Day 17: 31 March, 23.4 miles today, 328.5 miles total, Superstition Wilderness
And I’d thought the day before had been exhausting.
The day started with a gentle walk down to the Picketpost Mountain trailhead, where I chatted briefly with a confused-seeming local. Or maybe I was the confused one. He was a stooped, quiet old man, and I found him very hard to follow. Following the trail was rather easier, as it meandered its way over rolling hills toward the wide sloping entrance to the Reavis Trail Canyon, where I met the first of several dozen stream crossings for the day. That’s always a losing game, as, much like shooting dice, the longer you spend rock hopping, the more likely you are to end up with at least soaking wet foot. I managed well, however, and slowly gained elevation as I rose through the drainage for mile after mile after mile.
Shortly after lunch, the trail left the creek and starting climbing steeply toward the canyon’s northwestern rim. It was a long, hard climb, grueling in the unfiltered sun. It was the single most high-effort stretch of trail since the climb up Mt. Lemmon, over 120 trail miles behind me. And speaking of Lemmon, what hulking shadow should I see as I neared the top of Montana Mountain [sic] but that very same, familiar outline still haunting the distant horizon. I grant that those 120 miles have been very meandering, peregrinating merrily in seemingly all directions as the trail heads vaguely northward, but it was nonetheless surprising to see Lemmon again, still stalking me all this time later.
A couple of miles after cresting the canyon wall, I entered the Superstition Wilderness, presumably so named because the local trail crews consider it unlucky to maintain a pathway through this area. Or so I assume. The trail was rugged—or maybe ragged—in a way few sections of the AZT thus far had been. Rocky, incredibly steep, overgrown with aggressive, predatory thorn bushes that left my legs bloody and stinging, the trail became less a route than a practical joke. Washed out anytime it intersected a drainage or a stream, I was left climbing down exposed rocks just for another throw of the rock-hopping dice. For once I actually beat the house and finished the day with dry feet, but I was exhausted, and hadn’t ended up making nearly as far as I’d hoped.
I came to a campsite on top of a pass just as the sun was setting. The view was spectacular, but so was the cold that came with the darkness. I’d actually had a reprieve from the truly miserably cold nights, but this one promised to be as brutal as the terrain I’d had to fight my way up to get here. I pulled on every layer I had and hoped for the best.
Day 18: 01 April, 22.7 miles today, 351.2 miles total, Roosevelt Lake Marina
I realized almost as soon as I started walking in the pre-dawn twilight what the problem was: this was a burn zone. I probably could have figured out as much from the sign I’d passed warning me of exactly that, but I’d already been worn out at that point. And once again, the day’s hiking would make the previous day’s seem like a cakewalk.
The long term problem, as far as hiking is concerned, is that wildfires destroy the integrity of the soil. It can’t support trees, or seemingly any plant life that doesn’t bear spikes or thorns—which would become an issue once I’d crossed to the previously forested northern face of the mountain I’d slept on. It erodes very, very quickly, leaving behind piles ankle-twisting rocks in place of well-packed trail, and great sections simply wash away in the rain, leaving huge gaps to cross or clamber down, and making it impossible not to wander off in the wrong direction every few minutes. The fire that had laid waste to much of the Superstition Wilderness in 2019 had burned up some 30+ miles of the AZT, leaving me with a slippery, rocky obstacle course for the entire 23 miles separating me from my resupply box at the Roosevelt Lake Marina store.
Not that the ruinated state of the soil let the trail crew off the hook—the path I had to navigate today was downright mean-spirited and cruel, full of the sort of violent climbs and descents (including an uncountable number of pointless ups and downs, or PUDs) for which the Appalachian Trail is famous, but with, like, brambles and cacti and without an ounce of shade. Even the flatter sections were exceptionally difficult—whatever anybody else may say, designating miles of seasonal creek bed as the official route is just lazy trail-making.
