19.6 miles
621.1 AZT mile marker
We all slept horribly last night due to the incessant light. Even though I had my improvised mask on, it was as if my body knew it was light out and rebelled against sleep. I tossed and turned all night. I did get sleep, but when I got up for the morning, my eyes didn’t want to open they were so tired. At least we could pack up in the warm and get water and all that. I set off around 7 with it light out, and it wasn’t actually too cold out, relatively speaking.
I started off down the road, leaving town. The road quickly turned into a path through a solid rock gulch with flowing water which I was not expecting, and made for a good road walk. At the trailhead I got back on trail for the rest of the day. The trail climbed another gulch along more running water. Great scenery and so different with there being so much water around.
Towards the top of the climb, the landscape changed to large white boulders littering the landscape. There were several large ridges with huge shear rocky outcrops on them, and once I got to the top I was also surrounded by many hoodoos with the large boulders. It was incredibly scenic, and I took my first break for the day early because it seemed like my pace was pretty good for the miles I had planned for the day.
I wandered on through the rocky wonderland that was the south side of this mountain. It was completely different than the other side of the mountain that I climbed yesterday. And there was constantly running water everywhere. I didn’t carry more than a liter for the morning. So different than the rest of this trail.
There were tons of great campsites around which I could have used yesterday if I had decided to continue on, but hindsight, and it still would have been chilly.
I ran into Kevin, and we took a break at a scenic spot where I dried out my tent and took an early lunch. It was just so scenic that I wasn’t moving forward quickly; it seemed a shame to.
Just after our break spot, there was an even better overlook with views of mountains to the south, and Tucson sprawling in the background in a flat plain.
The trail got rocky as I started my long descent, undoing my climbing from yesterday. More of the same spectacular terrain, and as I descended the vegetation went through a gradual transformation from mountain ponderosa through juniper and back to saguaro at the lower elevations. I really can’t say enough or explain the scenery today. Perhaps it was due to passing through some far more bland areas of this trail, but this had to have been the best scenery of the trail yet.
When I had slowly descended most of the way, I grabbed water from a stream for the rest of the day and night. It sounded like there wasn’t a great water source for the rest of the day.
I had to do some climbing late in the day at the peak of the temperatures and with the sun bearing down. I just took a slow and steady pace that would get me to camp around sunset. I got through the climb carrying my water load, and immediately saw some more water that was an unmarked large source… Oh well, better safe than sorry.
Through another basin surrounded by jagged peaks with even more different great scenery before I crested another ridge and headed down to a forest service campsite where I planned to meet Kevin and Hiep. There wasn’t much for camping immediately before it, so we had to do with the extra noise and people.
I grabbed a sight right around sunset and the others caught up about an hour later.
I can’t say enough about the fantastic scenery today. It seemed surreal at times and took me totally by surprise. It was so amazing to have this dramatic change after some flatter desert.
