North along the Continental Divide

Farmington man backpacks from Mexican border to Canadian border

By PAULA BARR
Daily Journal Staff Writer

In April, Farmington native Michael Cravens donned his backpack and started walking north from the Mexican border in New Mexico, north along the Continental Divide.

Six months later, he completed his 3,000-mile hike and left the Rocky Mountains at the Canadian border. Along the way, he slept under a tarp, navigated slippery, steep mountain slopes and bushwacked through rough terrain. He searched for water in the desert, photographed many types of reptiles and amphibians and snuck up on a grizzly and her two cubs.

Cravens, 33, also was charged by a deer, developed snow blindness and rescued injured hikers on two separate occassions.

Adventure might as well be Cravens' middle name. He has hunted wild boar, collected crayfish and searched for snakes of all kinds across the state. Those expeditions and more are featured on his Web site. The site includes photos of nature hikes, including the Continental Divide hike.

A photographer who is heading back to college for a degree in ecology, Cravens has hiked two of the country’s three “Triple Crown” trails.

“There are three long-distance, national scenic trails in the United States,” he explained. “The Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine is about 2,500 miles and is the most popular. About 3,000 people hike that a year. There also is the Pacific Crest hike through California from Mexico to Oregon. About 300 people a year do that one. About 13 hike the Continental Divide trail.”

Cravens walked the entire Appalachian trail a few years ago and hopes to hike the California trail in a few more years. Those two trails are clearly marked and paths are established the entire way.

The Rocky Mountain’s trail, however, includes areas where there is no path cleared along the mountaintops. Cravens knew when he and his friend Eric Davidson began the hike, that they would have to rely heavily on a compass and maps.

Desert trek

The trip along the Continental Divide began the evening of April 15 in the desert town of  Crazy Cook, located in the bootheel of New Mexico. At that point, the border consists of a barbed wire fence. Day temperatures are high and water is unavailable only at windmills that are scattered through the desert. Cities are many miles from the path the two men and Cravens' dog, Quinn, were about to take, so they had to carry enough food and water to tide them over between supply stops. Towns and cities were nearly 150 miles apart along the trail.

Long distance hiking has its own set of rules and requirements. The men had  to start soon enough to make it to Canada before heavy snows set in, and late enough to miss the heavy snows in the San Juan mountains. Their packs had to have all the necessities while staying light enough to carry at a pace of 20-25 miles per day. Their packs weighed three pounds, about half the weight of a regular internal frame pack.

Tents were too heavy to carry, so Cravens and Davidson packed lightweight tarps they could drape over their hiking sticks to provide protection when they were in their sleeping bags.

Instead of carrying a water filter, they had half-ounce bottles of chlorine to treat their drinking water. Drinking directly from mountain streams can result in parasitic diseases such as the diarrhea-causing intestinal parasite called giardia.

Cooking was done in a “stove” made with a soda can heated with denatured alcohol. Lighters and other metal goods were made of titanium, which is strong and light. Food consisted largely of pop tarts, cheese, instant soups, crushed up chips, and peanut butter and tortillas.

Unfortunately, Cravens' photography equipment was too heavy to carry and the pace they had to keep would make it nearly impossible to wait for the right conditions for professional wildlife photos. Cravens had to settle for a “point and shoot” camera.

During the night, the men noticed lights flashing in order off in the desert. The lights were made by flashlights of illegal aliens who were following each other into the country and were used to prevent anyone from being stranded.

“It’s a death sentence to get lost there,” Cravens said. “It’s the middle of nowhere there.”

Snow blindness

Quinn, a young Golden retriever who accompanies Cravens everywhere, accompanied the men for the first 600 miles. After days in the desert, Quinn’s favorite part was crossing the Gila River about 70 times along the trail, Cravens recalled.

But the terrain was taking its toll on Quinn’s feet. When it was obvious that even boots were not adequately protecting the dog’s feet, Cravens took him to a town where friends picked the dog up and took him home while Cravens finished the rest of the hike.

“We knew we might have to send him home before we left,” Cravens explained. “If I did not have a place where I knew Quinn would be comfortable and well treated, I would have stopped hiking at that point.”

The men headed into the San Juan Mountains and discovered they were too early, considering the amount of snow that had fallen during the winter and early spring. The steep slopes were covered with hard packed snow about as slippery as ice. The men had to move carefully, using their hiking sticks to keep them upright on the dangerous slopes so they would not slide down the mountainside.

“If you slip during an icy slope traverse, the only thing between you and certain death is your ax,” Cravens said.

The sun’s reflection on the snow was blinding, and Cravens had neglected to bring sunglasses. His vision became cloudy and his eyes burned. He tried wrapping sock liners around his head, but they fell off. Next, he wrapped duct tape around his head, leaving slits as eye holes.

