CDT: It's go time!

Tomorrow morning we hit the trail! We will be up at 5 a.m. in order to catch our 6:15 a.m. shuttle. The shuttle will take us to the trailhead. 

We've spent the last two days in Lordsburg, NM. We had a few trail chores to do including mailing a couple of packages and picking up a few supplies. We've watched several movies and eaten at both of Lordsburg's restaurants. We are definitely relaxed and in the right mindset for our hike.

We will be on the trail for seven days and should be back in Lordsburg next Tuesday. 

I set up an Instagram for our hike. If you want to follow it too @cpnscootpoohyolo

Happy trails!

CDT: Hiker fuel

Hiking 3,000 miles is a monumental task. Of course one needs to be physically able and have proper gear in order to succeed. Another important part of the journey is fuel for your body. Hikers tend to gravitate to the same foods - Ramen, tortillas, tuna packs, peanut butter, crackers, granola bars. These items are fine at times and will find thier way into our packs. For our thru-hike, we will try to use foods that are light weight and nutritionally dense. 

What does that mean exactly? Our process is to take the calories of a serving and divide that by the grams (weight of the item). The best options are a four or higher. A fellow thru-hiker put together an extensive spreadsheet of common backpacking foods which is a great help. We also spend a lot of time doing math in the grocery store. 🙃 

The main components of our meals will be protein, carbs and fat. We also want to be sure we get vitamins and minerals in our diet too. 

Protein will come from dehydrated (DH) meats, jerky and nuts.

Carbs will be Ramen, soy noodles, orzo, rice and couscous. 

To add fat to our meals, we will carry a bottle of olive oil and add a squirt to our dinner. 

DH vegetables and fruit will be part of meals to add a vitamin boost. We will also take a daily vitamin.

Before leaving Minneapolis, I assembled meals that The Conductor will ship to us along the route. I put together 67 dinners, 55 lunches and 31 breakfasts. Scoot made 18 sandwich bags of trail mix. We also included various snacks like bars and sesame wafers. We won't receive a box in every town so we will shop local and stick to our cal/gram guideline the best we can. For variety, several store bought DH backpacker meals will be added to the mix.

A typical day of food looks like this:

Protein bar in the A.M.

Breakfast - Granola with nuts, fruit, coconut milk, kreotene

Lunch - Honeystinger waffles with nut butter,  DH fruit 

Dinner - couscous with DH chicken, DH carrots, spices 

Snacks - trail mix

Other - instant coffee,  powdered sports  drink 

The pictures show DH carrots and zucchini (I DH 8 lbs of carrots and 4 lbs of zucchini), one day of food, and 14 days of food before we repackaged it. The video shows the meals assembled in Minneapolis. 

CDT: 3 days to go

We start our journey in 3 days. I'm feeling a little stir crazy and a little anxious. Sort of like the night before a big game or a big presentation. We've been planning this day for a long time, and we're ready to go.

We traveled to Arizona a week ahead of our hike date to spend time with my mother and acclimate to the hot and arid desert conditions.  Every day, we hiked about 5 mi in the morning sun. It's been about 90° when we finished our morning hikes.  There is always a lot to see in the desert.  Many plants are in bloom and there's always a lot of critters running around the desert.

We had the opportunity to work on our “hey… there's a snake at your feet skills today”. It was a miserable failure. Pooh was walking along the trail while focusing on taking a picture. I saw a snake at her feet and told her to step to her right, which would have been away from the snake. In her panic, she stepped to the left twice towards the snake!! Luckily, the snake was harmless.  We'll work on this skill some more. I was probably a little too animated as I wasn't sure what kind of snake it was, which added some tension to a stressful situation.  I believe this is a bull snake, which looks like a western diamondback rattlesnake.