I pushed hard, hard, hard, from 0600hrs onwards, taking only short pauses to filter water or eat a fast lunch. I was determined to cover the distance before the store holding my box shut its doors for the day; I only learned when I came charging up to the place at 1830hrs that it had closed a half hour before. This was pointed out to me by a man who introduced himself as a hiker, though he really didn’t look the part. He then pointed out where we were allow to pitch our tents, saying that he’d been there for several days already. I wanted to ask why, but he wandered off without another word.
As someone privileged to be able to leave ordinary life behind and go hiking for weeks or months at a time, I struggle to reign in my own judgement and disdain for other people who make use of the resources offered to hikers. If a dude down on his luck needs a place to sleep, who the hell am I to say he can’t make camp near me? This guy, though, gave me a bad vibe. The kind that remind me how much my niche backpacking gear marked me as a person with a fair bit of disposable income traveling alone.
The Roosevelt Lake Marina is a Mecca for rich Arizona rednecks, a place to show off the speedboats and ATVs hitched to their needlessly lifted pickups, whose roaring engines can be heard a mile away. They flock to this place to show off their toys and buy mediocre pub food and sodas filled only halfway to the top of the cup, all at premium resort prices. This was the last place I wanted to be stuck, but things weren’t looking great for a quick getaway. Not only did I need to wait for the store to open, but the “hiker shed” I’d been counting on as a part of my master plan proved to be a dud: I’d assumed that the “charging ports” it contained would be hard-wired into the local lines, like any other building. Instead, what I found was a single power strip, run to a single car battery on the roof, which was dead.
I couldn’t make it all the way to Pine on the battery I had remaining—and all of the exterior outlets on the restaurant/store were locked. After fruitlessly searching the grounds for an alternative, I came to realize that I’d have to wait for breakfast, and then sit with my electronics until everything was charged. My goal for the following day had just been cut in half. I was on a tight schedule, and, worn out from the last three days, I wasn’t taking the defeat with notable grace. Still, it may not have been the worst thing to be forced to take it easy for a few hours. The trail between the marina and my next town was long and dotted with several long, steep climbs—as well as another 30+ mile burn zone. It wasn’t going to be an easy section. Best to suck it up, pitch my tent in the dark, and try to sleep to the semi-rhythmic rush of lifted pickups on the highway.
Day 19: 02 April, 18.5 miles today, 369.7 miles total, Four Peaks Wilderness
I woke up in the middle of the night and crept onto the deserted patio of the marina restaurant where, unplugging one of the light-up beer signs, I found an open outlet for my electronics at last.
In the morning, while waiting for the store to open, I finally started to address the split in my thumb. I’d been leaving alone in the hope that it would become dried out and hardened—which makes wounds take much longer to heal, but does seem to help keep them from further infection in the meantime. After a week and a half, though, the split was still painful, and I realized this was because it was still spreading from the cuticle out toward the tip. I cleaned the wound as best as I could without running water or soap, disinfected with alcohol, then dressed it with a hydrocell bandage and wrapped the whole thing in kt tape. It would have to do.
A little while later, while I was sorting and packing the resupply box I’d finally rescued for $10 from the store, I chatted with the man who’d given me the creeps the evening before. I think I’d really been put off by his obvious intoxication, and the fact that he hadn’t been dressed like someone hiking a long trail. In the morning, however, he not only remembered my trail name, but he also looked the part—as did the woman he introduced as his wife. They’d been on a schedule similar to mine, and in fact had plane tickets booked out of Flagstaff two days before mine, but had decided to pack it in after the last section rather than continue doing that to themselves. They’d been hanging out at the marina for a couple of days, trying to figure out what to do with themselves before their flight and burning through the resupply for the coming section, which was reported to be no easier than the minefield we’d just made it across. They were friendly and helpful, and as they offered to fill my water bottles from the gallon jug they’d purchased at the store—since nothing at the marina could ever be free—I burned inside with the shame of how I had judged this man, who remembered my name after one encounter while I couldn’t for the life of me think of what his had been.
