With well over 9,000 miles of cumulative long distance hiking and backpacking experience under my belt, I decided I wanted to hike the Arizona Trail this spring. I sort of did it on a whim, jumping at a convenient opportunity to check a thru hike off of my ever growing to-do list of mountains to climb and trails to hike. After finishing my triple crown (AT 19, CDT 21, PCT 22), I found myself totally lost about what was to come next for me. Those three very long trails absolutely consumed my life for four years both on and off the trail and even after I had hiked 99% of them, I spent the next summer finishing every little mile I had missed due to wildfires. In a way, I was picking up the pieces of myself I had left out on the trails and putting them back together. The Arizona Trail would be my first thru hike post triple crown and I was interested to see how it would feel to be back out doing what I love again. In all honesty, the Arizona Trail is something that I wanted to do but, I didn’t feel the same draw to it that I felt with my other thru hikes. I thought about all the other trails on my list as well and none of them were calling to me in particular. There were many times I wondered if I really even wanted to hike the AZT at all or if I was just having imposter syndrome. I have concluded that as much as I love thru hiking, I don’t think any trail I hike going forward will have the same exciting pull that doing the triple crown for the first time did for me. My feelings towards starting the Arizona Trail felt very uneasy just because they were so different.
I got picked up by my shuttle driver “Calves” as soon as I landed in Phoenix and went straight to the trail. A storm was predicted for the first night and I felt like an idiot for rushing to get on trail with a 4pm start. I really did not want to waste time messing around in Tucson. From the first day, I made the decision to night-hike over Miller Peak to beat the snow storm at high elevation and this theme continued for the rest of my hike. One storm after another rolled through the region I was in. I was expecting to have about two days of precipitation on my entire hike but that wasn’t the case at all. It snowed on me the first two nights and there were several other days when it rained on and off all day including a day with non-stop rain that I spent in town. I was particularly proud of myself for beating that storm over Mount Lemmon, which required me to do two of the hardest ascents on the trail back to back. When there were several inches of snow on the peak and Oracle Ridge the next day, I felt justified in my hustle. For this trail, I packed a tarp for the first time and a rain jacket that didn’t work at all. I was completely unprepared for what a wet and cold season I experienced. By the end, I had my actual rain jacket mailed to me, two extra pairs of cheap pants I picked up at a thrift store and Dollar General as well as a sleeping bag liner. To be honest, I really didn’t enjoy the first week on the Arizona Trail but by the end of it I got my mojo back. I wondered why the heck I was hiking if I didn’t feel super excited about it and I thought about quitting every day. Some days I thought were really pretty, and then there were 20 mile sections of cow poop filled, barren mesquite farmlands I really hated. Every time I hit a low point something serendipitous would happen. I would say that my low points on the Arizona Trail were lower than the low points of other trails for me. For the first 400 miles of the trail, I never saw the same hiker twice. Knowing that the Arizona Trail was a very popular and well loved mid-distance thru hike, I was expecting to meet lots of other people but no one was hiking remotely close to my pace.
I had a very poor experience in the town of Oracle that made me just want to get out of there as fast as I could. Kearny, Arizona is where things really started to turn around for me. This trail town touts itself as “the friendliest town on the AZT”, and they certainly live up to the claim. The 12 hours I spent there really restored my love for long distance foot travel and getting to experience glimpses of small town American life in such a unique way. I finally met a lot of fun hikers, felt very welcomed into the town, and had a hot day on the trail. Up until that point, I would say it wasn’t really hot at all. Personally, the heat is something I was looking forward to experiencing in Arizona but I only had a handful of hot days in the 30 days I spent hiking. The section between the towns of Kearny (Gila River Trailhead) and Superior (Picket Post Trailhead) were my favorite. I was fortunate enough to see a Gila monster a few miles before Picket Post Trailhead, it was something I was really hoping would happen on this hike but I knew I would be very lucky if it did.
My personal goal for the hike was to complete the trail in 30 days. 800 miles would be the most miles I’ve ever foot traveled in one month. I didn’t really care if I got injured and “blew up” because the Arizona Trail was never that important to me. All winter long I trail ran and got back into weight lifting. The weight lifting in particular ended up paying dividends in my ability to knock out this trail in 30 days. I felt that all the strength I gained over the winter helped prevent overuse injury as well as contributed to faster recovery times. The first half of the trail I found quite difficult with many days over 5,000 feet of vertical gain. I never pegged the AZT as a difficult trail, and it wasn’t until I was past the town of Superior, that I really appreciated how steep certain parts of the trail were. In my head, I knew that there would be three really hard climbs that I had heard about before (Miller Peak, Mica Mountain, and Mount Lemmon), and I thought that once those were out of the way it would be easy walking. I was wrong. I thought the hardest section in particular was the Mazatazals between the towns of Roosevelt Lake and Pine. During that section, I ended up rationing my food which I believe played into my exhaustion walking into Pine. At this point, I really wasn’t sure if I would be able to make it to the northern terminus within my time goal.
