Arizona Trail Part 2

I just finished another hundred and fifty miles of the Arizona Trail. Came in to do my taxes, but still need some documents. I figure I will do another hundred and then pay Uncle Sam his due. This section kicked my butt. It was hot, dry and lots of elevation.

When I came in this time I needed IV therapy. Instead of the normal saline fluid I had two IV tubes. One from Dunkin Donuts and one from Red Lobster. My sugar was raised substantially from the chocolate cream-filled Bismarks, and just the smell of the coconut shrimp revived me immediately.  

On my fifth trail day I met an old cowboy from Colorado. He seems to be doing the Arizona Trail on horseback without much advanced planning. I actually met him while filling my water bottle in a nasty dirt pond filled with pretty green algae. His horse was drinking right next to me. Surprising how nasty water can look appealing when you get thirsty enough. I figured it must be good water, his horse was drinking it. I boiled the heck out of it, the floaters were just extra protein.  

He also had a pack horse and two lame dogs. He asked me if I knew where he might buy some dog food and horse feed. Trying to keep the smart ass remarks I was thinking to myself, I just said I hadn’t planned on using either on my hike and had no clue where to find such supplies. I did question him on getting through some trail sections with the dogs. I know the Grand Canyon or the Saguaro National Park will not allow them. He said, “I need to figure me a way around the Canyon.” I said, “It’s kind of big ditch to jump.” There are many sections that are not accessible for stock, because of the steep terrain and rocky makeup of the route. I later heard a rancher helped him with horse feed and the authorities made him send his lame dogs home.

My first day took me into Saguaro National Park. I was thinking it was going to be rather flat geography--wrong. It goes straight up through an incredible Saguaro forested area then to 8000 ft. into a pine forest. Like hiking from Arizona to Canada in one day. Off the backside of Mica Mountain it was a rocky trail back to the basement and another day of hiking in the heat. Ahead I could see the Catalina’s and knew I would be climbing the next day to cross over at Mt. Lemmon. 

The first day I was supposed to stop at the boundary of the Saguaro National Park. I didn’t have a permit to camp overnight in the park. My original plan was to sleep at the fence and scoot through in one day. It’s about 21 miles from border to border. You start at 3,000 feet, climb to 8,600 feet, then out of the park boundary down the other side at about 4,000. I have been doing 25+ mile days so it seemed like a good plan. When I hit the fence it was early in the afternoon, about 85 degrees. I wanted to do the right thing but Woody Guthrie kept singing in my head, “This Land Is Your Land.” So because of Woody’s bad influence on me I started up. It all worked out fine. I had to change my name to Hayden, but just for one day. I’ll explain the name change. Because it was so steep and rocky, there is no place to camp until you reach the first permitted campsite. To get there I climbed almost two hours in the dark with my headlamp. When I arrived I thought I was all alone. I started to throw my pack down next to a log, then noticed it was a body in a sleeping bag. I quietly walked off into the dark to find another site. 

In the morning I met Basa and Norm. They are also thru-hiking the Arizona Trail. I hiked with them that morning, but I will most likely never see them again. They are half my age and half my base weight. At 30+ miles a day they will be freezing up north while I’m still baking in the south. 

Three of them started the trail. All veteran thru-hikers of many long trails. One guy has already dropped out in Tucson. His name was, you guessed it, Hayden. They said if anyone were to ask my name, tell them it’s Hayden. He’s on our permit. I never saw another soul. The only place I have run into other hikers has been coming into popular day hike trailheads. 

The signature of this trail has to be the heat and the sharp rock trails. I just bought a pair of Dr. Sholls gel soles to try in my boots. Now I’m “gelling.” My feet are getting beat up real bad. You can walk for miles on trail that is basically scree about the size of your fist. My Vasque Breeze boots are already showing signs of cracked tread and I have only done a couple hundred miles. Water was another issue on this last stretch. My guide book gives me some indication of where I can expect water, but it is often not there. Especially since this has been a dry year. Yet I never give up hope, there is always “Trail Magic.”

I arrived at a Forest Service Campground called Moline with empty water bags. The 2014 Arizona Guide book promised a water trailer parked at the campground - NOT. I talked to a Forest Service employee. He said, “There’s never been a water trailer here that I know of.” 

