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.

Tuesday October 31, 8.2km/5.1mi

Forest Road 1011 (488.8/2590ft) to Picketpost Trailhead (493.9/2400ft) (AZ)

We woke up a little later, since we only had to hike 5 miles by 9am. We had arranged to stay with a local Trail angel in Superior, and she will be picking us up at 9:00. It was a breezy yet warm morning hiking through the low desert.

The views are so expansive in this type of terrain.

After a couple hours we came to the crossing of highway 60, which we walked underneath in a tunnel.

On the other side of the highway was the Picketpost Trailhead, where we had arranged to be picked up by MJ. My friend Greg, whom I had met on the Colorado Trail, lives locally in Phoenix, and he had dropped off a bunch of goodies for us in the bear box. Thank you Greg!!

We walked over to a picnic table to sit and wait for MJ to come.

It was a busy little Trailhead with lots of day hikers coming and going.

At 9:30, MJ picked us up and drove us the short distance into the town of Superior. After picking up a box of new shoes from the post office, and dropping our backpacks at her house, we walked over to a Mexican restaurant for lunch.

A couple of other hikers who were already staying at her house joined us for lunch. Heiko and Little Jon were super entertaining to talk with. After lunch we walked back to the house, which was a lovely little place to chill out and relax in.

I walked with Beer Goddess to the grocery store, and we picked up 6 days’ worth of food for the next section. I also found a weird new flavor of Dr. pepper, which I thought would be good but was way too sweet.

With the addition of TopShelf, Beer Goddess and I, the house now had 7 hikers. It was also Halloween, so we had lots of fun handing out treats to the three dozen kids that stopped by in costumes.

We also walked around the neighborhood to look at all the houses with Halloween decorations. Some of them were pretty extensive!

Afterwards, Beer Goddess and I walked to an Italian place to pick up some calzones, and enjoyed a nice relaxing takeout dinner back at the house. An exciting day full of new faces!

Monday October 30, 36.2km/22.5mi

Pine Creek (466.3/4640ft) to Forest Road 1011 (488.8/2590ft) (AZ)

We had another early 6am start from our campsite. A weather front had moved in, and it was very windy and a little cold.

For the first hour of hiking, I could watch the moon set over the cliffs to the West.

Eventually the sun came over the horizon and turned the tops of the mountains orange.

Once I had hiked up over a saddle and back into another valley, the wind had lessened in the dense pine forest.

I walked through a valley that was called Reavis Ranch, which I think historically had been a ranch but was now reclaimed by a hundred years of regrowth and nature.

I came to Reavis Creek where I got some nice clear water.

And I dumped out the water that I had from last night, which was definitely green. It looked like a smoothie from Jamba juice, haha.

TopShelf caught up and we hiked together for a little while, passing by this massive old juniper tree. It looked mostly dead but still had some living branches.

A little later, the forest went away and we re-entered some high meadows which were very windy.

We had another descent which was on an easy trail, and we ended up in another sheltered valley with little wind.

When I got to a trailhead, I waited for this snake to move out of the trail. The snake was very slow to move, probably because it was a little cold outside.

The last hour of the morning we had a roadwalk up on a high ridge.

And we can see all the way down into the valleys, including the valley to the west where Phoenix is located.

We had lunch at a sheltered spot where the trail left the dirt road and started to make a massive descent. Even in our sheltered spot under the junipers, it was still kind of windy so we did not stay long. We started the long 3000ft descent down into Reavis Canyon.

As we got lower, the saguaro cacti started to reappear again.

We stopped by our last water source for the day, which was guarded by a bunch of wasps and a rattlesnake. Fun times.

The rest of the afternoon was on an easy trail that had only a few of the pokey plants called cat’s claw.

Among the hundreds of normal looking Saguaros, we also saw a few of the odd ones.

Just before sunset, we entered a cool little redrock canyon which we followed for a mile.

It was amazing to watch the sunset make the red cliffs even redder.

We setup camp at the end of the canyon, and in a dense little bunch of juniper trees, to try and block the wind. I hope this level of wind is not normal for this area!