Miles Hiked: 11.7
Total Trail Progress: 9.7
Passage 1
After a week long trip to Moab with my fiance Val, he dropped me off at the Salt Lake City Airport. We said our goodbyes and I walked in to go through security and catch my 10:30am flight to Tucson AZ. With a very short layover in Phoenix, it was a quick travel time to the trail. As soon as I arrived in Tucson I was picked up by “Calves” who is doing shuttles for AZT hikers. We actually met on the PCT in 2022. He’s hiked the AZT four times. We talked trail the whole way to Montezuma Pass where he dropped me off 1.7 trail miles North of the Mexican border. It was refreshing to conversate with someone who has so many miles under their belt and is also great friends with my buddy Andrew AKA Galileo. I definitely miss getting to talk trail to my hiking partners. I didn’t need to make any stops, it was straight from airport to the trail. I think this is the fastest I have ever traveled to get directly on a trail. Usually I spend the night in the nearest town before and start in the morning. The weather was not looking great and I was wondering if I had made a mistake. It was predicted to snow tonight with 55mph winds on top of Miller Peak, the first climb of the AZT, gaining 4,000 feet from the terminus to the top at mile 6. I decided I wanted to try tarping on this trail instead of tenting. It takes a lot of skill to learn how to set up a tarp correctly and make good site selections, especially in inclimate conditions. I had only ever pitched this tarp twice before the trail. I wasn’t expecting to need to use it so soon.
It was 3:30 pm when I started walking southbound to the Southern Terminus. I wondered if I should camp at mile 1.7 because it offered some shelter in the form of a pavilion at Montezuma Pass or if I had it in me to make it a total of 12 miles up and over Miller Peak and drop some elevation after the summit spur trail. I told myself I would decide when I made it back to the pass. The wind picked up and the sky was cloudy as I walked downhill to the Mexican border. The trail was lined with yucca and other familiar desert plants. This would be my third time hiking across a desert starting at the Mexican border after completing the CDT and PCT.
No one was at the terminus when I arrived. This was my first time totally alone at the start of a hike. I’ve always had friends or family with me at the start. Monument 102 was behind a barbed wire fence on the Mexico side. There was a short section of metal border wall to the west of the Terminus and a strip of dirt road running along the whole border. In the distance I could see the other section of border wall to the East built by the Nixon administration after the declared “war on drugs”. It’s always interesting to see what the border of the USA looks like in different places and the practices of border patrol and attitudes of the locals. It was difficult to get a good picture I liked since I had to use my camera timer. After about 10 minutes of hanging out and trying to get some photos I officially began my northbound hike of the AZT!
The wind was blowing hard as I walked uphill with my fully loaded pack including four liters of water. If I was smart I could have left some things at the pass but I didn’t want to risk them getting stolen. Starting this trail felt so different from all the other hikes I’ve done. Every one of the triple crown trails felt like an exciting passion project of mine that I spent years working towards both on and off trail. The AZT felt like an opportunity I wanted to take but I wasn’t sure if I actually even wanted to be here hiking it. Very odd to admit but there is such a stark contrast in my feelings towards this trail. When I got back to the pass I decided to eat a snack and keep going. I was anxious because I knew that I would end up hiking in the dark and it was already looking and feeling so stormy. I just wanted to get Miller Peak over with and not waste my time sitting in the Montezuma Pass shelter alone wondering if I should have kept hiking.
I felt slow going up to Miller Peak. Despite being in the best shape I ever have been before starting a trail, there is still nothing like putting weight on your back and hiking 4,000 feet straight up. I passed a pile of powerades and clothes on the side of the trail, clearly not a thru hiker and most likely a stash for a migrant who had crossed the border. The sun set over Mexico was incredible the sky was a deep red before the sun set and I changed into every layer of clothing I had, flipped on my headlamp and turned on an episode of backpacker radio. It was going to be a long evening. I saw a sudden flash of bright light beside me that startled me quite a bit. It was almost like a flash of lightening somewhat congruent with the stormy conditions. Turns out it was one of border patrols game cameras and it wouldn’t be the last one I set off that night. They would startle me every time.
After I passed the summit spur trail I ran into about a mile of snow that slowed me down quite a bit. It was firm but slippery. I was glad when it was over. I dropped elevation down to a spring that emptied into a bathtub. How fun. “Calves” warned me not to stay here because the migrants frequent it as a source and in general not to camp near water in the desert as wildlife flock to it at night. This proved very true as not even 0.1 after the source I ran into the most bizarre large group of small deer all laying down. I swear there were about 20 of them. All of their eyes glowing together in the night were creepy. I was glad it was just deer, I had never seen anything like it. I was getting close to where I wanted to camp and my hips felt so tired. Suddenly there was a large cat in the middle of the trail approximately 20 feet from me. It’s eyes glowed in my headlight and I stopped dead in my tracks, goosebumps raised. Never have I ever had a wildcat encounter this close. I raised up my arms with my trekking poles to look big and made a lot of noise. Luckily it quickly went away but I was spooked to say the least. I decided I would keep hiking until I saw other people to camp with. Luckily it wasn’t long because I was so tired. Only about a mile from where I saw the cat I pitched my tarp next to two tents. It was 9 pm and I had hiked almost 12 miles total for the day including the southbound miles to the border. I was happy with my effort and tried to forget about the cat. Shivering, I tried to fall asleep.
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