Day 3 - Reserve, NM to Grants, NM.
After taking two days to complete Section 3 (Truth or Consequence to Reserve) due to trees across the trail, deep snow drifts, stuck vehicles, and a tire off the rim, we decided to hit the trail early and put down some serious miles. But first, we cooked blueberry pancakes on the trusty Coleman stove! Our route looped us back south through the Gila and Apache National Forests and around to the Arizona border (we made a couple hundred foot detour to cross into Arizona, just because) before heading back north towards the community of Luna (population 158 as of last count). Luna has a gas station that is occasionally open, although it was not when we arrived. As we left the green forests for the barren high deserts, the roads straightened out and we were able to pick up our speeds. We continued north until we reached the Zuni Salt Lake where we stopped to make sandwiches for lunch. After lunch we again headed north and soon passed the small community of Fence Lake (population 42 as of last count), the end of Section 4 and the start of Section 5. We started angling north/east and entered the Ramah Navajo Indian Reservation and continued up to the El Morro National Monument. El Morro was an important stop to Natives, Spaniards, and Americans headed west as it was home to a water hole that held 200,000 gallon of fresh water in an otherwise rugged, sparse landscape. For hundreds and hundreds of years travelers have been chiseling their names into the rocks and have left an amazing and diverse history in the rock. From petroglyphs of animals, to Spanish lords with their exquisite titles, to common railroad workers and soldiers. See their names and learn their stories; It is worth the visit! From there we soon left the arid desert behind us entered the densely wooded and muddy Cibola National Forest where we added a fresh layer of mud onto our trucks as we made our way though the narrow trail until we eventually reached our destination of Grants, NM. Grants was originally established as a railroad camp in the 1880's and soon grew into a city with various booms and declines over the years as industries and transportation routes came and went. It is situated right on Historic Route 66, just north of Interstate 40. We ate dinner at the Wow Diner and celebrated the completion of the first 5 sections of the NMBDR.
Conclusion.
We went through water, snow, mud, sand, dirt, rock, forests, and deserts. Along the route from Truth or Consequences to Grants we saw a heard of elk, a pair of mule deer, a lone coyote, turkey, fox, prairie dogs, and of course lots of rabbits. Now that we have completed section 1-5 we only have sections 6 and 7 left for us to finish the NMBDR and arrive at our eventual destination of Antonito, Colorado. We plan on returning to finish it off later in the summer, once it warms up so any northern snow will hopefully have melted to more manageable levels!
Once returning home we took the trucks to the car wash for a deep cleaning inside and out. My Dad's Avalanche had developed a slow leak in another tire so he decided to upgrade to heavier duty LT tires with an all-terrain tread pattern. He went with Cooper Discoverer ATP's. After that his truck went into the shop and hopefully his 4WD system will be fixed before our next adventure together.
My truck did exceptionally well on this trip and only impressed me. We appreciated having CB communications with each other during the trip and feel that was worth the money. My ARB air compressor has again proven to be extremely useful, one of my favorite modifications to date. This was the first trip I have carried a full size axe and shovel, as I just recently added the roof rack, and they were both lifesavers. A larger saw would have come in handy too. Some other items I would like to add in the near future are a siphon (I had a 5 gallon MFC can on the roof and while I didn't have to use it, it did get very close on 2 occasions and I think a siphon would make transferring the fluid to the tank a breeze without having to take the jug down), a kinetic snatch strap (the static tow strap worked and got some use in the snow but a snatch strap would have been ideal), recovery boards (they would have helped in this situation and I do a lot of solo trails in desert areas so in my situation I feel they would work better for self recovery than a winch).