Then I met Lance. Actually caught him on the way to the crapper and asked him about water. He turned on his heels and said follow me. Lance and his wife are full-time RVer’s. He said he put his house in the bank and now they live in beautiful places in their Scamp trailer. In the back of his truck he had several jugs of fresh water. I didn’t want to take a whole gallon, but he insisted. He said Basa and Norm came through earlier and he filled them up too. When he headed back for the crapper I could see the halo on top of his head. Lance is a true Trail Angel. 

I have been making a habit of hiking until dark and getting back on the trail just before first light. I need to take advantage of the cool mornings and evening. So far the weather has treated me well. It has been in the 80s, but it could be much hotter. 

The third night I stopped in rocky switchbacks close to the top of Mt. Lemon near the town of Summerhaven. The whole area burned in 2003 taking most structures with it. I was told by locals that this is the first year in fifty that the ski area did not open. Southwestern winter this year has been more like summer. From my perch I was looking down on the geography of light that spread in every direction on the valley floor. It looks like Tucson stretches its florescent fingers north to Phoenix and south to Mexico. 

I hiked into town the next morning hoping with every cell in my body I would find bacon, eggs, hash browns and coffee. First I found a pizza joint, then a new bar/restaurant that must have been opened by relatives of Jesse James. I paid $12.95 for a pulled pork sandwich and a pile of fries. They did fill all my water bags and I was back on the trail and descending all afternoon to the town of Oracle. 

I am still getting used to my new pack and other gear. This new light-weight pack in a one compartment model. I prefer lots of pockets but I’m finding this arrangement convenient as long as everything goes into it’s allotted space. At 16 pounds base weight it is almost as if I have a day pack on when I’m not carrying a gallon of water. I forget how small it all packs down into. I’m reminded when I’m telling other hikers that I’m hiking the whole trail and they think I just have a day pack on. Besides the light weight, I invested in compression dry bags that allow me to reduce the foot print that sleeping bag, pad, clothes and tent take up inside my much smaller pack. 

After eight trail days I’m already familiar with the whole process of packing gear into the real estate it needs to occupy, and I can do it in the dark. Life is good.

--Keep Smilin’

Arizona Trail Border to Patagonia

I started the Arizona Trail thru-hike with some great trail magic. Trail magic and trail angels are things and people that make a long hike memorable. Gaila and I traveled down near the border to a Forest Service campground I have always wondered about. I could never find any solid information on whether there was a hard road all the way to the campground. It was as close to the border in this part of Arizona as I could find. We drove through Fort Huachuca (Oldest Indian Fighting Fort still in operation), and headed south. The road turned out to be challenging, but paved. The last few hairpin, switchback curves got my attention. When we arrived it was a beautifully maintained primitive campground overlooking Parker Canyon Lake. What a gem. I studied the map and still could not figure out how to get to the border and feel comfortable with leaving Gaila to drive back 18 miles on a dirt road. The area is swarming with Border Patrol, but I just didn’t want to be on the trail worrying about whether she made it back to the campground. The campground was safe, plenty of other campers and two full-time camp hosts. We decided to take a walk through the campground and see if we might find someone planning a side trip to visit the Coronado National Monument which is down the dirt road near the border. The first people we ran into turned out to be Arizona Trail members. They were section hiking the trail. The next morning they were going down to the border to start hiking the first 22.7 miles back to this campground. They had hired a shuttle service from Tucson to take them to the border. They said, “Show up at eight in the morning. We are almost sure he will have extra room.” It worked out perfectly. Great people. Good information. John, the shuttle operator did mostly mountain bike tours, but wanted to check out this road and start offering a hiker shuttle. He couldn’t have been nicer.

 My new hiking friends had already hiked the short section to the border and back on a previous trip from Montezuma Pass where the bus dropped us off. I started south alone into a canyon (1.9 miles) to touch the small monument at the border fence. There I took my first “Selfie”, turned around and headed for Utah.

