Based In mesa, Arizona, The outcrop is a Blog by richard leveille.

Thoughts on my first week on the Arizona Trail (AZT)

Thoughts on my first week on the Arizona Trail (AZT)

Thoughts on a week on the Arizona trail (House Rock Road trailhead to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon)

 

Well it was interesting how different my perception of the magnitude of challenges and potential problems were from the reality. Most of my preparation was focussed on physical aspects of the trip: new orthotic insoles and the right boots, general physical condition, gear that was lightweight but durable, getting 3000 cal a day and the right nutrients on board to keep my body healthy and functioning well, emergency communications for remote areas and so on. While I clearly recognized the mental challenge of long days walking the trail alone, I thought I was better prepared for that aspect of the trip. Why? Firstly, I assumed I’d be meeting a least a few people a day along the trail to stop and chat with. Secondly I’d loaded enough books onto my smartphone that, together with my harmonica, I thought I could keep evenings reasonably entertaining.

 

While I spent the second night in Jacob Lake and the fifth at the North Rim Lodge and thoroughly enjoyed both, most days I saw no one, nadie, personne!. On day three a bowhunter stalked quietly into my camp (so quietly he scared me a bit, but that’s their skill, right?) and we had a nice, if short, chat. On the same day I came across two more bowhunters in their stands by waterholes near Dog Lake, but they clearly were more interested in shooting their prey than in shooting the breeze with me. That same evening I camped near a point where a forest road crossed the trail and had nice chats with a young guy named Danny, car camping there, at dinner time and the next morning over coffee. Every time I came across one of the water caches that Janice and Zoe (the dog) and I had set out, tears welled up in my eyes, my heart swelled and I almost cried thinking that we’d all been together on that very spot just a few days previously. Silly? No; I think it’s perfectly normal considering the dramatic change from constant loving companions to complete solitude over the intervening days. And just the daily grind of trying to make the miles I needed (avg 15/day) was as more mentally than physically tiring. The rosary came to my rescue numerous (up to 4/d) times. I offered them up for any and everything I could think of and that got me through many difficult stretches. I tried thinking innovative and creative thoughts but found it very difficult when trudging through interminable pine forests (or, worse yet, up a long series of switchbacks to the top of a rise) knowing I had another 6 or 4 or 2 miles to go to hit my goal. The mind just naturally goes on autopilot in these circumstances (or regresses to a reptilian state incapable of higher thought) and I found creativity elusive, except on the rarest occasions.

 

In the evenings the problem was of a more technical nature. The ANKER solar panel that I was counting on to keep my electronics running functioned intermittently at best. It required direct, perpendicular sunlight to really charge things up. That meant it didn’t work while I was walking with it slung over my backpack, it didn’t work in the woods and it didn’t work when it was cloudy. The only time it really did work was when I took one of my two longer breaks, or in the morning before I set off, or in the late afternoon when I stopped for the day and the sky was perfectly clear and I could set it out in full sunlight for a ½ hr or so. These perfect favorable circumstances happened so rarely that I didn’t dare read for long on my phone at night for fear of it discharging and leaving me without one of my key navigational aids (the AZT app) during the day. The Garmin Inreach held its charge much longer and could go at least 4 days without a recharge.

 

On the nutrition side, I lost 5 lbs over a week which, while not life threatening, does mean that I have to up my calorie intake another notch. My daily ration is about 3000 cal, but I admit I did not consume all of my snacks every day; I’ll have to be more diligent about that on the next stretch.

 

In terms of what I saw, well there were occasional spectacular views when the trail traversed the edge of the Kaibab plateau, a plateau by definition doesn’t have much relief up on top, so I spend a lot of time walking through (with gradually increasing elevation) juniper and pinyon pine forests, then ponderosa pine/oak forests and, finally, pine-spruce-fir woods, without being able to see anything other than….trees. The occasional meadow was very welcome (except in some circumstances…see below), even the big burn south of Jacob Lake was a relief because I could see the Vermillion Cliffs and Navajo Mountain way off to the east. Don’t get me wrong, I love trees and forests but they can be brutally monotonous to walk through, especially where there are no streams to break up the tedium a bit. And that’s the other thing about the Kaibab: there is very, very little surface water.

 

The downside of big meadows hit home when I was caught out in one during a violent hail and rainstorm. It was thundering, lightning striking all around and I had to veer off into the woods and hunker down under a spruce tree (a low spruce tree) to keep from getting completely soaked. I started to shiver, but pulled out the new lightweight down jacket I’d purchased in Kanab and got it on under my rain gear in time to stave off hypothermia. The storm or succession of storms probably lasted less than an hour but was intense.

 

The main memory I have of the rest of the hike to the North Rim was an interminable stretch called Lindbergh Ridge, where the trail “architects” placed the AZT along an old telephone right-of-way road that went up and down and down and up straight as an arrow for miles. I cursed them with every hill. By the time I hit the North Rim I was thrilled to see anyone. The crowd of tourists hanging around the lodge was like best friends and family. Then Mike showed up and it was like Christmas. Both of us shipped gear to the south rim with a shuttle driver to avoid carrying it across the canyon, including my big pack and most of its contents. We got a very early (4:30 am) start on Saturday to our Rim-to-Rim hike (including an unsolicited lift to the trailhead by a shuttle driver) and met some nice folks on the trail with whom we “hopscotched” with across the canyon. The best were three Texas nurses making their first trip to the SW whom we hiked up from Indian Garden with. They had lots of questions about where to go and what to see in this part of the world and were generally good company. Then there were three guys who were doing rim-to-rim-to-rim (I’m still not willing to give that one a go) who we continually commiserated with.. Much of the hike was a brutal slog and we individually and collectively questioned whether we would ever do it again, but by the time we finished dinner at the Bright Angel lodge we were planning next years edition (insane!).

 

Sunday morning I debated and the finally decided to drive back to Mesa with Mike and work on my electronics plus have a weekend with Janice (yea!). We had a great pancake breakfast at the Northern pines Restaurant in Flag and listened to some crazy crime novel on tape all the way home.

Thoughts on week two on the Arizona Trail

Thoughts on week two on the Arizona Trail

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