Leaving Grants I cruise up the table mesa leading to Mt. Taylor (or the Navajo name Mt. Tsoodził). I look up and see a bear looking at me. It runs off into the woods, followed by three cubs trotting and trying to keep up. Buncha cuties on this trail!

I’ve seen more varied wildlife in New Mexico in the last three weeks than I’ve ever seen in California.

I make it to the summit at 11,301 ft for sunrise and get a preview of what’s to come over the next couple days. Mt. Tsoodził is a very sacred place for the Navajo as it marks the southern boundary of the Nation.

Locals tell me some of the Navajo legends. “The chief of the Enemy Gods, Yé’iitsoh, once resided in the mountain. When the Twin War Gods (Born for Water and Monster Slayer, sons of Changing Woman) killed Yé’iitsoh, his blood spilled down the slopes and hardened into the lava flows of El Malpais.”

Leaving the Tsoodził mesa, I get chased by a thunderstorm as the landscape changes drastically. Doing thirty mile days out here and you can be walking on snow one day, and meandering across the desert the next.

I climb through canyons and up and over mesas for the next 40 miles wondering why I didn’t take more geology courses. Each mesa is slightly different than the last. I get water from natural springs that drip from caves cut into the mesa.

I peer back and get a view of Mt. Tsoodził in the distance, seeing some scale of what I’ve crossed in the last three days.

I’m in the town of Cuba, NM, definitely headed to Mel’s Drive Thurr.

The only way to contact the outside world is the wifi at McDonald’s… There are quite a few sausage egg mcmuffins in my near future (breakfast alllll day!!).