 The first half of the day was mostly upstroke to the 9,000 foot Miller Peak. These are sky islands. Rising land masses in the middle of rather flat terrain. I could see for miles in all directions early in the day, but by noon a valley dust storm had obscured much of the views. I started up the half-mile spur trail to the very top of Miller Peak but decided quickly that the views would not be worth the price of admission. I like to hike about 25 miles a day, but that is a bit more challenging this time of year. It is all about “time and space.” I like to hike about 2 mph, which includes rest stops and food breaks. That is a pretty easy pace and makes possible the 25 mile day if you have enough daylight. This time of year the sun is on a shorter flight path. I did my 25 that first day, but I finished a half-hour after sunset. I have a good twelve hours of light at this time, and I can squeeze in another half-hour after sunset. In this part of Arizona I wanted to hike until dark-thirty and stealth camp off the trail a distance. That way if illegals were passing through at night, they wouldn’t hear me snoring. Gaila says I snore. I personally have never heard it. The trail is broken up into 43 Passages. When I joined the Arizona Trail Association, I purchased their Arizona National Scenic Trail guidebook that seems, so far, very accurate. I also bought a Garmin Etrex 20 GPS. I was told there were many illegal traffic trails along the southern sections that looked more well-worn than the actual Arizona Trail. The GPS would keep me on the right path. I found that information not accurate. I never needed the GPS the first 25 miles. Never saw a trail that looked confusing or squirrelly. Everything seemed well-marked and made sense when matched to the guidebook data. Water was another concern. So far that has not been a problem. Even though it has been an abnormally hot winter down here, there had been a couple inches of rain the week before I started. I found pools of water in most canyons. The other advantage of hiking 25 mile days is the fact that you find three times the water sources of those hiking 8-10 mile days. I have been carrying about 3 liters of water and so far always have a couple liters left when I find a good water source and top off.

Bathtub Spring--Biggest decision of the day, bathe first or drink first?

The second day I knocked out most of two passages. I did have some route finding issues, but not because of illegal traffic trails. I found myself a couple times hiking with the heifers. Cattle make trails that clone the Arizona Trail. Often they blend so seamlessly you are lulled right into them. Never take obvious for granted. Because I’m blind in one eye I missed the turn in the trail and ended up a half mile down a canyon before realizing I was on a cowpath. I am learning to love my new GPS. It has thousands of waypoints and all 43 tracks of the Arizona Trail downloaded to it. The waypoints will give me various water resources and the tracks will tell me immediately when I am off the trail. You can often hike a couple miles or more without any official trail signage. It is a great feeling to pull the GPS out and know you are still on the correct route. Daniel Boone would be simply amazed.

All during the second day I could hear what I assumed was a drone flying around the many canyons ahead of me. At one high point I took some time to spot it, but it and the sound was illusive. I also spotted a few electronic devices with my good eye. They were attached to fenceposts. Big Brother is definitely watching this geography down here. I made a great investment this fall that is paying off handsomely now. I bought a lot of new high-tech gear that allowed me to lose at least 11 lbs. of ugly gear. My pack base weight dropped from 27 pounds to 16 pounds. What a difference. It has also allowed me to carry more (heavy) water, without much effort. Hiking last year in Colorado with a bunch of young CDT hikers I started picking their brains about gear. Some were carrying as little as 7 pounds base weight. Yes, you read that right. (One guy, trail name Raisins, was appropriately named because that’s all he ate.) I’m not there yet. Probably never will be. They admit they are often miserable, but the trade-off is the ability to hike 30-35 mile days. There are things I still refuse to give up: Hot food, ground sleeping pad, zippered sleeping bag and enclosed tent. My tent is a Hilleberg, Akto. It is a bomb shelter. It weighs 3 lbs 13 oz., at least twice what ultra lightweight backpackers carry, theirs only being a tarp. But I sleep like a baby. Like Charleston Heston said about his rifle, they are going to have to take my Akto tent, “From my cold, dead hand.”

Who's the best looking guy on the trail? "The shadow knows!"

