Day 15 - Lordsburg, NM to Silver City, NM

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Crossed over the Continental Divide for the first time on this trip en route to the charming old town of Silver City, a copper mining town that was the childhood home of notorious outlaw Billy the Kid for several years. Today its many art galleries and stylish shops and restaurants  qualify it as an under the table radar tourist town that benefits from its proximity to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument https://www.nps.gov/gicl/index.htm located 45 miles north of Silver City. It is also home of Western New Mexico University.

As I left Lordsburg I met an angular young man in his 20s who had just finished hiking the Continental Divide Trail starting at the Canadian border. Hiking alone it took him 116 days. He had several encounters with grizzly bears and at one point had a seizure snd passed out at over 14,000’ during a 35-mile hiking day. With a long beard that reached his chest he looked somewhat  bedraggled as he awaited a Greyhound bus for the first leg of his home to North Carolina. There are people who are a lot crazier than I am!

I was planning a rest day tomorrow before doing the arduous climb over Emory Pass (8,223’) on Wednesday. Those plans were cast in stone when the National Weather Service issued a wind advisory for Tuesday calling for sustained winds of 35 mph gusting to 50 mph!

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