There are three southern termini of the CDT. The “official” point, which is the only one with a monument, is the most difficult to get to, and of course, the one that we chose. On Sunday, April 21, Ninja and I departed our parents’ homes in PA and took a series of three flights to end up in Tucson, AZ around 11pm.

We met up with Wired who flew in from Portland, OR and together we took a taxi to a hotel near the Amtrak station. Monday morning we walked to the train station and joined Liz who rode the train in from Santa Barbara, CA.

All four of us are PCT 2011 alumni and it’s a great feeling for all of us to be starting the CDT together. It was funny to discover how lax all of us had been in our planning. We all went to such great lengths to research the trail and choose the perfect gear for the PCT. Yet here on the train, the day before our hike starts, I was cutting straps off my pack and Liz was making rain chaps. I don’t know if having a thru hike under our belts has bred over-confidence, or just an acknowledgement that in the end, a few ounces don’t matter and much will be improvised anyway.

Upon arriving in Lordsburg, NM, we expected to be picked up by trail angel Sam Hughes. Instead, we were greeted by Sam’s neighbor, Steven, as Sam was busy driving other hikers to the border. We all piled in the back of this stranger’s windowless van without a second thought. Ah yes, another sign that this ain’t our first rodeo. Steven kindly chauffeured us around on errands all afternoon, including a stop along the trail to cache water. Not 30 seconds after we got out of the van along the side of the deserted road, a border patrol agent pulled up. He was very friendly and told us stories about drug traffickers using hiker registers to brag about how many pounds of dope they’d gotten through and make derogatory remarks in Spanish about the agents’ mothers.

When Steven finally dropped us off at Sam’s house around 4pm, Sam was still out on his second trip of the day to the border. Sam is 80 some years old and the border trip is two hours one way on badly washboarded dirt roads. There has been an explosion in the number of CDT hikers this year and many of us are relying on Sam to get to the border. We are lucky to have his and Steven’s help!

Daily Ninjup Report
For those who aren’t Ninja’s Facebook friends, I should explain that she has publicly announced she will complete 5 push-ups per day, every day on this hike. There will be a progress report at the end of every blog post. Sunday and Monday were both successes, though fitting them in to Sunday’s travel day required some public display of muscle.