I know there are somewhat different routes along the CDT, but would one of you kind folk give me your best guess about how much road walking the “average” thru hiker can look forward to? Many thanks.
Trail Bum
How much road walking?
system
#2
It depends what you consider a “road”. If you mean pavement, there are just a few bits north/south of Pie Town, south of Rawlins, and near Rabbit Ears Pass… others if you take some cutoffs, and probably some I’m forgetting (A new section of “trail” apparently just opened north of Rawlins, eliminating a dozen miles of the worst road-walk on the hike). Anyway, although it might be like 30-40 miles all told, but that’s less than 2% of the trail. If you add gravel roads, it’s hard to say, as there are little bits & pieces all over. If you mean 2-track improvised “ranch roads” (which are really more like parallel trails), there are a lot of those. It’s really hard to give a straight answer…
-Jonathan
Jonathan
system
#3
Partly it depends on which routes you choose. There are so many alternative routes that hikers can choose - some with more pavement and some with less. Many hikers walk from the border north on roads out of Antelope Wells, however there is a good backcountry route that avoids most of that until just before Silver City. Southbound hikers especially often end up doing the ‘race for the border’ and walk roads for hundreds of miles in New Mexico, but it isn’t necessary. If you do the official route into Silver City - you’ve got about 10-15 miles south of town that are paved and five or so north of town. Jim Wolf’s route has some roadwalking around Deming. Around Pie Town there is some road walking, mostly graded dirt roads though unless you take the official route which has a lot of roadwalking from Pie Town to Grants. How much pavement you do depends on whether you chose Jim Wolf’s backcountry route through the Cebolla Wilderness or walk the pavement west of there. The official route has a lot of road walking into Grants - Jim Wolf’s route has some but less. There was about two miles of pavement south of Cuba and about five miles north - unless you choose an alternate route that goes south and east into San Pedro Parks Wilderness - that only had about 2 miles on pavement, but few people do that route.
Basically, any time the trail goes through a town, there will be pavement. That mostly happens in New Mexico. Everywhere else you have to hitch to town, except for Rawlins and East Glacier so roadwalks can be avoided. And since East Glacier is surrounded by the Park, there is only about 1/2 mile paved there.
Rawlins had about 10 miles south of town and 15 miles north that were paved. South wasn’t bad - north was, but that is the section that has just been relocated.
The only other one I can remember is the long roadwalk in northern Colorado just before Steamboat Springs. It was about 10-15 miles, but really wasn’t a bad walk.
As Jonathan says though, if you add dirt road walking - then the mileage goes way up. Most have little or no traffic. We just looked at it as a wider and easier than usual bit of trail.
Ginny
system
#4
Guys – very thoughtful and helpful information, and I very much appreciate it. Thanks a bunch.
Trail Bum