From NM without burros ☹

After 4 1/2 months with our beloved, comic, trusting and strong friends, - our burros Wellstone and Pingora, - we were finally forced by snows and slippery trails to send them home to the Ranches and continue south without them. However, we know that they will love the next few months enjoying their shed, and with nothing to do but eat, get fat and soak up some sun.

We miss them so much! For one, they are highly entertaining. One day, after a long, hard walk, we arrived exhausted at our re-supply truck complete with hay and water for the burros. Because they love to roll in sand or dirt – it’s one of their most favorite activities – we let them loose briefly. Upon discovering his freedom, Wellstone took off running down the road with Ping in hot pursuit – both at a fast gallop. Cody took off cross-country hoping to cut them off on the far side of the road’s switch back. She hightailed it for about a mile and it looked close as she closed in on the far side of the road. Although we were all cheering for her, she arrived on the road just as the donkeys went flying by. Knowing we may need a back-up plan, Bobby had also begun chasing them down, and after another mile or so of some good sprinting, was able to catch up with Pingora, whom, we believe was beginning to doubt Wellstone’s reasoning in leaving all their food and water and was slightly slowing. Once Pingora was captured, we were able to use her as “bait” to catch Wellstone as neither of them likes to leave the other. Needless to say, that experience made us a lot more careful about letting them loose.

Another reason we miss them is that they carried a lot of our goodies. Now that the donkeys are gone and we have switched to light backpacks, we are missing some of those creature comforts. Instead of tucking in ourselves each night into our cozy 4-person tent, we climb under our “just exactly the right size” ultra light tarp, making sure throughout the night that we don’t stick our feet or heads out to collect dew. We now sit on the ground rather than at our donkey ported folding table and chairs, we cook over a small stove with a single pot rather than use our double-burner stove and there are no more brownies from our dutch-oven.

We also miss how friendly and personable the donkeys are. Ping LOVES being brushed every morning, stopping chewing every time, closing her eyes and enjoying herself. Jessie has also discovered that if you scratch their ears, they will drop their heads slowly down in bliss, relaxing their muscles until their lower lips flop back and forth. She’s a donkey masseuse!

Lastly, we miss that teamwork on the trail and their trust in us. We have been so very amazed with donkey’s unflagging fidelity. Although we have taken them through terrain with significant risk and consequences of a misstep, they have willingly followed us. For example, early on we encountered some fairly deep snowfields in which the donkeys could have easily been “high centered.” We knew we could keep them safe by digging them out if they did get stuck, but they didn’t know that and followed us anyway. They did get stuck, we have dug them out, but they retain their faith in us – and we think that’s pretty cool!

So, now our donkeys are at home, we miss them terribly and we feel we’ve said goodbye to a central part of our journey.

New Mexico –“Land of Enchantment” by Bobby

New Mexico license plates say the “Land of Enchantment” and for us as snow weary hikers dropping down from the Colorado high country it has certainly rung true.

We worked our way south across the mesa tops, lava fields and arroyos the past couple of weeks enchanted by the fiery sunsets, Anasazi pot shards poking through the sandy soil, and the by the warmth of the locals.

Our re-supply truck broke down on a Saturday along a remote lava field. With a few minutes a rancher had stopped to help, called a friend an hour a way who left a family gathering to come out and haul our truck and find an alternator to get it up and running again. While the truck was being fixed we continued south along the jeep roads towards Pie Town NM.

Speaking with a woman who had a ranch along our route and remaking at how amazed we were about the amount of ancestral puebloan artifacts we were seeing as we walked cross country on the mesas, she invited us to explore an undeveloped puebloan site that was on their ranch.
We hiked the 7 miles or so following her directions and found a pueblo that was last occupied possibly 800 years ago and had up to 1000 occupants. Intricately painted pots, arrow heads, walls, and rooms,whispered mysteries of the past occupants.


The day of our arrival into Pie Town (population 50 or so) was October 31st, and being well prepared trekkers we had hit the thrift stores in Chama and Cuba and were decked out in full Halloween costumes fitting for the occasion.The folks at the local café had been warned by who knows how many ranchers of our impending arrival. The pie was great, but better yet we met Nita. Off we went to her house and a few hours later we were showered, laundered, fed, filled of good stories, toured around town (to trick or treat) and feeling very loved and blessed.

350 miles to the Mexican border, and it’s starting to feel close.