After Pine, the trail changed completely. It climbed the Mogollon Rim and stayed on a very flat high elevation plateau all the way until the end, except for the Grand Canyon of course. I had hiked the section between Pine and Flagstaff in the fall of 2020, and although I was looking forward to experiencing it for a second time with a new perspective, I mentally struggled to find that part interesting at all. I pushed to get into Flagstaff just so I could have a zero day there. I felt that I needed a day off of the trail more for my mental sake than physical. In Flagstaff, I stayed with trail angels Melody and Tim. I felt that my stay with them was one of the biggest highlights of the whole trail for me and left me with a positive mental boost and total rejuvenation to make it to the finish. It was here that I met Martin who I would meet up with again at the Grand Canyon and walk to the finish line with. I loved the section North of Flagstaff and really appreciated the Urban Trail section. The first time I walked the urban trail I really didn’t like it. After going through the snow skirting the lower flank of Humphreys Peak, the trail was so flat that I knocked out a 40 mile day pretty easily. I thought I might do more days close to 40 miles, but to be honest I got really freaked out about night hiking in Arizona after seeing two mountain cats in the dark pretty early on. Usually 30 miles could get done before the sun set, but much more than that and my day would end in the dark. One thing about hiking the Arizona trail in either the spring or fall (most ideal times) is that the daylight hours are limited compared to midsummer. I was glad that the sun set around 8pm by the end of the trail as I typically enjoy hiking until 8pm and it was frustrating for it to get dark at 7pm in the beginning.
For the Grand Canyon section, I decided to camp at Bright Angel campground just so I could get a warm night of sleep. The park was very accommodating to thru hikers, which was awesome. They had a campsite at the very popular campgrounds set aside just for us. I could have gotten any permit I wanted to hike thru the canyon which was awesome and unexpected. Going down South Kaibab was absolutely epic. Walking the ridgeline on the canyon plateau after the initial descent is something I won’t soon forget. It was so nice, yet odd at the same time, to have company for the last 100 miles of my hike. I had just spent so much time completely alone on the trail for the first 700 miles that it was a bit jarring to have someone around to talk to or witness the crazy amount of very short breaks I take. There were days I was starting to feel like a mute if I didn’t talk out loud or sing to myself. I’m so glad Martin and I got to walk the ridiculous road walk from the North Rim to Jacob Lake together as the trail was still covered under multiple feet of snow and we didn’t see a single person for the last 80 miles. The road walk is something that I am actually really proud of myself for doing as I have always avoided them in the past and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The trail wrapped up with a 30 mile day on a single track dirt trail and a great view of the Red Vermillion Cliffs and Coyote Buttes. A simple stone monument on the state line at a quiet campground is where my friends from Bozeman picked me up. It was so great to have friends pick me up at a northern terminus for the first time ever. All in all, I loved the Arizona Trail by the time it was over and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a varietal, unique, mid distance thru hike. I failed to mention how incredibly supported the trail is by a very active Arizona Trail Association and a trail angel community who made my hike not only possible but very flawless in terms of logistics. Please check out their website for more trail information.
I will leave you with some brief statistics of my Arizona Trail Thru Hike.
Start Date: March 23rd 2024 @ 5pm
End Date: April 21st 2024 @ 5pm
Total Mileage: 780.4
Average Mileage: 26.3 miles per day
Zero Days: ONE in Flagstaff
Nero Days: 5 ( I consider any day where I spend less than half the day -6 hours- hiking)
Nights Cowboy Camping: 9
Nights I slept under my tarp: 12
Longest Day: 41.4 Miles
Days over 5k vertical gain: 6
Best Meal: Salmon and Brussel Sprouts cooked by trail angel Tim in Flagstaff
Best Drink: Prickly Pear Margarita at Colossal Cave
Boxes Sent in the Mail: Two … Pine AZ and Roosevelt Lake
Favorite Trail Town: Kearny, then Pine, then Flagstaff
Favorite Sections: Mica Mountain, Mount Lemmon, Alamo Canyon, Grand Canyon
Happy Trails!
-Early Bird
Des Hikes Thru 