Posted by 22 miles
The the only joy in today was a late start and cooked breakfast back at the gathering place. Just about the entire journey from Pie Town into Grants would be on roads.
From Pie Town it was a rough slog all day on a dirt road. The road out is 31 miles to Hwy 117 and it would take a day and a quarter to complete.
The aim of today was to get as many miles in on day 1. It was not hot but super windy. The winds causing my lips to crack. Eating anything with salt was painful.
Pritch, Trousers and myself headed out first and stayed together through to around lunch time. Not content with a long break in the wind I was keen to keep trudging along to get the miles in.
There was not a lot to see other than dust devils that whipped up in the wind. Dodging cars was the other main pastime, stepping off the side of the road and eating dust as they past.
Late in the afternoon everyone regrouped at TCL Ranch to top up on water and consider options ahead. Pritch and myself arrived first, followed by Trousers, Chowdah and X-Ray followed by Christina.
At 4pm with plenty of light left in the day everyone was keen to keep moving. The next water source was around 7.5miles which I didn’t quite have in me. Options were a bit limited due to land tenure with mixed BLM and private property along the road edge. Camping is permitted on Bureau of Land Management lands but all the private had clearly displayed No Trespassing signs. 4 miles from TCL ranch we would reach private property. We could camp on the boundary but would have to walk through another 3 miles of private land before the next camping opportunity. I pushed on for the 4 miles and was joined by Chowdah and Pritch. X-Ray and Trousers continued on for the extra 3 miles. It was close to 6pm and I just didn’t have it in me calling it a day.
Mick Beckers 