Day 14 to Ojo Piedra Spring

It was hard to leave the comfort of nice beds, but the smell of Jack cooking eggs, bacon and waffles got us up. Today was a momentous one. John was leaving us to ride back to Aztec. After riding miles of dirt roads, Cassi and I were getting back onto the single track of the CDT. Finally, we were saying goodbye to Jack who'd been such a gracious host.

It was a long day on the bike. Cassi and I rode out of town and to the trail head then pedaled/pushed our way to the top of Mesa Chivato. We spent the rest of the day on single track circumnavigating 11300 foot Mount Taylor. An ancient volcano that dominates the landscape, Mount Taylor is a holy place for Native Americans. It is the southernmost of the Navajo's 4 sacred mountains. For the Zunis, it is a source of rain. The Acoma harvested huge ponderosa from its slopes to build their mission in the 1600's, never letting the logs touch the ground. Partially out of deference to the tribes, partially because of lack of water, but mainly because of exhaustion, we did not climb to the top.

In the morning we came across a group from the Youth Conservation Corp doing trail work. They were happy to see people on the trail and we complimented them on creating such a good trail. Their director gave us some good info on water sources. It was still hot enough to take a short midday siesta. The trail in the afternoon was hard to follow and we got misplaced a few times. We came across 2 section hikers who'd started in Grants and were heading for the San Juans in CO.

After 30 miles we arrived at Ojo Piedra Spring, our water source for the day. It was flowing at a trickle (it took 5 minutes to fill one bottle) and we had to shoo away the cows, but it was cold and clear and tasted good. Time to camp for the night.