Freshly loaded up and charged, I hiked out, keeping to the highway for the first mile instead of taking the series of steep PUDs that lead to the same bridge. On the far side, I started a long, high, hard climb that would take me up 5,000’ over 13 miles. I’d been pushing myself hard for days and resolved to take the day’s hiking as it came—however far I got was however far I would go. It was a solidly-reasoned approach, borne out anytime I hit a length of trail so steep I was surprised I didn’t simply go sliding back down as I struggled upward. After a leisurely lunch in the shade by a burbling, picturesque mountain stream, though, began to realize that there wouldn’t be anywhere to camp for several miles as the trail made its way along a series of ridges just below the towering four peaks that gave the area its name.
If the section into Roosevelt Lake had been high-effort, low reward, then at least this one was already paying for itself in terms of spectacular, jaw-dropping beauty. I hadn’t known Arizona had mountains like this, which seemed lifted out of the Rockies and dumped unceremoniously in the desert. The hiking was very hard, but for once it felt like it was worth it—except that now I needed to pound out several miles to make it to a workable campsite before dark. Of course, the moment I started pushing to make better time, the trail became rocky and overgrown, making it hard to keep my footing. A strong wind picked up, which seemed to follow me no matter which side of the ridge I was on. At one point, the trail itself crumbled under my outside foot, and I slid uncontrolled down the slope. It was only for 18 inches or so, but still, I’d never had a piece of solid trail simply vanish like that. It made me consider as I walked on how utterly alone I was out here. I hadn’t seen another human since I’d gotten a couple miles from the road.
I got to a flat campsite nestled in a grove of trees beneath a snow-dusted peak just as dusk was settling in. The wind was as bad as ever, but the trees sheltered most of it from my tent. It was getting cold, so I ate my noodles quickly, following that with a handful of nuts before crawling into my shelter and collapsing into my bag.
Day 20, 03 April, 24.3 miles today, 394.0 miles total, some field full of cow shit and rocks (Tonto National Forest)
The night did not start well. My back, which had generally been feeling better at the end of each day than it had at the start of the trail, had been angered by something in the day’s effort, and really let me know about it. Every time I shifted position, it cramped viciously, causing me to cry out each time in pain and surprise and making me glad I was camped all by myself. My thumb, too, started throbbing painfully, becoming enough of a distraction that I had to fumblingly loosen the tape before I could finally drift of to sleep. Eventually my back relaxed, and like that, I was out. Though I
didn’t sleep well, waking up shortly after midnight and not falling properly back asleep until a little while before I was due to start my day.
The morning was idyllic, with the snow covered peak catching the first rays of the rising sun as broke camp and sat on a log eating breakfast. Though hard work, the entire Four Peaks Wilderness was lovey. Pristine, isolated, beautiful, and over much too quickly. Within a couple of hours of walking, I found myself outside the Wilderness area, ambling down a dirt road that would carry me most of the rest of the way through these mountains.
I didn’t really mind, as the views were still spectacular, and the walking was easy. I wasn’t moving perhaps as fast as I’d have hoped, but my lack of sleep didn’t really present itself until hunger started driving to look for a shady spot to sit down for lunch, and I couldn’t find one. I was hopeful I’d at least find some tiny patch of shade at the intersection where the AZT abandoned the road for an actual trail, but there was nothing there but rocks, sunburn, and thorns. Grumpily, I stalked off down the trail, resolving to stop when it crossed a creek in a mile and half.
As it turned out, there wasn’t much shade to speak of there, either, but by that point I just needed to stop, so I sat awkwardly under a tiny shrub and ate an unrelaxed meal. I’d walked down into a burn zone, rocky and washed out and overgrown with mean-spirited chaparral. My fatigue grinding against my will to continue forward, I started having feelings about everything, even though most of it was my own fault. I tend to drag my feet when I’m tired, so I kept stubbing the same toe I’d given a good whack to both of the previous two days, except now I was scolding the rocks as I tripped over them. The wind really started picking up, gusting so hard at times that it was difficult to maintain a steady stride.
