I (Swen) have been on a 2 week hitchhiking trip through the US, while Kat went to Nairobi, Kenya for a training with Doctors without Borders. She dropped me off on the highway here, Interstate 25 in Las Cruces, a few hours before she headed to the airport to fly off.
I was only on the highway for a few minutes before a family stopped their car. The dad stopped, really: his wife was all shut up and unhappy looking and barely said a word, and the two 5 year old boys just kept on hitting each other, and occasionally me, if I came close enough! But the dad was nice, kept chatting with me, checked my Spanish skills when I told him about the planned bicycle trip through south America, invited me for lunch and gave me a wooden cross necklace with lots of Madonnas on it: for protection, he said.
They let me off on the highway in the center of Albuquerque, New Mexico’s biggest city. A strong wind was blowing, cars flying past. After a little while a car stopped: two Navajo Indians on their way to a football game in Denver, Colorado, far in the north. Minutes after I sit in the car tornado and hail warnings are issued over the radio, high wind speeds are predicted. Little later it starts raining like hell. A lot of cars stop under bridges to get in refuge of the predicted hail, others stop on the middle of the highway, we have to drive very carefully. The storm lasts for hours, as soon as it calms down a little, the sky seems to break apart again and fall down on us. I was so lucky to get a lift that quick, would I have been out on the road a few minutes longer, me and all my gear would have been drenched, only few hours after the beginning of my trip!
Next day I start hitchhiking into the mountains of Colorado. The first snow is in view, I am surprised, as I was still in summer mode from the warm weather in New Mexico. A nice young woman who volunteers on an organic farm gives me a lift and we chat nicely. Just after Elizabeth picks me up, she lives just outside of Aspen, a very fancy ski town. I was planning to hike into the mountains there to go to Conundrum Hot Springs, at 12.300 feet (3750m) seemingly the highest ones in the US. But Elizabeth first takes me home, planning to drop me off at the beginning of the trail to the springs a few minutes later. In the middle of the forest on a little creek is there house, a solar house built 30 years ago be her and her husband Edgar, just magic: the spot, the view, the house!!
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Edgar is a cameraman, he has been making nature, history and science documentaries around the world for 30 years, last in Nepal with his son as his assistant, the expedition was sponsored by The North Face, he shows me some photos. We chat and chat, it is getting dark, and as they have such a lovely party tent with a queen size bed and lots of blankets out in their garden on the shore of the creek, I decide to stay for the night. We cook and eat yammie Tofu stir fry, drink some wine, look at maps and guide books, they give me plenty of advice where to go and what to see. A very nice and enriching encounter!
They also call directly their friend Frank in Aspen, who has been working for MSF (Doctors without Borders) last year for one mission. He gets me on the phone, and we exchange our experiences in a different world for a while. Frank invotes me to his house the next day, of the day after, whenever I come out of the mountains again.
They also call directly their friend Frank in Aspen, who has been working for MSF (Doctors without Borders) last year for one mission. He gets me on the phone, and we exchange our experiences in a different world for a while. Frank invotes me to his house the next day, of the day after, whenever I come out of the mountains again.
In the morning my water bottle is frozen solid in the party tent, and my face is frozen red. After breakfast Edgar drives me to the start of Conundrum trail, and I start the 8 mile hike up to the hot springs. It’s a tough climb: there are several river crossings (and often no bridge), there is quite some snow the further I get up, and my backpack is pretty heavy, as I was equipped with lots of food by Kat and her mom before leaving. But Conundrum Hot Springs are definitely worth the effort – surrounded by 15.000 feet snowy rocky peaks, hot water is flowing over the barren ground, leaving a steaming path on the snow-covered ground. Some people have built a big pool of natural rocks, the water is bubbling up from its bottom like in a jakuzi, in that perfect temperature that you can stay in for hours. The view just stunning.
I stay in till my skin is all crumbled up and I get very hungry. I cook a meal, and realize that its getting already freezy cold up there, even though its only 3pm. When hiking up a guy came down, telling me last night it went down to 6 degrees Fahrenheit. I don’t know then how much that is, in Celsius…? But I feel its cold, and I feel I will have to cuddle up in my tent in my sleeping bag in very short time (or sleep in the hot spring… ?? J)… Should I still head back down? It’s far! But its cold!....
After a while of pondering back and forth, I finally pack and run down the hill. It is getting late, I have to be quick if I want to reach Aspen again before it’s getting dark. I manage, but I am terribly exhausted by the time I stand on Franks front porch. Legs are shaking, my right shoulder is dying from carrying the heavy pack, the whole body hurts. But at Franks I have a hot shower, nice food, fun MSF chats, and drop dead in bed early.
Next morning everything feels a bit better, if still stiff. Frank asks me during breakfast if I like flying. Sure, I say, I am doing paragliding back home! Half an hour later we are at Aspen airstrip, make his little Cessna ready, and take off over the mountains of Aspen. Crazy!!! Snow peaks, then out over the desert and the canyons. He explains me the plane, the handling, lets me take over: up and down, right and left, make a full turn, get the plane back on track. A little bit scary, I find the handling of a paraglider more direct and easy, it feels like a bit too much power in my hands, this machine…. but amazing nonetheless.
