Ghost town trail is a well maintained dirt road that goes through what is left of the towns of Gleeson, Cortland and Pearce. These town went bust 100 years ago and there is not much left of them. All three still have residents, with Pearce being the most populated and growing. Cortland is a complete wasteland with some old ruins and a lot of old mines. I have been to numerous ghost towns and for some reason Cortland gives me the creeps. I have no reason why, it just does. Once I started hiking, that all went away. Mexican Hat mountain appears to get it's name from the way the bulldozer cuts make it look. The hike was pretty straight forward, I hiked through the desert a bit, got on the cuts, which go up most of the way, then an easy hike from the cut to the summit. I miss my painter's pole antenna stand and I am having a bit of a hard time adjusting without it, although I really like hiking with the trekking polls. So I gained in one area and lost in another. The top of the summit was just a field, no trees at all. I had to improvise and use my trekking poles as antenna stands, which seemed to work out just fine.
