Friday November 10, 34.6km/21.5mi

Wasson Peak Saddle (3.5/3860ft) to Near Indio Tank (25.0/2410ft) (AZ)

We left camp at 6:15am with headlamps, and after 5 minutes I was able to turn it off and get a photo of the orange glow in the eastern sky.

I finished climbing up to the top of the pass, and then the sun rose over the Santa Catalina mountains.

I traversed the ridge just below Wasson Peak, where I had an excellent view of the entire valley below. It was a nice preview of the rest of the day!

It was a little chilly in the shade, but I could see that the sunlight was coming soon.

It was really cool to watch the shadows recede from the mountaintops in front of me.

We descended off the ridge, and then began a short cross-country (xc) section. It was a simple route, with easy navigation aided by some well-located washes. This Saguaro had fallen over like a tree, and we gently stepped over it to avoid any remaining spines.

Easy wash walking.

We walked a paved road for a mile, which led us to the Saguaro National park visitor center. I was surprised to see this license plate…from Minnesota.

We took a break and refilled our water bottles, watched all the tourists dressed in jeans and other inappropriate clothing for the desert. We left the busy visitor center, and had a nice quiet couple of hours walking on a wide paved road. There were almost no cars!

Eventually the road ended, and we turned into the Ironwood Forest National Monument. Lunchtime!

We sat and ate lunch in the minimal shade cast by two signs near the entrance. It wasn’t that hot, but being in the sun all day is tiring. After lunch we followed an old disused dirt road for the rest of the afternoon.

I expected this water source to be dry, but it was full! And it barely even tasted like cows.

As we walked down the road, we noticed all the ants around here have piles of grass seed husks surrounding their anthills. Neat!

As the afternoon wore on, the road became smaller and smaller.

It was fascinating to see Saguaro cacti growing right next to Ironwood trees. It happened so frequently that I began to suspect some sort of symbiotic relationship.

Our last water source for the day was a guzzler, which collects rainwater during the wetter monsoon seasons and stores it. It was great!

At the very end of the day, we came across a random cellphone on the ground. It had clearly been there for at least a year. Weird.

A few minutes later, we came across more stuff on the ground, like backpacks, waterbottles, and chargers. And then I realized, these are all things discarded or lost by migrants. Hmm…

We walked a few more minutes, and then it started getting dark so we setup camp.

Thursday November 9, 17.7km/11.0mi

Sweetwater TH (0.0/2800ft) to Wasson Peak Saddle (3.5/3860ft) (AZ) + 7.5 Connector to WTH

After a busy but restful zero day yesterday, we slept in a bit at the motel. I spent most of the morning doing tasks on my phone, eating, and packing up. We checked out at 11am and walked over to the donut shop nearby, which was surprisingly good.

After spending an hour eating and arranging some final plans, we started hiking at 12:30. The first hour was on roads, leaving town.

Pretty soon we were on a dirt road with no traffic, which was nice. It was finally quiet.

The road ended, and we were at the boundary of Saguaro National Park, at the Belmont Trailhead.

We hiked along a series of trails all afternoon, never seeing a single person. We stopped and investigated the only water source for today, which was dry.

Unsurprisingly, there were Saguaro cacti everywhere. This national park is aptly named.

The temperatures were relatively cool, only 77F/25C, and with the slight breeze it was perfect weather.

Eventually we began to climb up to Wasson Peak, gaining a few thousand feet in elevation.

At 5:30pm, we found ourselves at a saddle near the peak, watching the sunset.

After discussing where to camp, we decided to go into State land nearby, as camping isn’t allowed in the National Park. First day on the WTH complete!

Wednesday November 8, 0.0km/0.0mi

We took a zero day today in Tucson. It was our first zero day of the trail, and much needed. First, there were some supplies to buy for our next trail, the WTH (“Winter Thru-Hike.” It traverses the Sonoran and Mojave deserts of Arizona and California for 800-ish miles.)

After some shopping, I had to go to the dentist for a chipped tooth…ugh. I had an evaluation and x-ray, and have to somehow get back here next week. And it’s going to cost a ton of money, ugh.

But on the walk back, I was cheered by some cool metal artwork along the sidewalks.

And after doing my resupply at Fry’s/Kroger, I met up with TopShelf for dinner at a Thai restaurant. Afterwards we had Eegees!

And for a bonus dessert, we walked next door to Culver’s and had frozen custard!

It was an action-packed day and very productive, yet still physically restful. Tomorrow we start hiking the 800+ mile WTH route! Details at this link here.