Tomorrow morning (Monday) we catch the Amtrak from Tucson to Lordsburg, New Mexico. We'll be in Lordsburg until Wednesday morning when we catch the shuttle to the Mexican border at 6:15 a.m.  The shuttle is a paid service provided by the Continental Divide Trail Coalition (CDTC). The ride to the border is approximately 3 hours. We'll start hiking around 10:00 a.m. Ideally, in the desert you want to hike in the morning or in the evenings and try not to hike in the heat of the day. The first day our goal is 10 mi, which will be a bit of a challenge with the late start.  As part of the shuttle service fee, the CDTC caches water for us.  The location of the water dictates the schedule for the first week.

Gear List

GEAR 

Gear is a critically important part of our trek. The goal is to strike a balance between carrying the lightest pack possible and making sure every trail need is covered. There will be times when we are multiple hiking days away from the nearest road, so every situation must be handled with what we are carrying. 

We took two shakedown hikes last summer, one on the Pacific Crest Trail in Washington and one on the CDT in New Mexico. We learned a lot from both trips. One of the biggest takeaways was that our gear was too heavy, and we needed to lighten the load. We upgraded several items, including a new tent that brought us from 5.5 lbs. down to 1.25 lbs. We also underestimated the availability of water sources in New Mexico. In the desert section from Lordsburg to Silver City, we will be carrying 2 gallons of water each. Those hikes also reminded us of the importance of leave-no-trace camping principles, including camping and cooking away from water sources and off the trail. At the same time, we kept a few items that add comfort, even if they count as “luxuries” by ultralight standards. Here is the breakdown of our gear. 

Base weight 

My pack’s base weight is about 16.875 lbs. Pooh’s base weight is about 13.75 lbs. Halfway Anywhere surveys CDT and PCT hikers annually, and one part of the survey asks what gear hikers carried. For the 2025 CDT season, the average base weight was 14.4 lbs. Pooh is a little under that average, and I am a little over it. 

Big three 8.5 lbs. 

The heaviest items are known as the big three: the tent or shelter system, sleeping bag, and backpack. My big three come in at 8.5 lbs., and Pooh’s come in at 8.25 lbs. I am carrying the tent. Pooh has a heavier pack by 11 oz. and a heavier sleeping bag by 14 oz., so it essentially balances out between the two of us. 

Wearables 4 lbs. 

The clothes I will not be wearing weigh just under 4 lbs. This includes extra socks, camp shoes, underwear, a midlayer fleece, a puffy coat, a rain suit, and wind jackets. 

Kitchen 1 lb. 

Our kitchen includes the stove, titanium pot, spoon, and water filtration system. My weight here came in at exactly 1 lb. Most of the food we will consume will be dehydrated meals, and we plan to cook dinner on the stove every night. The stove weighs 4.5 ounces. 

Electronics 1.9 lbs. 

Electronics are where we carry a few of our biggest luxuries, including a GoPro and the equipment needed to use it. This item was a gift from a team member when I retired, and he asked to share some footage of our trek. We have taken that idea a step further with this blog. I hope to post 10 to 20 minutes of edited footage every week to 10 days. That footage will help preserve the memory of this trip, and I think it is worth the additional weight. 

We also have two charging bricks that are good for six cell phone charges, a wall outlet and cords for charging all of our electronics when we are in town, and a Garmin inReach, which is a satellite SOS device that can connect with search and rescue if needed while we are on the trail. We will use the inReach to communicate with our family every day so they know we are doing all right, and it will also send our GPS location. 

Miscellaneous 1.5 lbs. 

The last category is miscellaneous gear. This includes toiletries, hiking poles, a first aid kit, a washcloth, a sun umbrella, and bear bags and rope. This category weighs in at about 1.5 lbs. 

Our daughter, Carmela, henceforth known by her trail name, The Conductor, is coordinating our resupply boxes. A resupply box is something that will be mailed general delivery to a post office along the trail for Pooh and me to pick up when we wander by. Of course, we will have to wander by during normal business hours, which may prove to be an interesting challenge. Small rural post offices may only be open four hours on certain days. There will be a total of 12 resupply boxes, about one every two weeks. 

