of Collins Park

Once we arrived at the Beaverhead NFS office we splurged on a cold Coke from their soda machine.  We had planned to ride on to Wall Lake, another 7 miles down the road, but a sign outside the forest service office said the area was private property and no longer open to public camping.  There was a camping site just down the road from the forest service office, so we called it a day since we had ready access to water at the forest service office.

While we were camped at Beaverhead, I had a guy walk up toward our campsite with a very large revolver.  Before he got to the camp site, he set his gun down and walked up to introduce himself.  He was camped near the road in a 5th wheel while he worked on a bridge repair job down the road.  He was just coming up to do some target practice and wasn't aware we had camped near him.  Really nice guy from near Showlow, AZ.   We talked for a while and he topped off my water supply so I wouldn't have to go back to the forest service office to fill up again.

Wall Lake... too bad you can't camp here.

We were up and on the road by 8:30 the next morning since we planned to make it to Roberts Lake just north of Silver City.  This is the heart of the Gila national forest with some seriously steep climbs on some pretty rough roads.  It was a tough day of 54 miles and 5300' of climbing.   After a couple of "wakeup" climbs we reached Wall Lake.  It would have been a great campsite with ready access to water, but as advertised there were no trespassing signs posted everywhere.

I had yet another flat tire at Wall Lake.  Luckily Russ had a 29" tube that would fit my tire since I didn't have any more sealant and the spare tube that was in my bike bag had multiple holes in it.  After getting the flat fixed we were back to climbing on our way to Black Canyon and a water resupply, or so we hoped.  Since we weren't  absolutely sure we would make it to Lake Roberts we were carrying a pretty full load of water in case we needed to dry camp again.

Creek in Black Canyon

If you haven't noticed yet, water was becoming a pretty consistent concern.  My max water capacity was about 2 gallons and Russ could carry 1.5 gallons.  That might seem like a lot, but when you are riding 6-8 hours per day, the winds are warm and dry, you may need to dry and camp ride to water the next day, it is barely enough.

We flagged down a construction truck coming toward us to ask about water ahead.  They confirmed the stream at the bottom of Black Canyon was running and there should be no problem.  Just like everyone we asked about water, they offered us a few bottles.  This time we said we were OK and could easily make it to the stream... but we appreciated the offer just the same.

A view of some of the switch backs dropping
into Black Canyon

The descent into Black Canyon did not disappoint.  It was a winding, steep set of switchbacks to a narrow canyon floor.  As promised a nice flowing stream was there and we took the time to filter about 6 quarts of water to restock our supply.  Some dark clouds were rolling in, but only a few sprinkles fell as we climbed our way out of the canyon.

After climbing out of Black Canyon, we quickly descended into Rock Canyon.  We had been warned about this section of road by several people we had talked to over the past couple of days.  The road for the descent is on an almost talcum power white dust.  I noticed my bike was acting a little squarely on some some of the corners and almost loosing control on one particularly steep sharp corner.  I finally stopped to check out my bike and found my front tire was almost flat.  It's amazing what a little air pressure can do for your bike handling.  I pumped it back up and it held for the rest of the trip.

When we hit the bottom of Rock Canyon, there were no less than a dozen rock strewn dry stream crossings in the narrow canyon.  I had been told by the construction worker from AZ that we might have to walk our bikes through here.  It was nowhere near that bad... that's why we are riding mountain bikes, but it was clearly too rocky for anything but a vehicle with a foot of ground clearance and 4-wheel drive would have been a good idea.

As we climbed out of Rock Canyon, the major climbs for the day were behind us.  We met another cyclist coming our way and he stopped to chat for a while.  He was trying to ride the entire 2700+ mile route in 20 days.  He had started at the Antelope Wells border crossing at noon the day before and was already 45 miles past Silver City (about 165 miles total).  He was packed ultra-light, planning on riding 150 miles/day and only sleeping only about 6 hours per night.  That is just plain crazy.

We later heard that he was probably pre-riding the divide route to race it later in the summer.  The Great Divide Race, is an unofficial race that can be done either Banff to Antelope Wells or Antelope Wells to Banff with about the only rules being you can't have any support and you must follow the specified route.  It is pretty much on the honor system as there are no race course judges and no specific start date.  There is a website to track your progress.

Last Continental Divide crossing before Silver City

We rolled into the Lake Roberts area about 6PM in hopes of finding a room or cabin.  Lake Roberts is a small community with limited services but a general store and a couple of campgrounds.  After asking at one lodge about a room (cash only) we moved on to the general store which also had cabins.  They had a 2 night minimum, but were nice enough to open the store to let us get some cold drinks (first beer in a week) and offered to let us camp in their picnic area with water available.  That was plenty good enough after a long day of riding.

After a cup of coffee at the general store, we headed toward Silver City.  It was only 29 miles, but 2500' of climbing, some of it at greater than 10% grades.  By 1PM we were in Silver City and having lunch at Wranglers Bar & Grill which include a big piece of cheese cake for desert.  

We checked into the Motel 6 to get some rest, do some laundry, get some rest, resupply and plan for our last to 2 days to make it to the border.