The next two days consisted of trying to getting to Lordsburg before the post office closed at noon. The fact was that my pack was way too heavy. I had twice as much food as I needed (thinking I’d only be doing 15 mile days but that’s easy to solve by giving it away) but also had way too much gear. Making the post office on time meant 35 trail miles and another road mile in a day and a half. The trick was the first day was crazy hot and the sun relentless. It was a hard day. Even the cows looked hot. At one point there were even buzzards circling overhead. Seriously!

At dinner, I was bushed but after a rest and little food in my belly felt good again and decided to night hike once again and knocked out another 3 miles without getting too lost. That was more like it and left just 12 miles to knock off the next day before noon and then I could take a half day off to recover.

I made the dash for the post office at 11:15A and forwarded a bunch of gear home, yay!!!

Throughout the day, our hiking posse continued to trickle in to clean up and recover. Many limping and thinking about zeroing in town tomorrow. The desert is not easy on the body. Dinner was a giant delicious salad from the salad bar with a grilled cheese sandwich and loaded baked potato all for $9.18 at Kranberry’s Chatterbox.

In the next 76 mile section to Silver City, we start seeing real mountains and I’ll need to pack light.