Somewhere around mile 49 of their Continental Divide Trail trek, a group of thru-hikers hit the small city of Grants, New Mexico — and found that even a town once crowned the 'Uranium Capital of the World' can still roll out the welcome mat.
Grants sits along the CDT's route through western New Mexico, a town of roughly 9,000 people that started life as an 1880s railroad camp on the Atlantic and Pacific line. It boomed through logging, briefly billed itself as the Carrot Capital of the World, then hit paydirt in 1950 when uranium was discovered nearby. These days Route 66 runs straight through downtown, and the town markets itself as the 'Gateway to Lavaland' thanks to the lava fields of El Malpais just to the south.
For hikers coming in off the desert, the arrival is memorable: the route passes the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility, complete with signs warning against picking up hitchhikers, before dropping into town. On the way in, the writers of this trail journal describe water sources that define desert hiking — one roadside well required fishing out a dead mouse before filtering, and that was still considered a good source by New Mexico standards.
Once in town, the crew's standouts were simple. Mean Gene's Pizza for food, and the Leisure Lodge Motel for sleep. The motel looks rough from the outside but delivers clean rooms, hot showers, smart TVs and comfortable beds — and its owner, David, has become something of a trail legend. He offers hikers a discount, drives them to resupply, the post office, the Chinese buffet and even other trail towns like Pie Town, and tells them plainly: 'You are my family.' The hikers left with his phone number and a promise to return for Thanksgiving.
The surrounding stretch of trail has its own character. The group camped on mesas above the scrubland, night-hiked by headlamp (dusk falls around six, dark by five in this season), and walked stretches of road past lava rock country that has barely changed since the last ice age — plus the occasional ominous roadside find, like a bloodstained military duffel bag they wisely left alone.
Why does this matter to travellers? Because Grants is exactly the kind of unassuming stop that rewards curiosity. If you're driving Route 66 between Albuquerque and the Arizona line, it's a logical base for El Malpais National Monument's lava tubes and sandstone bluffs, and it's one of the CDT's key resupply points for long-distance hikers. And if you end up needing a room, the trail community has already vetted the local hospitality.