Tuesday November 7, 37.7km/23.4mi

Lemmon Rock Trail Jct (613.6/7250ft) to Romero Pass (617.5/6050ft) (AZ) + 19.5 AZT Connector to WTH

We left camp at 6:15am, and hiked an hour through the Pusch Ridge Wilderness. We were up at 7,000 ft so the Ponderosa pine forest was back.

The trail was amazing to hike and the ground was not dusty, because of the granite rock type around here.

As we neared Romero Pass, the views started to open up, and we could see down into the Oro Valley.

There’s Tucson way down there somewhere!

We hiked another mile to Romero Pass, and dropped almost a thousand feet in the process.

There were multiple viewpoints along the way, with the valley getting closer each time.

By 9am we had arrived at Romero Pass, and we departed the Arizona Trail. I’ll have to return next year to finish the last 182 miles to the Mexican border.

From Romero Pass, we hiked down Romero Canyon and across the suburbs of Tucson, to connect to the “Winter Thru-Hike” (WTH) route, a creation of Brett “Blisterfree” Tucker.

Halfway down Romero Canyon, we came across a skunk that had met its demise with a predator. Yuck.

As we got lower, the trees disappeared, and the temperature climbed to 90F/32C.

And the Saguaro cacti reappeared!

We exited the canyon and entered Catalina State Park, where we followed a wide dirt track for a mile.

And just like that, we had re-entered civilization.

Since we were so close to an Olive Garden, and it was lunchtime, we decided to eat there. Unlimited salad and breadsticks!

After lunch, we followed the Cañada del Oro bikeway all afternoon.

We hiked 8 miles on the bikeway, to Ina Road, where all the motels and chain restaurants are located.

Just before getting to our motel, we stopped at McDonald’s for some cold drinks. It was hot today! We checked-in to our motel, showered, and passed out by 10pm.

Monday November 6, 28.8km/17.9mi

American Flag Hill (595.7/4500ft) to Lemmon Rock Trail Jct (613.6/7250ft) (AZ)

We were awake early, and I started hiking at 6:15. It was nice to get most of the uphill hiking done before it got hot. Within a mile, I saw one of the AZT mileage signs…less than 200 miles to Mexico!

A few minutes later, I stopped to watch the sun rise. The yellow disc moves above the horizon surprisingly quickly at this time of year.

After an hour, I had climbed up to a ridgeline, which I followed for the rest of the morning.

I had a phone signal up here, and I saw a message from TopShelf…”I left one hour late, meet you at the top”. So I hiked the rest of the morning by myself. I made a quick stop to get more water, which involved a climb up a ladder.

A little while later, Zackwards caught up to me and passed me. He definitely seemed excited to get to the top!

As I climbed higher, I could see the Oro valley below me to the west.

It was a pretty pleasant hike up the ridge, and I enjoyed the flatter sections.

By late morning, Mt Lemmon was really close! There is a little town on the top, SummerHaven, so I kept hiking, aiming to arrive in time for lunch.

There were a couple short steep sections, so I didn’t arrive until 12:30, and I was pretty hungry.

The first stop was the general store, to get my package (maps for the next trail), and a cold gatorade. They also had lots of homemade fudge, and they give free samples to hikers. I chose the prickly pear flavor. Yum.

The next stop was down the street, at the Cookie Cabin. It’s a famous spot for huge homemade cookies and also pizza slices. I got both!

Of course, I had to get my cookie topped with a scoop of ice cream, and all the toppings. So many calories! After devouring that, I walked up the street to a cafe to meet up with the other hikers, Zackwards, Beer Goddess, and Ali. TopShelf arrived at the exact same time, and we all hung out for awhile. By 3pm people started leaving, and I departed at 3:30 to hike 4 more miles. The first mile was on a quiet deadend road.

The road ended at a trailhead, and then immediately after I entered another wilderness! The Pusch Ridge wilderness.

I followed along in a dry wash for a little while.

And pretty soon the trail climbed up into a ponderosa pine forest.

I reached the top of a small climb, at the Marshall Saddle. The view to the southwest:

From there, it was a quick 30 minutes down to our campsite. I arrived at 5:45, and TopShelf arrived 20 minutes later, along with Zackwards. This is our last night camping on the Arizona Trail! Tomorrow we split off onto another trail, the WTH (Winter Thru Hike).

