20.8 miles
508.9 AZT mile marker
It wasn’t a good night. When I awoke, my sleeping bag was absolutely soaked with condensation. The pavilion did nothing to keep it off of me. I’ve never gotten a down bag so wet on a trip, but there was nothing I could do about it now so I stuffed it in its stuff sack where I’m sure the water would migrate into the down. The rest of my gear was wet too; my puffy, food bag, etc. Such a hassle. I guess I won’t be camping without my tent again on this hike.
I started off in a pretty glum mood between my wet gear and not yet having confirmation that my next resupply package with a new pair of shoes had shipped. The scenery was great with a rocky prominence nicely bathing in the sunrise as I gradually made my way around it. However, I just couldn’t get into the hike today. I was just thinking about the miles I had to do in 2 stretches; to a water source and then on to camp at the Gila River.
As I circled the rocky prominence, I had to put on an audiobook to get me motivated for the day. I shortly met some Grand Enchantment Trail hikers and we chatted for a bit and shared trail info, that helped pick me up some as I traversed rolling hills and faced off with cows.
Gradually, the rolling hills turned more rugged with rocky cliff faces, which I was not expecting for today. I’ve been doing very little reading on the trail ahead so it is more of a surprise. The terrain remained desert with tons of cactus and scrub which continued until I got to a rainwater collector built for hikers.
I took a good break at the collector for lunch, to put my sleeping bag in the warm direct sun to get some of the water out of it, and to look at the surrounding increasingly dramatic terrain. This really helped me to do a reset over lunch. I had plenty of time to get to where I was planning to camp and the next water source, but it was good to know that I didn’t have to worry about getting my bag dry since I had already taken care of that. I was planning a “shorter” 21 mile day, but I wanted to get to the Gila River early and try to relax by it to help come through my trail funk.
Long distance backpacking can be a much bigger mental than physical challenge. Though many things can go wrong with your body like foot issues, shin splints, blisters, pulled muscles, Achilles issues, etc., if you are careful and a little lucky you can avoid most of those issues. However, you also have to want to mentally hike 800 miles through the desert with limited water sources, a hot sun, deal with the wear and tear on your body and your pack weight. I’ve also done a lot of this hike solo even if I am leap frogging with other hikers. That means that even if I am not enjoying the trail at the moment, I have to reach into myself for the fortitude to continue down the path. You can’t just quit the first time you encounter a challenge. You are in it for the long haul and have to persevere through the easy and enjoyable as well as hard challenging times.
I seem to be mentally going through a slump on the trail, and need to figure out how to escape it to start enjoying the trail again versus just pounding out the miles.
Anyways, after lunch I was feeling better and even hiked for a while without an audiobook. The trail stayed high above a valley, climbing to a saddle where the valley turned into a canyon. It was great to see the more rugged terrain and I took a couple breaks just to enjoy it since I had plenty of time to get to camp.
I exited the canyon and shifted to following a different watercourse with similar rocky cliffs and prominences dominating it. It was great to get into some more rugged and scenic terrain like this.
It did get warm towards the end of the day, and I had to take a break in the shade at one point. The trail flattened out as I approached the Gila River and the trail’s lowest point.
When the trail turned to follow the river at a distance, I followed a 4×4 track briefly to get to the river itself. I found a campsite nearby and planned to relax next to the river since I got to camp early. I collected some muddy river water and had to use my settling agent for the first time of the trip which worked good enough. It’s been a constant struggle on the trip to keep my water filter clean enough to filter at a reasonable rate. I have to frequently clean it and spend some more time on it at each town stop.
As I was just starting to relax, some off roaders arrived at the other side of the river. The river could be driven across, and one group attempted it. It was a family in a 4 seater. They got most of the way across and got stuck. Trying to get out, everyone got soaked. The 2 young children started crying, the mother who was driving also started crying because she got it stuck and everyone wet. The dad tried to get it out while still managing to hold onto his beer, but it was no use. Eventually the others in their group towed them out backwards. It was not quite the relaxing sit by the river I was expecting, so I just went back to my campsite.
Then there was some sort of high caliber machine gun fire going on in the distance for hours, some people set up camp across the river and lit off some extremely loud firecrackers, and there was a lot of noise from off-roaders in the area. Not really was I was expecting, but I was already set up and it was getting dark so there wasn’t much I could do.
There was a great sunset to offset all the commotion. Then I put in my ear plugs for the night, though thankfully everything died down by the time I went to sleep.
