Thoughts on week two on the Arizona Trail
Thoughts on Second Week: Tusayan to Flagstaff
After the Grand Canyon I gave myself a physical, psychological and financial (my credit card had been hacked and spurious charges were showing up) refit at home. Then I took the Arizona Shuttle back to Tusayan on Wed the 20th. Driver Marge, a Navajo, took fellow-passenger Mica and I up to Flag. Mica is a young guy living off the fat of the land who works at menial jobs at resorts in the parks most of the year. He says the pay is not great but the living expenses are cheap (subsidized by the resort operators) and the hiking and partying are exceptional. From Flag to Tusayan it was just me and the driver. I asked him who his most unusual guests were and he said probably groups of Mennonites he’d regularly ferry from the AMTRAK station in Flag to the canyon.
I got the provision package I’d mailed to myself at the Tusayan General Store, sorted and organized my pack, then was on the trail by 2pm. Got 7 miles in by day’s end. Because there are no re-supply points between Tusayan and Flagstaff I had to carry seven days worth of food, ugh! My pack was very heavy…probably 43 lbs with water. I suspected this was going to be a slog, and it was, however I had an actual physical book along (Flashman and the Cobra, a Christmas present from Phil St George a few years ago), which made evenings much more enjoyable as I could read as long as I wanted to without worrying about the difficulty of solar charging my phone during the day. Although I did figure out how to make the latter work better as well: during my two longer breaks from walking I set the solar panels out in full sunshine (which I had a lot of on this stretch) hooked up to the phone for ½ hour and I could often get it up to 80+% charge. I'd also brought along a couple of external batteries charged up and ready to go on this stretch in case sunlight failed me, which it often did on the Kaibab.
The next day I met a group of 30 middle school students with their teachers, all from Flag, mountain biking from Grandview Point to Tusayan. I perked up thinking that this stretch was going to be much more social than north of the Grand Canyon. And I was right. When I got to Grandview Point, I was about out of water and wandering around the base of the fire tower looking for a cache box or a wildlife tank, when I ran into Rick and Elise from New York and struck up a conversation. They asked what I was doing and when they found out that I was short on water, insisted that I walk a mile down the road to their rented RV with them, where they gave me a cold soda water, a ride back to the fire tower and a gallon of water for the trail. The kindness of strangers!
This kind of set the theme for Tusayan to Flagstaff: I came across people nearly every day, whether mountain bikers, trail runners, forest rangers or bowhunters. A truck full of the latter pulled up beside me when I was about a mile from Lockwood tank, supposedly a surefire water source, and offered to give me a ride up to it and check it out, as they were thinking of setting up their stands their. It was, of course, as dry as a bone. We commiserated, but before they left for greener pastures, they gave me all the water they could spare which was very much appreciated, as the next stretch, to Cedar Wash, was widely advertised as being 30 completely dry miles. More kindness of strangers.
Southbound the countryside was much more to my liking. I left behind the interminable ponderosa pine forests where you could never see more than 50 yds ahead, except in rare meadows, and entered scattered pinyon-juniper woodlands interspersed with lots of wide open grass and sage plains and unobstructed views all the way to the San Francisco Peaks that allowed me to set goals and judge my progress against them, improving my mental state markedly. Nights were glorious with just a sliver of a moon, incredibly dense stars culminating in the bright band of the Milky Way; elk bugling and coyotes yipping and howling. About noon on day four out of Tusayan I started to encounter northbound trail runners on a Flag to Tusayan 100 mi run. A strong wind kicked up from the same direction, which was good for them but made my progress slow and miserable. I finally reached the Cedar Wash trailhead, where there was an aid station for the runners with a few dozen people around and my next water cached in the box there. I had a great chat with a couple of AZT thru-hiking veterans there who were full of trail wisdom.
The trail now started the long climb up to a high point just below the Arizona Snowbowl (9,000’) and as it did, nighttime temperatures dropped well below what my lightweight down sleeping quilt was designed for. I later heard that on Sunday night Ts had dropped into the 20s in Flag and I believe it, I had a miserable night trying and failing to stay warm with minimal sleep. Monday I did the final climb up to the Snowbowl, filled up with water at Agua Fria tank, which sports a fantastic view of the San Francisco Peaks, chatted with an older couple hiking there and listened to a Middle School science class on a field trip discuss the hydrological cycle. Then I pressed on to the Snowbowl road. I crossed it and was about to set up camp when I decided that, rather than spend another shivering, sleepless night out, I’d call the Ski Lift Cabins down at the intersection with Hwy 180 and see if they had a vacancy. Bingo! They did and I gladly walked another 2 mi down to them and had the luxury of a shower, a warm room, a beer and a very good chicken potpie for dinner. Yum!
Tuesday morning I walked seven miles along Hwy 180 into town, with a stop at the Late for the Train coffee shop for a cappuccino. I set up a shuttle ride back to PHX and was home by 2 pm.