I passed a woman with an oversized pack who had wandered a bit off trail; we each said hello, but nothing else, and so I charged ahead in the hope that at some point ahead the wind would stop. Instead, I came to a stream maybe ten feet wide and one foot deep: a genuine ford, though a small one. I slipped my shoes off and waded across, sitting down on the far bank a bit away from a woman I immediately took to be a thru-hiker and a male weekender who was clearly excited to have found an attractive lady to talk to in the backcountry. The guy hung around as the woman with the oversized pack appeared and the thru-hiker declared “here comes my friend.” After another minute of idle chit chat I ignored with treating some water and putting my shoes back on, the guy headed off on his adventure, and the thru-hiker approached me.
We made the usual small talk: trail name? doing the whole thing? going into town at the next road crossing? It was all going according to script until she asked if I was continuing past Pine, my next planned stop on the way north. I’d heard early on on the trail that hikers were getting stuck there, held back by an uncrossable field of snow, but hadn’t heard anything in a long time and was hoping some of the recent warm weather would have taken care of the issue. She hadn’t heard anything new, only that people were quitting the AZT rather than tackling that section. She wished me well and said goodbye while I was packing up. I passed her and her friend a few minutes later, amused by the juxtaposition of the thru-hiker in her short shorts and ball cap and a backpack made (and packed) to be carried for weeks on end, and her friend in her long REI pants and floppy sun hat and a pack that looked big enough for her to crawl inside herself.
I ended up walking much later than I’d hoped trying to find a flat spot sheltered from the wind. In the end, I made camp with the sun going down on a slanted field covered in rocks and cow shit, grumpy indeed at this turn of events, but too tired to care all that much about it.
Day 21: 04 April, 22.0 miles today 416.00 miles total, Mazatzal Wilderness
I slept well, really only waking up when the wind finally blew itself out and temperature dropped. I’d added another layer and fell right back asleep, and felt so refreshed in the morning that I could only laugh when I discovered a shit and rock free camp site, completely sheltered from the wind, just about 300’ down the trail from where I’d camped. C’est la vie.
The day was always going to be demanding, as I would be climbing into the Mazatzal Wilderness until well after lunch. I knew I’d have to camp pretty high up, as it’d be in the mountains for a good 30 miles before coming back down again, so I was a little bit concerned that the day never warmed up enough for me to remove my thermal top, even as I climbed and climbed uphill. The surrounding countryside was very, very pretty, though, so I didn’t really mind. I hiked briskly enough to keep warm, and the higher I got, the better the views were. This beautiful wilderness, all for me, alone. It was an exhilarating feeling, until I rounded a bend in the trail and found the path completely covered in snow.
I crossed that first field, hoping it was a fluke but knowing better all the while. I was still climbing up, and much of the trail would cross the north faces of these mountains, which is where snow always lingers (at least in this hemisphere). It was mid afternoon on a day I’d spent walking into the complete middle of nowhere, and it was still cold, and now a frigid wind had picked up. I figured the snow line to be around 6,400’, an elevation I wouldn’t drop below for miles, and my next nearest best bet for a camp site was up ahead, across a half dozen more snow fields. Most of them weren’t too terribly steep—although some were—but the solitude I’d been celebrating just a few moments before was suddenly an unbearable burden. I didn’t have spike of an ice axe, and I didn’t have anyone to watch out for me as I picked my way across the slick and treacherous ground. The going was agonizingly slow, and I constantly found myself crawling under blowdowns and walking directly through thorns to keep to the footsteps already set into the crust.
Eventually I made my way to wide, snow-fee saddle, which seemed to be out of the worst wind—though the ambient temperature was already uncomfortable with the sun still well above the horizon. I put on every last layer I had and put together my shelter. I hadn’t had the heart to attempt a chilly cold soak, so I just ate a few fistfuls of crackers and nuts from inside my tent and slid into my sleeping bag.
