Miles Hiked: 27
Total Trail Progress: 36.7
Passages 1-3
It snowed almost an inch but not quite last night. My tarp was partially buried in snow that was blown on to it but I stayed dry inside. I think I got lucky with how I pitched it but I plan on pitching it many more nights for practice. I barely slept and my stomach was grumbling because I didn’t eat before bed last night. I packed up all of my belongings while shivering and hit the trail with pepperoni in my pocket. Before I left I said hi to my camp mates who were a pair of section hikers named Patch and Top Off. It took me a while to warm up. The trail was covered with snow and little ice chunks that must have fallen off all the plants. It was pretty cool to see snow in the desert. I was a little grumpy at a difficult start to my hike but it’s all part of it. As my friend Jenga told me later I am getting a “full value experience”.
The morning dragged on. I was hoping for ten miles by 10am but fell just shy. I was hungry and had a hard time stopping to eat. Eventually I saw another set of footprints on the trail in front of me but as I dropped in elevation the snow became less and less yet it was still falling out of the sky. I camped above 8,000 feet last night, the trail dropped down to 5,000 feet and stayed around there for the rest of the day. I was glad for mostly downhill but the trail went over quite a few small elevation gains as it meandered in and out of different washes all day. My legs aches every time I had to go up a small hill. I think I was just tired and underfed.
Eventually I made it to Parker Canyon Lake Trailhead on a dirt road. This marked the beginning of passage 2 and end of passage 1. The Arizona trail is broken up into 43 different passages. They have an amazing website detailing each one, I will do my best over the course of this blog to mention them all. Passage one was the Huachua Mountains and the trail followed the crest of it. Miller Peak is part of a group of isolated mountains that rise high above the desert floor known as the Sky Islands. The elevation difference between the peak and valley is dramatic. This is referred to as “prominence” and Miller Peak makes it on the list of the 200 most prominent summits in the USA at number 127. I will be passing over the 118th most topographically prominent peak in a hundred miles or so … Mount Lemon. With it’s prominence and elevation above 9,000 feet, it is no wonder that Miller Peak easily attracts snow yet is so far south in the states. Passage 2 marked the start of the Canelo Hills East section and passage 3 where I ended up camping was considered Canelo Hills West. These hills were rolly and exposed and covered with lots of manzanita bushes. I was happy to see them again! It snowed on and off all day as I made my way through the hills.
At the end of the day I met my first Northbound thru hikers. They were named “Money Maker” and “Skipper” they were two gentlemen a bit older than me who had completed the triple crown, most of it together. I was happy to finally run into hikers! They said there were many more ahead of me. I grabbed water at a cache two miles from where I camped. The Arizona trail has a lot of brown metal containers at trailheads where people cache water or leave themselves a resupply. I was thankful for the trail angels who left water today. I still didn’t need to filter any yet, granted I haven’t been drinking enough because I’ve been so cold. My water was frozen for the first half of today anyways. I set up camp at mile 27 for the day under a low hanging tree in hopes that it would provide me some shelter from the storms predicted yet again tonight. I was happy with my pitch and set up and went to sleep hoping for the best. Before I closed my eyes I spent time catching up on writing my blog as I have been too cold to sit down and type anything out on my phone. I never thought the Arizona Trail would start out like this for me.
Passage 1: https://aztrail.org/explore/passages/passage-1-huachuca-mountains/
Passage 2: https://aztrail.org/explore/passages/passage-2-canelo-hills-east/
List of the 200 most prominent summits in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_prominent_summits_of_the_United_States
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