Four long-distance hikers have just wrapped up the southern leg of the Continental Divide Trail, walking southbound through New Mexico's Bootheel country from Silver City to Lordsburg and on toward the Mexican border. It's the final chapter of a months-long thru-hike, and their account offers a candid window into what the CDT's closing stretch actually looks and feels like.
Silver City serves as the classic resupply stop for hikers heading south. It's a functional New Mexican town rather than a postcard one — chain hotels, a Chinese restaurant in handsome old wood-panelled rooms, and one genuinely memorable combo: a Mexican restaurant attached to a cannabis dispensary. Hikers stock up on trail staples, replace worn-out footwear (the local outfitters stock proper thru-hiking shoes like Altras and Topos), and hitch back to the trailhead. Locals, it turns out, are generous with rides — one veteran hiker flagged down his own mother and her minivan to shuttle a group back out.
Beyond town, the landscape flattens into full Chihuahuan desert. The high mesa and ponderosa country give way to agave, cholla, sagebrush and prickly pear, and water sources shrink to cattle troughs. Nights are cold, days warm, wind constant, and wildlife largely limited to ravens and cows. Lordsburg is the last town southbound hikers pass through — a small resupply point with a family-run grocery. The local colour: spend over $100 there and you may be offered a free frozen Thanksgiving turkey, which is considerably less useful on a 30-mile carry than it sounds.
One debate from the trail's final miles is worth knowing about. The CDT's southern terminus sits at the Mexican border, but Hachita Peak rises nearby, and one of the hikers argued it would make a far better end point — a meaningful summit rather than an arbitrary line in the desert scrub. The group settled on the border anyway, finished at Crazy Cook, and caught a shuttle to El Paso.
Why should a traveller care? Even if you never attempt the full 3,000-mile trail, this corner of New Mexico is doable as a section hike or road-trip detour. Silver City makes a friendly base with real outfitters, decent food and Gila National Forest at its doorstep; the desert walk south is remote, quiet and scenically stark. Just go prepared — water sources are sparse and unreliable, so carry capacity for long, dry stretches and treat cattle troughs as a normal water source. A good time is spring or autumn, when temperatures are manageable and the desert isn't cooking.
Credit: The Trek.