Knowing I was going to meet Gaila at the Gathering Grounds cafe in Patagonia, AZ for breakfast I was a little impatient for sunrise. I started packing up in the dark about five o’clock. I had another six trail miles into town and I didn’t want to keep my bacon and eggs waiting. I used my little headlamp to follow tread until the sun began peeking over the peaks. Great trail so far, beautiful country, lots of wildlife. As my good friend Mike Schlins would say, “This is sucking the juice out of life.”
--Keep Smilin’

The Big Easy

This is not your typical New Orleans, Chamber of Commerce, Jazz center of the earth, marketing piece. Since sprawling urban centers are not my idea of a good time I was just along for the ride. I was the taxi driver that made everyone nervous, until they rode with a real French Quarter taxi driver. Then I didn’t seem so bad.  We parked the motorhome in the Treme, just a couple blocks from the French Quarter. I took notice of the spikes and razor wire adorning the top of the brick wall that enclosed our RV park. I guess we were going to spend the week in the demilitarized zone. We actually ended up walking into the French Quarter day and night, without becoming part of the cities statistics. 

Walking down to Bourbon Street on a Saturday night is like going to the circus. Everyone is walking around with a Grenade or a Hurricane, which is a category 5 drink that can make you blow a 1.7 on the Breathalyzer. Most people here believe the liver is evil and must be punished. I know they say it is the birthplace of Jazz, and we did take in some really great music, like Kermit Ruffins, but it is also home to the fashion challenged. It was actually ironic that there was a Mary Kay convention in town. That might seem like too much makeup, but it can’t hold a candle to the over painted, the over feathered, the over beaded and the over indulged.  What if we had visitors from another galaxy and they just happened to land here, in the middle of the French Quarter. What would they think? Maybe they have already been here and left in disgust. Or, maybe they never left. Maybe this is them. 

Katrina did a tremendous amount of damage to New Orleans. In the French Quarter they still haven’t found their tables. Every place we went in to hear music we had to stand. Fifteen dollar cover charge to wedge yourself into a sea of humanity to listen to talented black musicians, blow soul through brass instruments and watch fat white people, who can’t dance, jiggle around.

On Sunday we walked into the French Quarter early in the morning. Water gushing, street sweeper trucks were flushing the streets. Residents were hosing down their sidewalks. The pungent smell in the air a mixture of garbage and puke.  The 1,600 miles of pipe that make up the Big Easy gravity collection, sanitary sewerage system, dumps its treated water into the Mighty Mississippi. That might help explain why the Gulf of Mexico has an 8,000 sq. mile Dead Zone stretching out from the mouth of the Big Muddy. 

Which, of course, brings me to the famous seafood everyone flocks here to sample. I admit, I am not a seafood lover. If cows could swim, I would be a fisherman. I am more of a meat and potato Irishman. That said, I did try to find some middle ground as we patronized many of the cities eateries. The first thing I realized was the connection between the cities excessive drinking and excessive eating. They have to keep you half in the bag so that the prices on the menu seem normal. The way I figure, the hot sauce is to kill whatever it is they put in that Jambalaya.  After a lot of search and research I did find a hamburger joint on Bourbon Street. I had a great hamburger there, smothered in fried onions. Unfortunately, the milkshake machine was on the fritz. A couple days later Gaila and I rode the trolley out to the Garden District. We met a couple walking on the street at our same pace. They were native New Orleanians. They told us where we could walk and where we shouldn’t. According to them, a couple blocks south from this beautiful, historic, seemingly safe section of the city, you go from serene to sirens very quickly. We stuck to the main trolley lines and found the best food in all of New Orleans - Phil’s Grill. You build your own hamburger from scratch. They give you a full sheet of paper with options and you become your own hamburger architect. Not only that, but the milkshake machine worked. 

Visiting New Orleans was an experience, I will admit. I enjoyed all the walking and gawking. One night I drove Gaila and a friend we met to Frenchmen Street to here music. I couldn’t find a place to park, with any promise that my car would still be there when I returned, so I drove back to our RV park and walked back through the Quarter. I noticed that a lot of the homeless people have dogs. So the mystery for me is, “What end of the leash do all these piles of scat I see on the sidewalk come from?” This incubator of  American Culture is a perfect example of the simple math problem that faces us all. “Multiply numbers -- Divide resources.  The recipe for disaster here is quick and easy to understand. Start with 400,000 residents, mix in nine million tourists annually, place in a bowl two feet below sea level and add copious amounts of water, lightly salted. So, after a week of sleeping under I-10, at eighty bucks a night, I’m ready for Padre Island National Seashore and Big Bend National Park where the animals are less dangerous and the night sky clear and quiet. --Keep Smilin’