For example, in the desert, I’m not bringing fleece gloves or a knit cap because the overnight low temperatures are expected to be in the 40s. Those items will be shipped in a resupply box to Silver City, N.M. We will be carrying microspikes that attach to our shoes (to reduce the chances of slipping down a steep, icy mountain face) in Colorado, and those will be mailed to Chama, the last town we hike through in New Mexico. We may also mail some things back once we get through the desert. For example, we might decide that we do not want our sun umbrellas after we leave that section. If so, we could mail them back to a resupply point later in the trek, likely at the end of Colorado. We will use the umbrellas in the Wyoming Basin, which we plan to cross in mid-July. 

There is a lot of information on the internet about gear and backpacking philosophies. The prevailing wisdom is that if you want an ultralight pack, you are aiming for a 10 lb. base weight or less. If we wanted to trek this light, some of the things we would have to cut out would be the GoPro, the tent in favor of cowboy camping with a tarp, the second sleeping pad, and the inflatable pillow. We would not carry extra clothes. We would probably lose the rain pants. We would drop the sun umbrella for the desert. We would lose the stove, and plan for all cold meals. 

When we looked at the sacrifices required to get our base weight down another 4 to 6 lbs., we decided it simply was not worth it. There is a certain amount of comfort we want on the trail. If we do not get a good night’s sleep and wake up sore, that may make for grumpy hikers. Bears eat grumpy hikers. Comfort matters even more when we will be doing something close to a marathon’s worth of distance each day once we get into northern New Mexico and points farther north. 

I hope you enjoyed our post. Thanks for following along. We leave for Arizona in 4 days. If you are enjoying our posts, please hit the subscribe button on the page, and you will get our regular updates, which will probably come every week to 10 days when we are on the trail. 

/CS

The full base weight list...

Item	Scott		Christy
Big 3 Tent, Pack, Bag	Grams	Oz.	Grams	Oz.
Pack, liner and rain cover	1326	46.8	1628	57.4
Tent & Ground Pad	687	24.2
Tent Stakes (includes carabiner for bear bag)	137	4.8
Sleeping Bag	765	27.0	1187	41.9
Inflatable Sleeping Pad	531	18.7	524	18.5
Waffle Pad - Nemo Switchback	371	13.1	371	13.1
Inflatable Pillow	80	2.8	49	1.7
Clothes
Camp Socks	24	0.8	24	0.8
Camp Shoes	291	10.3	118	4.2
Extra Socks	93	3.3	182	6.4
Camp Shirt	147	5.2	95	3.4
Underware	97	3.4	51	1.8
Base Layer - Legs Ridge Marino	186	6.6	202	7.1
Mid Layer Fleece	197	7.0	143	5.0
Puffy jacket Black Diamond (S) Patagonia (C)	314	11.1	349	12.3
Rain Pants - Frogg Toggs	125	4.4	79	2.8
Rain Jacket - Frogg Toggs	168	5.9	126	4.4
Wind Jacket - Patagonia	120	4.2	17	0.6
Buff	40	1.4	46	1.6
Knit Cap - Minus 33			57
Miscellaneous Gear
First Aid Kit			60
Trowel DirSaw Deuce	17	0.6	17	0.6
TP full roll & hand sanitizer	128	4.5	128	4.5
Hiking Poles Durston (with first aid tape and duct tape wound on the pole)	271	9.6	265	9.4
Wash cloth	16	0.6	16	0.6
Sun Umbrella & pack attachment kit (may send back after the desert)	174	6.1	174	6.1
Toiletries (includes RX glasses)	95	3.4	131	4.6
Bear bags & rope			197
Kitchen
Camp Stove	127	4.5
750 ML Titanium pot, lid and insulated sleeve - Toaks	114	4.0	114	4.0
Titanium spoon - SeaToSummit	12	0.4	12	0.4
Water Filter - Sawyer Squeeze	198	7.0	198	7.0
Water Filter - Syringe			30	1.1
Electronics
DJI Action 4 camera/recorder	16	0.6		0.0
Extra Battery	33	1.2		0.0
Nitecore 10000 & 2000 charging bricks	457	16.1		0.0
video pack mount and tripod	161	5.7		0.0
Wall Outlet Anker dual port 47w	86	3.0		0.0
Cords	28	1.0		0.0
Garmin InReach Satellite SOS device			112
Headlamp - Black Diamond	75	2.6	75	2.6
Total	7,707	271.95	6,777	224.10
Will Ship in Later		0.0
Knit hat Gossamer Gear	49	1.7
Fleece Gloves REI	67	2.4	75
Microspikes - Ghost	170	6.0	170
Insulated phone case	31	1.1	31
Mosquito head net	22	0.8	22