“The tape kept sticking to my eyelashes,” he recalled ruefully.

Eventually, he cut the slits to form circles, backed the circles with the sock liners and made a rudimentary pair of sunglasses. The snow blindness cleared in several days, and at their next stop for supplies, Cravens bought a real pair of sunglasses for the rest of the trip.

The icy traverses and lightning storms when they were above the tree line were the only times when Cravens was concerned. The cold wasn’t a problem for him while he was walking, and when they stopped, he jumped into his sleeping bag to stay warm.

Stops in towns for supplies were the only times they could get substantial meals and a hot shower. Their beards became scruffy and, although they did not notice, they knew they must stink. But the time in the wilderness had honed their sense of smell in a different way.

“Even before we could see day hikers, we could smell their perfume and deodorant,” Cravens recalled.

Every day, the men saw some of the wildlife that thrives in the mountains, including deer, wild horses, black bears and lizards, snakes, squirrels, marmots and all types of birds — including two brown-capped rosy finches seen at 14,000 feet above sea level.

At 13,000 feet above sea level, he came across a baby elk hidden in the grass. (Wildlife photos from the trip may be seen at Cravens' Web site.)

At one point, a deer came crashing down the mountainside, headed directly at Cravens. There was a wild look in the deer’s eye and at first Cravens thought it was attacking him. He yelled and stepped aside, narrowly avoiding the animal and catching a glimpse of a shorter animal behind the deer. Once his heart stopped racing from the close encounter, Cravens realized that the deer more likely was running from a mountain lion than trying to attack a human.

A highlight of the hike was near its end, when Cravens finally saw a grizzly bear.

“As soon as you enter grizzly country, it’s immediately apparent in the form of turned rocks, clawed trees, ripped apart logs, and plenty of tracks,” Cravens noted.

He’d seen no bears in Yellowstone National Park, but this time, he was lucky. Cravens came across a sow and her two cubs, who were below him on the hillside eating huckleberries. Because the wind was blowing his scent away from them, Cravens was able to sit for a while and watch them.

“It was a perfect spot,” he said. “I think one of the cubs saw me, but it just kept grazing on the huckleberries.”

Rescues

Wild animals did not create all the excitement during the six-month adventure. One day while hiking in Colorado, Cravens and Davidson came across a priest whose knee had popped out of place during his day hike and he could not move his leg.

“He had already been out 30-some hours and endured a frigid night (that he wasn’t equipped for) and was just coming to accept the realization that he was going to be out another one when we showed up,” Cravens wrote in his field journal.

The man had tried to drag himself to water, but had not found any. Davidson hiked down the mountain to go for help while Cravens treated the man for shock. He made the priest some macaroni and cheese and hot cocoa, then Cravens pulled out his sleeping bag to keep the injured man warm. Rescue teams arrived that night about 11 p.m. and took the priest to a hospital.

After leaving the Colorado Rockies and crossing a stretch of high desert, the two men made it to the Wind River Range in Wyoming.

“The Winds were the most amazing mountains I’ve ever been in,” Cravens wrote in the journal. “Jagged, gnarly, raw peaks; the way mountains are supposed to look.”

The second rescue took place in this mountain range. The men found a 66-year-old nurse from Connecticut who was on a solo backpacking trip. She had fallen and broken her wrist, and could not carry her pack. Cravens and Davidson backtracked to find a group of equestrians who agreed to lend them a horse and a rider who would help them get the woman to a trail junction 10 miles away. Davidson hiked off, trying to catch up with another hiker so they could split the woman’s load three ways.

The woman rode the horse for nearly three miles before complaining she was light-headed and asked to get off. She could not stand long and passed out twice. They were 20 miles from a road and the rider wanted to catch up with his group. Cravens asked the rider to take a message to Davidson, then set up the woman’s tent for the night so she could rest.

Davidson brought back help before sunup. Rescuers flew the woman out by helicopter.

Sharing the adventure

On Oct. 3, Cravens and Davidson reached the border of the United States and Canada. By then they had hiked through three seasons and snow was getting an early start on winter.

Cravens had lost a great deal of weight, had had to buy new boots during the hike and was very hungry. His satisfaction at completing the trip was tempered by an emotional let down.

“I was kind of disappointed,” he said. “I could live like that! It’s absolute freedom! You get such clarity of mind and your senses heighten. You have a lot of time to think.”

Since his return, Cravens has shared the story of his trip with the East Ozarks Audubon Society and has added photos and notes from his entries.

“People expect you to say something profound,” he confided. “But for me, it’s all pretty basic. Some people need creature comforts to be happy. For me, stripping those away is what makes me happy.”

Paula Barr is a reporter for the Daily Journal and can be reached at 573-431-2010, ext. 172 or at pbarr@dailyjournalonline.com.

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