Sunday November 5, 28.0km/17.4mi

Camp Desperation (578.3/3940ft) to American Flag Hill (595.7/4500ft) (AZ)

Our mediocre camp spot gave us a good night’s rest, and we were excited to get to town today for some real food. Our tents in the dawn light:

We had 10 easy miles to get to the road, and it was more of the classic low desert, though I’d noticed that the Saguaros had disappeared.

After an hour, I came into view of tomorrow’s objective, Mt Lemmon.

I was walking along, and all of a sudden my legs hurt. I had kicked up a piece of cholla cactus with my right foot, and it landed on my left leg. Ouch.

After 10 minutes of figuring out how to pull it out, I got all 8 spines out of my skin, which was now temporarily numb. I think those cacti have a mild neurotoxin, which seems to wear off after 15 minutes. The rest of the morning was uneventful.

Well, except I saw another Javelina. They kinda look like small wild pigs, but aren’t at all related to swine.

I arrived at the trailhead at 9:45, and TopShelf was there 15 minutes later. We walked a mile to the main paved highway, and hitched into the town of Oracle. Our ride was two hunters, out scoping for deer. They also gave us cold refreshing beverages!

We immediately went to the Mexican restaurant for lunch, and it was an amazing quantity of food.

After lunch we walked across the street to a Circle-K convenience store to buy some more hiking food. It was a big store, kinda like a Stewart’s or a Sheetz, so they had almost everything I would want. They also had big cinnamon rolls! Ali ate an entire one herself.

We hitched a ride back to the trail at 3pm, and rested for a little while in the shade, in a tunnel where the trail passes under the road.

Eventually we started hiking, and it was still warm but now there was more shade. We spent a couple of hours traveling thru Oracle State Park, which was mostly grassy knolls.

We did walk thru a wash briefly, which felt pretty hot, as the sand was radiating heat.

The trail gradually climbed up for the last hour, and I had a unique view of the sunset on the surrounding mountains.

We hiked until 6:15, which meant we used headlamps for 15 minutes. Eventually we found a very nice flat spot to camp, on an old section of the Arizona trail (it was rerouted a few years ago). Tomorrow is our big climb up to Mt Lemmon, which sits at an elevation of 8,000ft.

Saturday November 4, 39.8km/24.7mi

Best Gate in Arizona (553.6/3720ft) to Camp Desperation (578.3/3940ft) (AZ)

The three of us slept great in our little camp spot amongst the boulders, and we left at our usual time of 6:15. Usually I don’t get that many pre-dawn photos, but on this hike there isn’t much daylight so we are always awake before the sun.

I hiked along on easy trail for a couple hours before we came to our first water source for the day, which was another one of those modern rainwater collector tanks.

By the time we left the water tank at 9am, the day had grown pretty hot and there wasn’t any shade. There were plenty of teddy bear cholla cacti, though!

We descended a short ways into a wash, sometimes these are easy walking but in this case it was soft sand. It was quite hot, so I put up my silver umbrella to shield me from some of the heat.

And as usual for this section, we also followed along on some old Jeep roads for an hour.

TopShelf and I took a break under a nice big shady juniper tree, and a curious cow peeked her head around the corner to see what the noise was.

From the break we had an hour of uphill hiking, and from the top of that climb we had a pretty nice view back to what we had just traveled through these last few days.

Near the end of the day we came to another water source. This one was a large metal tank, which required a ladder to climb up and scoop the water from the top.

And as usual we hiked past sunset, getting some glorious photos along the way.

The sun went behind the horizon, and the sky turned very pink.

We hiked a little faster to take advantage of the rapidly waning daylight, as the trail weaved among the hilltops.

When we got to our planned campsite, it was just after dark. Unfortunately the campsite was nowhere near as big or nice as described in our trail guide….so we continued hiking. Darn.

After 45 minutes of hiking by headlamps, we came to a spot next to the trail that looked like it could serve as a mediocre camping spot. After clearing away some brush and sharp things from the ground, we were able to squeeze in our tents between some large scrub oak bushes. Not ideal, but it worked!

Friday November 3, 36.4km/22.6mi

Mineral Creek (531.0/1760ft) to Best Gate in Arizona (553.6/3720ft) (AZ)

After having a pizza dinner last night and getting to bed late, we started later at 6:30am. I said goodbye to Lil Jon, who is taking a rest day in town, and then left camp. Immediately there was a railroad crossing, which was funny to see in the middle of nowhere.

There was a couple hours of steady climbing to leave the Gila River valley, and soon enough I was on top of a ridgeline taking a break.