Rocky Mountain High Colorado

When I hiked the Continental Divide Trail in 1999 I reached Colorado at Cumbres Pass on Memorial Day. I went from drought New Mexico to post-holing in snow up to my crotch. I kept dropping to lower elevation to get through the first 250 miles of Colorado. I have always wanted to go back and hike this section that I missed. Since we were in Colorado in June, this seemed like a good year as the snow level was low in this part of Colorado. We found a great Forest Service campground just four miles up the mountain from Durango. The campground hosts were great and invited us to Happy Hour at five o’clock every day. It was a quiet and safe place with friendly people for Gaila while I hiked. I figured it would take me about 12 days to do my 200 miles and I felt comfortable leaving her there. Gaila drove me 134 miles down to New Mexico and dropped me off at the border of Colorado on Cumbres Pass on Fathers Day. It’s my Father's Day gift every year to hike, and her gift to have me take a hike. Unlike 1999, Cumbres Pass was mostly free of snow. I could actually see trail tread.  I discovered quickly that this is perhaps the toughest section of the CDT. Average elevation is 12,000, poorly marked and not well maintained. I like to do 20 mile days but this section takes a lot of attention and time searching for trail direction. A lot of hikers are carrying GPS units that tell them everything from where the next water source is to where to take a leak. I just took a couple National Geographic topo maps that turned out to be not very accurate. If I had it to do all over again I would take Delorme maps which is what I used in 1999.  The trail is mostly marked with rock cairns. Some are as tall as I am, and others are two or three rocks piled on top of each other. The secret is to not let one cairn out of sight until you find the next one. Often, even this late in June, many are still buried in snow.  I was surprised how much snow still remained in mid-June. I didn’t see anyone the first two days. The third evening I stood in the middle of a huge snowfield looking for my next rock cairn clue as to which way the trail turned. Not finding any sign, I dropped my pack and started circling the outer reaches of the field. High on a rock outcropping I could see tread heading straight up the mountainside. At the same time I spotted a guy moving up the snowfield with a huge pack on his back. I could see his confusion so I whistled to him. No response. I whistled several more times, still no response. I thought, “This guy must be freakin’ deaf. As it turns out, he was! By the time I descended and snagged my pack he had whipped out his GPS, found the trail and was headed up. I need to get one of those things.  I started up after him and then noticed another hiker headed up behind me. These were the 2013 CDT thru hikers who started late in New Mexico so they would reach the San Juan wilderness after the snow receded. The guy coming up behind me turned out to be, “Tattoo Boy” (trail name). True to his trail name he was tattooed everywhere God had given him skin.  Compared to the guy ahead of us, “Tattoo Boy” looked like he was carrying a purse. This new generation of hikers carry the bare necessities. We were high above treeline and the wind was ferocious. I was curious to see how “Tattoo Boy” would survive the night with his tarp and down blanket. I never did see because he quickly disappeared around the next bend. With little weight these people can do 30+ miles a day. It began to sleet so I just found a flat spot and tried to quickly put up my tent. I must have looked like a monkey wrestling Superman's cape in that wind. My hat blew off and I was running across the slope with my ground cloth under my arm chasing my hat like a Frisbee that would not stop flying. It’s a Tilley hat and guaranteed for life, even if you lose it. I was about to lose it. Just before a precipitous drop off I stomped it with my foot. It all sounds miserable, but not really. I have a Swedish tent called a Hilleberg. The Europeans know how to build tents. Once I get it staked out good and climb in, I am high and dry. It’s a bomb shelter.  It weighs less than 3 lbs. and I can guarantee you it is much more comfortable than a tarp.  