FAQ

 Whenever we share our plans, people have questions. A lot of questions. I hope to answer many of them here. If you have additional questions, leave a comment and we'll answer it in a future post. P

Will you be hiking with a group?

    Initially, it will just be the two of us. Along the trail we will meet other hikers and may hike part of the way with some of them. We're looking forward to getting to know our fellow hikers and form a Tramily (trail family).

Where will you sleep?

    In a tent! Most nights we will be on the trail sleeping in a tent. About once a week we will need to head into a town for a resupply of food, do laundry and shower. When in town, we will definitely be sleeping in a bed.

How will you get more food?

    We will resupply our food in two main ways. First, along the trail we will visit towns/cities with a grocery store (or sometimes just a convenience store) to buy food for the next leg of the trek. Second, we have put together resupply boxes that will be shipped to us at various locations or, in some cases, hand delivered (Yay! Dave & Amy) along the way. Thanks Carmela for being our resupply trail angel!

What about water?

    Since we will be starting in the desert, water will be cached for us for about the first 85 miles. After that we will use water sources along the trail. These may be streams, ponds, rivers or cow troughs. We use an app that shows were possible water sources are which makes things easier (if there is actually water there).

Are you walking the whole way?

    Yes! A thru-hike means hiking all the way. Occasionally we will grab a ride into town and then back to the trailhead. 

What's with the names?

    A hiker tradition is to have a trail name. Our trail names will become our identity for the next six months. Scott's name, Captain Scoot, is a name that his Boundary Waters crew has been using for years. Christy's name, Pooh, has been her family nickname since she was seven. 

What about bathroom facilities?

    A favorite question of many. One of the first CDT blogs I read started with "if you are uncomfortable reading about how you poop and pee on the trail, you have no business being on the trail". There are no toilets on the trail. You take care of business in the wild; off the trail a bit. 

What do you bring with you?

    Our gear list is short out of necessity. Since we have to carry everything, we won't be bringing much and what we bring will be light or ultra-light. We will bring a couple of "luxury items" such as blow up pillows. Scott will share more on gear in another post. 

A Plan is Hatched

 Sometimes big plans come from the smallest suggestions. In March of 2023, I spent some time reading about hiking the Continental Divide Trail. One night at dinner, I mentioned this to Scott and the wheels were set in motion. For the past three years we have been reading, planning and preparing for what will become our first (and hopefully not last), YOLO adventure.

The Continental Divide Trail (CDT) is a 3,100 mile long trek the stretches from the New Mexico/Mexico border to the Montana/Canada border. The trail winds its way through New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. Between 150 - 400 people attempt this hike each year. In 2024 160 people reported completing the entire hike. This summer we hope to be amongst the group who can call themselves finishers.

Our epic journey will begin on April 1. We will catch a shuttle early in the morning that will take us to the trailhead. From there, we will hike northbound (NOBO) towards Canada. Along the way we will stop to resupply our food, wash our clothes, take showers and even visit with some friends. The trek will take us about 6 months to complete.

We will be sharing stories, photos and videos on this site while we are on this journey. We hope you will follow along and enjoy the experience with us. 

P