Somewhere along the long, empty stretch of US Route 60 in western New Mexico sits a settlement so small it barely qualifies as a town — a cluster of houses near the highway, two restaurants, and not much else. Its name is its whole identity: Pie Town. For thru-hikers on the Continental Divide Trail, it's a legendary resupply stop, and one CDT trekker's recent trail journal captures exactly what arriving there feels like.
The account follows a small hiking group — going by trail names Ice Cream, Toolman and Frito — pushing through dusty gravel roads lined with cholla, juniper and sagebrush in the final miles before town. En route they're flagged down by a local in a dark red SUV, a Tennessee transplant and self-described ufologist who claims to have seen flying saucers more than once and moved to New Mexico specifically for that reason. New Mexico's reputation for unexplained sightings clearly predates any government reports; the locals are already converts. He checks they're stocked on water and rolls off toward his next close encounter.
Pie Town's own backstory is a story of boom and bust. Settled with hopes of beans and corn in the 1930s, the town's thin soil and a punishing drought had largely emptied it by the following decade — one departing farmer reportedly scratched a farewell into his gate. The pie came later: in the 1990s, Texas visitor Kathy Knapp arrived hunting the town's namesake pastry, found none for sale, and opened the Pie-O-Neer with her mother Mary. Between good publicity and the town's built-in novelty, it became a pilgrimage stop, now kept alive mostly by CDT hikers and passing highway drivers rather than any farming. Down the road sits the town's second eatery, the Gatherin' Place II — once the original Gatherin' Place, then briefly a Hawaiian restaurant, now resurrected under its sequel name, where the author recharges on a burger, fries and a very cold Sprite.
Perhaps the most charming detail for travellers: the Toaster House, a famously quirky hiker hostel where the front fence was once lined with toasters. The tradition has taken some hits lately — a local diner worker warns that people have been swiping toasters without permission, and there's been an unwanted squatter or two — but it remains a beloved institution on the trail.
Why does a hamlet of two diners matter? Because Pie Town is exactly the kind of place road-trippers dream of finding: a punchline name that turned out to be real, pie you can actually buy, and a subculture of long-distance hikers drifting through all season. If you're driving the emptiness of Route 60 between Socorro and the Arizona line — or walking the CDT itself — it's a genuinely fun detour. Just don't expect much beyond pie, a burger and small-town hospitality. That's the point.
Original reporting: The Trek.