I never saw “Tattoo Boy” again. He was moving fast. He was a seasoned hiker with many long trails under his belt. He knew what he was doing, but I am still curious how they stay comfortable with so little shelter in such a harsh climate. I was up at dark thirty and on the move again. Around the first bend, behind a boulder, I could see the guy with the huge pack stuffing it full. I said, “hello.” no response. My first thought was, “This guy needs an attitude adjustment.” Then he spotted me and spoke. I knew immediately that he was deaf. He pulled notebooks out of his cavernous pack and asked me to write my name. The first pen was frozen. The second pen was frozen. The third pen was thawing and I could write my name. It took awhile but I finally realized he was thinking about quitting in Pagosa Springs. He was tired of dealing with the snow. He was carrying snowshoes. I also tried snowshoes through this section in 1999 and knew they were worthless crossing steep, icy snow fields. I bid him goodbye, but we would become more acquainted as the day progressed. As heavy as his pack must have weighed, he was a big strapping kid who could move. Over the next big climb I could hear him gaining on me. It was like the turtle and the hare. He was fast with many rest stops, and I am slow but seldom stop. It was interesting because I would come upon him standing in the trail, deeply concentrated on his GPS and not aware of my presence. That’s okay as long as I’m not a grizzly bear. Fortunately, he would not have this problem here. A griz has not been spotted here in over 40 years. Once I found him studying his GPS and next to him a large wad of money lay in the trail. It had obviously fallen from his pack during his rest stop. I pointed it out to him. That’s when I discovered he could read lips. I had to keep reminding myself that I didn’t need to yell, it didn’t matter. Just say concise sentences slowly and we were communicating just fine.  At the last stop I saw him, I also ran into “Raisins.” I never asked him why his trail name was “Raisins” but my guess would be that he lived on them. He was from New York and had walked across New Mexico with “Tattoo Boy” from L.A. His base weight was seven pounds. That’s right, I said seven. He carried no stove and he ate cold food, I’m guessing raisins. He sleeps in a tarp, carries a water bottle in his hand with a filter built into the spout. Unlike Tattoo Boy I noticed he did carry a thin sleeping pad and an ice ax. The ice ax could come in handy if he slipped. I cross step snowfields using my trekking poles. I really don’t know how these guys can cross without poles. In the morning these fields are hard packed and icy. During the day they soften up. If you slip or lose your balance it’s a long way to the basement, but they seem to manage them. I ran into Raisins a couple more times - a great kid. Unfortunately, for all of them their trip was about to need a major adjustment. It’s smart to hit this section of incredible beautiful trail in mid-June. It keeps you from going to lower elevation because of snow, as happened to me in 1999. Now it was fire. Ahead, the Weminuche Wilderness was on fire and already our section of trail was closed and we would all have to exit at Wolf Creek Pass at the next road crossing. I told them all how I had to take a lower route around the Weminuche because of snow and this route would also work for fire. They would only have to road walk to Creede, Colorado, then take a Forest Service trail back to the Divide at Spring Creek Pass above Lake City, Colorado. Like me, the Weminuche would have to wait for another year. I could smell smoke and walked hard until dark. I wanted to reach the Wolf Creek Ski Area and sleep within sight of the highway below. The trail is constantly blocked by deadfall and has had little maintenance lately. Climbing under and over these trail blocks can be time consuming. The fire seemed like it was a good distance away, but if I needed to make a run for it I wanted visual insurance that I could make Hwy 160 and Wolf Creek Pass. I could smell smoke all night, but could see no flame. Fortunately, I could get phone reception and called Gaila to pick me up at Wolf Creek Pass the next morning. I arrived by six in the morning and decided to hitchhike down to Pagosa Springs and meet her there. There's not a lot of traffic on Wolf Creek Pass at 6 a.m. Luckily the third vehicle by picked me up. A typical dually ranch pickup blew by me, then had second thoughts. I must have looked okay. My Tilly hat does have that Cowboy look to it. I always get picked up by characters. This guy was a real cowboy with his dog “Scrappy.” I jumped in and he had his radio blasting country music. As it turned out he was a hydrologist. I think that would be the word for his work. He was from Arizona, but had been working the Bootjack Ranch below us for four years. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/bootjack-ranch-in-colorad_n_559227.html#s86705title=Entry_Gate  He was trying to show me the lakes and fly fishing streams he had created, but all we could see was thick smoke. He said he would take me all the way to Durango, but he had to pick up a load of hay, deliver it, go fishing all morning and he had a roping contest in the afternoon. He was full of great stories. He said the owner of the Bootjack called one morning and told him he was tired of looking at the power line that crossed his ranch. He told them to “bury it.” I’m sure that was pocket change. The entrance gate alone cost $480,000. The owner is CEO of one of the biggest gas operations in the US. It pays to have gas. Unfortunately, mine is from eating too many beans crossing the Great Divide. --Keep Smilin’

Bryce Canyon National Park