12.2 miles
332.2 AZT mile marker
The wind continued all night, though slightly lessened in the morning. During the night there were small sticks and pine needles frequently falling and hitting my tent. I put my ear plugs in, but the tent was still blowing around quite a bit. I got some sleep but not a ton.
We packed up carefully in the wind, it was trying to blow my tent away taking it down. Then when we started hiking, about 0.1 miles past camp, the wind completely died. Apparently the valley we were in was some sort of wind tunnel since there was no wind to speak of the rest of the day. There weren’t tent sites past the valley though, so we just had to stay in the vortex.
I passed Breaks shortly after camp when we layered down from no longer having wind. The trail continued on below the Mogollon Rim, winding in and out to go around buttresses in the formation, sort of like at Bryce Canyon. There were ever changing views of the fantastic rim, along with a wide diversity of lush vegetation. The trail was mostly red dirt and rock which was far different from the days on the plateau. Some of the rock even reminded me of a layer that I like in the Grand Canyon, and I wondered if it was the same layer at this distance away.
The trail was being redone and alternated between brand new, work in progress with machinery still on it, and old and rocky. I saw the cutest little bulldozer I’ve ever seen. The new sections of the trail were nicely laid out and easy walking.
It got warm with less tree cover than on the plateau, but not warm enough to slow me down. I had town in my sights, and that is always a driver. After interminably long very shallow switchbacks, I arrived at the Pine trailhead, and did the short walk into the town of Pine.
I stopped at a brewery for lunch and a beer, and to use their slow WIFI, then did the rest of my chores in town including printing a copy of my ballot and mailing it in so I could still vote, even on the trail. One nice thing about WA. Everywhere there were elk around town grazing feet away in people’s front yards.
I met another hiker, Fire at the grocery store where I resupplied. He, Breaks, and I were waiting to meet a local who would be hosting us at her place since there isn’t good accommodations for hikers in town. While we were waiting, a car zoomed into the parking lot, and aggressively drove around it, spooling his turbo. Fire called the guy out when he walked into the store, and they almost got into a fight. The guy went into the store, came back out, went to his car, and grabbed a gun and started walking back towards Fire. Fire ran into the store, and the store called the police. The guy took off in the car.
Shortly after that, Shannon who was hosting us arrived and took us off to her house for the night. It was actually my first time in a vehicle since I started the trail. I was glad to be away from the store in case the guy came back. I’ve never seen someone actually pull a gun before.
We completed town chores at Shannon’s house, laundry and showers, and we cooked up dinners since we had access to a kitchen. I had a ribeye, potatoes, and asparagus. It was great to have some real home cooked food after being out here for almost 3 weeks.
I planned my next couple sections of trail since stove fuel is unusually hard to come by out here and different resupply options have pros and cons. I will wait a few days before making my next decision since I have some time. It’s nice to be in a normal house, but I’m also anxious to see what the trail has in store heading south since it is a brand new type of terrain south of the Colorado Plateau.