Day: 020
Date: Sunday, 26 May 2024
Start: Martin Canyon
Finish: Pie Town
Daily Kilometres: 42.5
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 574.5
Weather: Very cold early then warm, sunny and windy
Accommodation: Tent
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pop tarts
Lunch: Trail mix
Dinner: Chicken pieces, macaroni cheese & vegetables, cherry pie.
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles; Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Our early dinner at the Pie-o-neer restaurant in Pie Town. When we arrived in Pie Town, the first of the two restaurants (the only two commercial establishments in town) we tried had just closed at 3pm and we feared the other might do the same. But, no, not only were they open, but they had an enormous and tasty Sunday dinner tray special which we both enjoyed. Pies were their speciality, so we bought a delicious cherry pie to take with us for a dinner snack tonight.
Lowlight: Having had a big meal and loaded our packs with three days food and a couple of litres of water each, the three and a half miles evening road walk out of town was not much fun.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We left camp at 6am for what we knew would be a day of road walking and so it proved to be with a break mid-afternoon to eat (see above) and resupply in the tiny village of Pie Town, though not so tiny that it couldn't support four churches.
The road walk was along undulating dirt road through ranching country, with ranges of mountains visible all around. It was easy walking and very few vehicles. One was driven by an old rancher who stopped for a social chat.
A characteristic of the day that we will remember was the kindness from anonymous strangers that we experienced and benefitted from.
Around 8am, we reached Davila Ranch, where a facility to aid CDT hikers has been set up just off the road in the bush. In a series of tin sheds the following could be found - water, hot water, shower, toilet, stove, refrigerator stocked with dozens of eggs and kilos of potatoes, other food, washing machines, driers, electrical outlets for charging devices and wi-fi, along with tables and chairs. There was nobody supervising and donations were asked for based on what was used. All on a trust basis. You could easily have stayed there for days, but we just stopped in for 30 minutes. Geoff, the hiker we met yesterday had stayed there last night.
Water was scarce along the road and we were lucky that another property maintained a water cache at its front gate for hikers.
Finally, the Toaster House is an unsupervised hostel in Pie Town where we collected our mailed food parcel and left our packs while we ate at a cafe. It was a large ramshackle house with all the facilities, including bedding, that was run totally on an honesty basis for hikers, who are entrusted to keep it neat and tidy. It would have been easy to stay there for a few days as well. Geoff was staying there a couple of nights until the Post Office opens on Tuesday, and it looks like he will have the place to himself.
As mentioned above, we collected our food and ate in Pie Town before rejoining the official CDT and following it north out of town. There were ranches and “No Trespassing” signs on both sides of the road and, around 6pm, we found a flat spot near a tree on the roadside verge and set up camp. A few cars have passed, but no trouble so far.
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