Miles Hiked: 20.9
AZT Milage: 226
Oracle to Beehive Well
I woke up at 5:30 am today feeling very well rested. I had hoped I would sleep until 9am but my body is just on the hiker schedule now. I laid in bed until 7:30 am finishing up my last blog posts, downloading music, reading the map for the trail ahead, and checking the weather. I felt really uneasy about leaving town today as it was still raining out when I woke and and predicted to rain on and off all day. After my freezing walk to the store last night I knew that I 100% needed to correct my rain gear situation if I was going to be out in bad weather. I spent the rest of the morning cleaning up my room and getting my gear together while constantly checking the weather and looking outside. The sky did get blue for a little bit! I had to check out of the room at 11am so I needed to make a decision soon. I really wanted to hike but I didn’t want to get in a bad situation. I called the dollar tree next to the dollar general I went to last night to see if they sold rain ponchos. They did! I made the decision to get back on trail after walking to the store to get a poncho first. At least I would have something better than my current set up and the weather was looking slightly better.
I was back on trail at 11:30 am. I saw three other hikers ahead of me. They all must have just left town too. The trail followed tiger mine road up to tiger mine trailhead. I passed a guy shooting targets. It was pretty loud as all the gunshots were echoing off the rolling desert hills. This is the second time I’ve had to hike by someone actively shooting. Not my favorite thing to do. At the trailhead I was going to fill up on water as it was reported that the metal box was stocked full. When I went to open it I found that the metal latch was jammed. I tried so hard to move it but I couldn’t. I only had one liter of water and the next source was 12 miles away. Uh oh. Nothing seems to be going right lately. I decided to suck it up and hike fast to the water source. Luckily it was an overcast day so I wouldn’t get too thirsty….
It started to rain as soon as I was back on the trail so I threw all my rain gear on. I looked so silly in my two ponchos layered on top of each other. I’m so glad I go two different ones because the emergency rain poncho really didn’t do much for me. Both the ponchoes together kept my core dry which was really nice and prevented me from getting too cold. I had to be careful to not walk too close to any of the cactuses because they would rip my outfit easily. The trail went through rolling hills with big cholla cactus forests and sauguros. I was happy they were still around. I passed all the hikers ahead of me and briefly said hi. I was on a mission to get water. I listened to podcasts and the time went by fast. I was feeling fresh since I had a break from hiking yesterday. It stopped raining and I took all my gear off and enjoyed a blue sky for a little bit. I ran into homeless Guy and I was so excited to see him again. He is the only hiker I’ve seen twice now. He seems to be getting along well with the record he is trying to set. He was telling me about his adventure getting over Mount Lemmon in the middle of the night so he didn’t get stuck in the snow storm. I said bye and continued on. I made it to mountain view tank right at 3:30 pm. I was so happy I could finally drink water freely now that I could stock up well. I climbed the ladder and scooped water out of the massive and very full tank. It was clear in my Cnoc vecto water bag. I went to filter it and discovered that my filter once again decided to slow down to one drop per minute. How frustrating. I back flushed it and it worked a little better but it was still a long time waiting for the water to finish filtering. I ate cheeze it crackers and beef sticks in the meantime and one of the hikers I passed caught up to me. His name was Christian and he is from Switzerland. We both watched as the storm clouds rolled back in and I put all my rain gear back on. I wanted to make it at least to the next water source before the sun set. I felt really lonely as I hiked on through the rainy desert. I was just thinking about how much time I’ve spent alone out here, I’ve never been this alone on any of the trails I’ve hiked. It’s getting really old honestly.
The rain let up just as I got to the water source. Another really big tank. Although all the rain sucked at least it made the desert pretty. I was glad it stopped when I got there because I wanted to make dinner. I ended up setting up camp here because I didn’t feel like night hiking while wet. I figured I might get really cold and I should take advantage of the opportunity to set up my tarp and get in my sleeping bag while the sun was still up for a few more minutes and I had some body heat left from all the moving. I was glad I did. Christian set up camp about 100 yards from me. We didn’t talk much but it was nice to know someone else was camping nearby. Depending on how much it rains while I sleep tonight and how well I sleep, I might try to get up crazy early and make it to Kearney tomorrow but it’s still really far away. I’m really hoping for some sunshine.
Happy Trails!
-Early Bird
Des Hikes Thru 