I wanted to see what the elevation profile between Pine and Flagstaff looked like. I’d make any final decision based on information I could look up once in town, but I wanted to see how much of the trail was above the 6,400’ snow line I’d reckoned earlier on the mountainside. The first 22 miles, I figured, should be fine, but the remaining 90 could be a definite problem. Looking ahead at the section was on, it seemed that I should be through the worst of it—though probably not by any means the end—and so I should be able to make it to Pine safely. After that, however, I might have to end the hike. First thing, however, was simply not freezing to death in the middle of a snow covered mountain several days from town. The rest I’d deal with later.
Day 22: 05 April, 20.2 miles today, 436.2 miles total, Mazatzal Wilderness
I did not freeze to death. I did not actually come close. But I also didn’t really sleep, spending most of the night in a cold, uncomfortable stupor. I didn’t feel very refreshed when my watch started buzzing to warm me that I ought to get going, and I spent several long minutes debating whether or not to wait until the sun had had a chance to warm the mountain a few degrees before leaving the relative comfort of my tent. In the end, I decided that the earlier I started, the sooner I would be in town and away from this madness, so after a few more fistfuls of almonds and crackers, I packed up and got ready to hike.
Not that I made rapid progress once I got going—rather, my fatigue and accompanying irritability gave me all the power and speed of a chubby 8 year old being forced to go on a nature walk at summer camp. I stumbled over rocks and slipped in mud, got snagged by prickers and poked by all the downed trees I had crawl under. The day was clear and bright, the scenery was vast and beautiful, and I resented it all as I dragged my tired ass down the trail.
To be fair, it once again never really got warm, so I was uncomfortably cold most of the day. The two liters of water I’d kept with me in my tent overnight were still half-ice several hours later, and while the wind wasn’t constant, any time it blew it felt like I was being dropped in a half-frozen pool. I was starting to wear thin, grown weary of being forced into my sleeping bag every single day the moment the sun went down and the temperature plummeted. I’d been going hard for three weeks, and I was just finally fed up with being cold.
It took all day and all the energy I could muster to make it 20 miles, even without any truly serious ups or downs. All I could think about all afternoon was lying down in my tent and sleeping, and that carrot was the only thing that kept me walking those last endless miles, up and down the mountains, step after wearied step after wearied, listless step.
Day 23: 06 April, 23.3 miles today, 459.5 miles total, Tonto National Forest
While I wouldn’t say that I slept great, I at least slept, and that seemed to make all the difference. I didn’t tackle most of the day’s walking with enormous speed, but at least I wasn’t dragging my feet down the trail again. I managed to finally climb down the mountains at the heart of the Mazatzal Wilderness in one big push, and found myself on the banks of the East Verde River by mid-morning. This was the first actual river of the trail, and was surprisingly achingly cold. Unfortunately, the trail only continued on the far shore, so before I knew it, I was balls deep in the frigid water as my feet refused to go numb and kept reminding me just how painfully goddamned cold it was.
After spending a few minutes on the northern bank warming up in the sun, I started the project for the rest of the day: going up a weird series of mesas. I say weird, because in my experience, mesas tend to be singular flat-top mountains, whereas these seemed to grow on top of each other, like an East European steppe, only much, much, much bigger. With very little downhill, I wouldn’t climb up one mesa, walk for a while along its top, them just go right up the next one. Over time, I started getting a really sweeping view of the mountains I’d traversed to get where I was, with the four peaks silhouetted in the distance.
I knew what camp site I wanted to hit before dark, but realized that I was starting to run out of the daylight I’d need to make it there. So I speed hiked most of the afternoon to get there. The gradual uphills were the easy part; it was the last two miles, steep as death and cluttered with rocks, that really did me in. Once again, I rolled into camp with just enough light to pitch my tent and eat a quick, quick dinner. And once again I was totally wiped out. But, I’d set myself up for a short walk into town in the morning. With any luck, I’d be sitting down to a real breakfast before the day even started getting warm.