TopShelf caught up and we hiked together for a bit, enjoying the low desert landscape.

There were occasional small descents, usually into a valley of Saguaros.

In the afternoon, we followed some old dirt roads for awhile, heading steadily southward.

A set of high-voltage powerlines soon joined us, and I could hear the buzzing of the electricity overhead.

There was also some noise happening on the ground too, when this snake started rattling at me. I carefully stepped around, giving him a wide area.

I filled up my water at a guzzler tank, which was being repaired by two employees of AZ Fish&Game. I was glad I did, because the next water source wasn’t operational. The water pump didn’t have power, as the generator wasn’t working. We tried various things to get it started, including adjusting the choke, but nothing worked. Oh well.

We hiked onwards for another hour, entering an area with weird little rock formations.

And pretty soon it was sunset.

Another hiker, Zackwards, joined us at our camp spot among some of the boulder formations. It was a pretty neat little spot.

Thursday November 2, 40.9km/25.4mi

Octagonal Water Tank (505.6/3700ft) to Mineral Creek (531.0/1760ft) (AZ)

It was a warm morning and we got moving at 6am. The saguaro cactuses have a creepy silhouette in the predawn light.

In a few more minutes the sky got a little lighter…

And then I rounded a bend, and there were heaps of saguaro cacti backlit by the rising Sun.

We spent all morning gradually descending down to the Gila River, sometimes following old dirt roads to get there.

It was funny and a little sad to see a giant saguaro cactus collapsed across the trail, like a fallen tree.

Some of the rock formations looked really spectacular in the low angle morning light.

It was a peaceful uneventful morning, as the trail contoured down the ridgelines.

I came across a big old butte!

During one of my morning breaks, I sat down at a little junction and a curious cow just hung out nearby.

We kept on continuing downhill all the way until lunch.

Once we arrived at the Gila River, it felt very hot and there wasn’t any shade either.

There was even an official marker for the lowest point on the entire Arizona trail!

We stopped for lunch at a shady spot that had some river access so we could refill our water bottles.

The water tasted a little salty, even after filtering it, so I wasn’t excited to be drinking it all afternoon. We were joined at our lunch spot by two other hikers, Lil John and Heiko. After lunch it was a very hot afternoon hiking along the Gila River.

Even though we were near the river, we never really had access to the water, which was a little annoying.

For most of the afternoon, it was just expansive views of the Gila River valley and hundreds of saguaro cacti.

Eventually the trail descended back down next to the river where there was some shade.

TopShelf caught up, and we took a small shortcut along some railroad tracks.

It was easy flat walking, much preferred to the pointless climb over a hill that the trail would take. Amazingly, we saw a javelina walking along the tracks in front of us.

We hiked along until dark, and then stopped at a water spigot to fill our bottles and to look for camping. Suddenly a car pulled over to the side of the road dropping off another hiker, and he offered us a ride into the town of Kearny. He even agreed to give us a ride back to the trail in an hour, so we accepted his generous offer. Ten minutes later, we were at Old Time Pizza!

After a couple slices of pizza, a few root beers, and some chicken tenders, I finished off the glorious meal with a sherbet ice cream cone.

After we got dropped off back to the trail at 8pm, we set up our tents in a little gravel wash and pretty instantly fell asleep.

Wednesday November 1, 18.8km/11.7mi

Picketpost Trailhead (493.9/2400ft) to Octagonal Water Tank (505.6/3700ft) (AZ)

We were awake before 7am, and had a wonderful breakfast prepared by MJ. There was a quiche, blueberry muffins, and homefries. There were seven of us staying there, so it would take several trips to shuttle us back to the trailhead, and TopShelf and I opted for the later trip. She dropped us off at the trailhead at noon, and it was a warm sunny day with a gradual uphill climb. For most of the afternoon, we could see Picketpost mountain in the distance.

The desert environment at this elevation is mostly Saguaro cacti, prickly pear, and scrub oak.

A couple of hours later, we could still see Picketpost mountain.

In mid-afternoon we hit the marker for 500 miles. And of course we spent the next hour singing “I would walk 500 miles”.

It was a pretty easy afternoon, with lots of scenery to look at.

It was a little warm, but as the sun got lower in the sky we got to hike in the shade for a little while.

We stopped to camp at a water source, this one was a rainwater collector.

The winter and summer monsoon rains fill up the tank, and there is a little spigot on the side to get water from. It was a very scenic camp spot since it’s up pretty high, and I’m thankful it’s not windy tonight.