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1 ½ hours later we land at Canyonlands Airstrip. Frank accompanies me to the highway next to the airport, where I get a lift before he had even taken off to fly back home. A few miles down the road, and I am at the entry of Arches National Park. At the Visitor Center I get a permission for Backcountry camping, as the only official campsite is already full. A German in his convertible gives me a lift into the park, where I leave my pack in a corner and hike for a few hours through the rock arches and pinnacles, some snowy mountains still visible in the distance. Then I descend into a dry valley to get away from the arches and trails for finding a camp spot. In the sandy creek bed there are tracks that can only be from the mountain lion (Puma), lots of them all over, I kind of fear to run into him behind every next turn of the narrow gorge. Getting anywhere here is really difficult: thorny bushes, steep rock cliffs, narrow passages, water holes remaining from the last rainy season – and the only flat rocks that would be great to walk on are covered with biological soil crust, a knobby, black crust that is dominated by cyanobacteria, but also includes lichens, mosses, green algae, microfungi and bacteria to hold the few soil there is in place. Walking on it destroys it, and it takes a looong time to regrow, the rangers told me at my checkin. Finally I manage to get out of the valley onto a flat rock that doesn’t have soilcrust, and I pitch my base for the night. The view seems endless, wildnis without limits, no signs of human existence. A huge full moon is rising, while the earth is still red by the last sunlight.
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Midday, I am standing again on the highway at the entrance of Arches NP, hitchhiking on. A lifelong rafting-guide gives me a ride, explains me the natural and geological features along the long drive through barren vast land towards Las Vegas, where he is going for a bachelors night and the wedding the day after. There is just rocks, cliffs, some shrubs and the occasional pine tree, and no town or village for hundreds of miles. How difficult it must have been for the first settlers to “discover” this inhospitable barren stretches of the southwest!
I get out at the exit towards Zion NP, where to extreme rock climbers pick me up. They just came from Yosemite NP, where they were hanging for 6 days (!!!) on the cliff of the North Face, while storm and snow was going down on them, in these little bench bends thousands of feet over the ground. Crazy… and amazing. They advice me to camp at Mosquito Cove, a little cove on the Virgin River a few miles before the entrance to Zion NP (where campsites are mostly full and you have to pay).
There are already a few campervans and tents in the cove, so I don’t have troubles in the mornings to get a ride into the park. For 2 1/2 days I hike in the park and sleep at Mosquito Cove, climb Angels Landing, walk to the Emerald Pools, crouch under Weeping Rock, and discover the Narrows, a gorge cut into thousands of feet of rock by the Virgin River, often only a few meters wide. We walk for hours upstream through the water, the blue sky mostly only a fine line above us, the rocks rising vertically forever. See fotos…!
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Another morning of hitchhiking; an Australian mate brings me to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. He didn’t really plan to go there, which is very typical for my hitchhiking experience in the US: people ended up bringing me somewhere where they didn’t really plan to go all the time! At Grand Canyon I get again a camping permit, for 3 nights, to go slowly from the North to the South Rim, through the bottom of the canyon on the way. Grand Canyon is that big, you have to drive 260 miles around it to get by car to the other side!
I start descending into the massive slot. Far far it goes down, red cliffs, steep switchback trails, a big waterfall plunges straight out of a cliff face into the canyon, the hugest fresh water spring I have ever seen. Just before I finally reach the first campground, a couple jogs past me, camelbags on their backs, eyes on the path to jump over the rocks and down the steps. No time, no time, I try to ask why they run like this, where they are heading, but no time, no time…. At the campsite I meet them again, they refill their camelbags, and this time they explain to me that they are Ultra-marathon runners, that they started off this morning at 5am at the South Rim, ran to the North Rim, and back: 21 miles (34km), 1500m down and 1600m back up – and then all the way back!!! A lot of crazy sportsmen here in the US it seems…
I spend another 2 nights in the canyon, hiking leisurely, watchin Big Horn Sheep, Mule Deer, Squirrels and lots of rocks. Bathing in Bright Angel Creek, walking along the green Colorado River, thundering threw the gorge. A lot of rafts are descending the stream, the Crew I talk to is on the river for 21 days in total… can you give me a ride, I am tempted to ask, but I know its impossible and I don’t have the time.
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From Grand Canyon I head slowly back towards New Mexico. I get stuck for 2 days in the tiny 600 people village of Duncan, Arizona in the house of Earl and James, two long bearded brothers in their 50s, who pick me up at the village petrol station/liquor store. They like drinking and smoking, have never finished any school but have both served some time in prison, and done hard work all their life. They are very cute and nice, and offer me to stay for a day or two to help them with their work. They offer me 10$ an hour, and I am happy to have a base for a little while after all the hiking and hitching, so I help them building a little flat into a big barn on a ranch. The whole village is full of cowboys and cowgirls, we go to the local pub and café, men wearing 50s sunglasses and talking in a way that I don’t understand a word…. Earl and James present me everywhere as Stevie Wonder, cause they can’t pronounce Swen, and nobody believes us that I am German and that they picked me up in the village just like that… A nice backcountry USA experience!
Friday Earl and James don’t work, and so we take the Jeep and they drive me to San Francisco Hot Springs, 2 hours away, back in New Mexico. I hike down to the river, the springs are right on the shore of it, where I alternate between warm and cold water, walk a bit through the small canyon, and collect lots of firewood for the night. The brothers equipped me with a 6pack of beer, so it’s a long last night of my trip near the fire!
Next morning I finally head back to Las Cruces, Kat lands in El Paso the next day from Kenia, and we start our last preparations for the big trip.
On Thursday Victoria (Kat’s mom), Anna (sister), Kat and I will drive to San Diego, California, a 3 million city a few miles form the border to Mexico. We will stay with Kat’s other sister Cristina, and visit some friends of Kats nearby. In about a week they will all drive is a bit down into Mexico, some miles south of the border, and we will get on our bikes and ride!!! We have a couple of contacts in Baja California wher ewe can stay and rest for a day, and Micha, a good friend of Swen from back home, will come join us for a while in a few weeks. Lots of nights on the beach are waiting for us…..
Big hugs to you all, be well, and send some news sometime!
yours, Swen
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