Day 24: 07 April, 3.7 miles today, 463.2 miles total, Pine, AZ
According to my unnecessarily fancy watch, it took me a bit over a million steps (1,071,019 to be weirdly exact) to get from the Mexican border to the state highway rest stop known as the township of Pine, Arizona. Three weeks and change; 450 miles and change; a million footsteps and change; and here, at least for the time being, I would be stopping. For the first time since I set foot out of the Coronado National Monument visitor’s center, I hit town without a fevered plan to resupply and get back out into the wilderness as fast as possible. I wasn’t quite sure when I’d be heading back to the trail at all.
The problem with a hard deadline is that when you run up against it, you immediately run out of options. The southern two-thirds of the AZT had always been a race against time for me, as I was always going to take a flight out of Flagstaff early on the 13th to meet Sean Meadow in another part of the country. The problem was that by the time I got to Pine, the last real town before Flagstaff, I wasn’t confident in my ability to cover the distance in the time left to me—and if I miscalculated and found myself stuck in the backcountry when I was supposed to be boarding a plane, there would be no way to bail out in time. It was a decision I had to make several days in advance.
I’d actually been doing pretty well, practically cooking along the trail in my own ungainly way—even with challenging terrain of the last 150 miles or so. But there was snow between Pine and Flag. A lot of it. Enough that hikers working their way up that section while I was in town trying to figure out what to do were sending back reports that they were sure grateful to have brought along a pair of snowshoes, something I didn’t have, and wouldn’t have had the time to navigate even if I did.
I had barely started sifting through rumors and reports at the local greasy spoon—where the staff seemed fairly insistent in encouraging my rank ass to pay my check and leave, despite the fact that I was sitting alone on the restaurant’s patio—when another hiker, recognizing one of his own, came over to my table and started telling me about a lower-elevation alternate he was just on his way out to start hiking. It seemed at first to be just the thing I was looking for, until I figured out it was 20 miles longer than the AZT, even without the detours made necessary by the uncrossably swollen creeks, filled with snowmelt from the main route above. High elevation snowfields or low elevation meanders, I couldn’t count on getting to Flagstaff in time to get clean enough to ride a plane. I’d read accounts of thru-hikers who’d been denied boarding on account of their pungent stink. I had only to breathe in the cutting stench of my own noxious miasma above the warm smell of my hot buttered biscuit to believe that such stories must surely be true.
I was also just tired of being cold.
The plan had always been to return to the AZT with Sean Meadow, and even though I was leaving the trail earlier than planned, that much hadn’t changed. But the window was definitely murkier than it had been when we’d first discussed our intentions. The Park Service had pushed back the official opening of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon to repair (with dynamite) sections of the trail damaged by avalanche and rock slides—it was no longer clear when we might start or how far we might get. But this had been the best hiking experience I’d had in a long time, a trail that was hard work, but consistently worth the effort. I wasn’t done with it, regardless of what happened in the interim.
Meanwhile, I had chores to do, and was able to experience firsthand what happens when the only laundromat in town makes no effort at running a functional business. After paying for detergent from a machine that took my money without delivering anything in return, I ran across the street to buy a pack of detergent pods, which I shared freely with anyone about to plug money into the dispenseless dispenser. While the single open washer seemed to work just fine, I discovered that the dryer I’d loaded had no heat after I had already left it running for half an hour. The bathroom was, of course, locked, so to avoid showing my bare ass to anyone who happened by while changing between my rain gear and the only clothes I had I stepped into the unlocked boiler room in the back—a fact which clearly perturbed the attendant, who only showed up while I was putting my clean and sort of dry shorts back on.
I had time to kill before a kindly local trail angel would pick me up at the market and take me to her home, with a make-shift hiker hostel in the loft above her garage. I spent the time wandering between the grocery and diner, listening to FIDLAR at full volume and feeling, just a little bit, like a badass.
