DIRECTOR’S LETTER

Dear CDTC Friends,

This letter is coming from southern New Mexico, where I am writing from the dining room table at the Trail Days Home Base in Silver City. All of us at CDTC are busily preparing for the 2024 CDT Trail Days happening Earth Day weekend. April is always such an exciting month and time for the trail and the communities along its path, especially here in southern New Mexico where Hachita, Lordsburg, Silver City, and Gila Hot Springs are preparing to welcome hundreds of northbound CDT travelers. It is also when everyone at CDTC gears up, from the operation of the Southern Terminus Shuttle and Field programs to CDT Trail Days, our main annual event. Trail Days returns every third weekend of April, and the event symbolizes the arrival of spring and the opportunity to celebrate Earth Day along the Continental Divide.

This year, we aren’t just celebrating the 9th Trail Days event. We are celebrating ten years of the CDT Southern Terminus Shuttle program, the 10th anniversary of the designation of Silver City as the first CDT Gateway Community, and the designation of Hidalgo County as the latest CDT Gateway Community! We also recognize the generous hospitality the southern New Mexico Communities have provided– and all of the communities along the trail– to CDT travelers over the past ten years. CDTC as a whole is celebrating ten years of friendships that have made our work so special and heartfelt.

These friends showcase the resiliency of the people who call the Continental Divide landscape home and those who have embraced CDTC’s work while adding their own innovative and creative spirit. It is humbling to learn about the efforts that community members have undertaken in their hometowns to ensure that their neighbors have access to healthy food, healthy lifestyles, and nature within and around their communities. I see communities along the CDT boldly seek and find solutions to address the challenges.

From innovative youth corps mapping recreational sites around their towns and youth mural programs telling the stories of community history to the small businesses asking hikers to share their supply lists so they can have the needed items in stock. These businesses serve as welcoming places not just for their regular customers; they are places of respite for the weary CDT travelers carrying their belongings on their backs. After arriving weary, wet, and wind-blown, travelers who meet a friendly face at the local eatery, motel, or grocery store, can find a warm welcome and generosity beyond expectation.

Beyond the past ten years, the communities of southern New Mexico along the Continental Divide Trail have been beacons of warmth and kindness and, in all honesty, have made the CDT what it is today. Still, the Continental Divide remains a place of unbridled adventure and demands constant adaptability and perseverance. Those who find their place within the hard and soft of the Divide are rewarded despite the daily demands. Communities leave the light on and stretch out a hand (or a ride) to lift up travelers, sometimes just when they need it most. These are the moments of human kindness that most CDT travelers will remember long after they have taken their last footsteps along the CDT, and memories of the challenges they faced and overcame have faded. The smiles, kind gestures, and lifelong connections made along the trail are remembered the most.

Sitting here in Silver City, I have run into so many familiar faces in every corner of town– in grocery stores, restaurants, and on hiking trails. It reminds me that there is still so much good in this world. There are so many good people, and because of the trail, we can come together and be inspired not just by what we have overcome in our pasts, but we can look forward to in our collective futures. We are all working together to make each others’ journeys a little bit better.

I wish to thank everyone who makes this journey possible and send the biggest thanks to the communities along the CDT who welcome us into their homes and their homelands, and share with us the love of the places they hold dear. They serve as a reminder of what humanity is capable of– the love, compassion, and kindness that we are all capable of– especially when those acts are not just received but reciprocated. From everyone at CDTC, we wish you all a wonderful spring, and as always, I look forward to seeing you all on the trail!

Teresa Ana Martinez, (she/hers/ella) Executive Director

Continental Divide Trail Coalition