Date: 10/18/21 Miles: 15.3Total Miles: 315.0 Diverse. That’s the word that kept rattling through the recesses of my brain while following the now red ribbon of trail beneath my feet. Gently rising and falling far more frequently than at any preceding mile of the trail thus far, we traversed around drainages and ascended over small...
Arizona Trail 2021
Mogollon Rim
Date: 10/17/21 Miles: 24.7Total Miles: 299.7 The morning discovered us in a state now quite familiar: strolling past a shallow depression full of dark brown water. Fine crystals of frost on nearby meadow grasses sparkled in the first rays of sunlight, while those that had been warmed for but a few minutes had already melted...
Cache Conundrum
Date: 10/16/21 Miles: 25.5Total Miles: 275.0 Bang. Silence. Another bang. The gunshots reporting in the not-so-distance were all the reminder we needed that hunting season was in full effect. Exiting our camp site that was nestled into a cozy thicket of pines, we turned down the trail and passed a succession of pickup trucks, presumably...
Mirage
Date: 10/15/21 Miles: 19.4Total Miles: 249.5 Deep in the heart of the world’s largest ponderosa pine forest is not the place one might typically think of evoking imagery of the ocean. In every direction, a uniform pattern of trunks and canopies extends toward all points of the compass in such a way that it’s difficult...
Rust and Relaxation
Date: 10/14/21 Miles: 24.2Total Miles: 230.1 I’m never quite sure. That’s the problem. You’d think 10,000 miles of trails would have clarified an answer to what is otherwise a simple question, but here I am. Having taken not one but two zero days in Flagstaff, the question remains: is a day off more likely to...
Aspen
Date: 10/11/21 Miles: 23.0Total Miles: 205.9 Some things—most things—are more than they seem. Hiding in plain sight, things we often attribute a hasty label to and understanding of harbor qualities that make them exceptional. Worthy of greater attention. Of greater appreciation. It’s as true of things as it is of people. And yet, we don’t...
I Left My Heart in the San Francisco Peaks
Date: 10/10/21 Miles: 25.6Total Miles: 182.9 The lightning flashed without even a whimper of thunder, so distant was it. The crescent moon that hours earlier had tucked the sun into bed and took its place in the sky was nowhere to be found, obscured by banks of thick, dark clouds that should not have been...
North Star
Date: 10/9/21 Miles: 26.0Total Miles: 157.3 They were right there. The same place they always were. At least until—apparently—they weren’t. The mittens that had been dangling from my sternum strap were nowhere to be found. Not exactly the start to the morning you dream about. As I trotted back along the trail hoping to find...
Atonement
Date: 10/8/21 Miles: 27.5Total Miles: 131.3 After two days of what can only be described as sensory overload, my first thought was: did I really just see that? Getting up close and personal with one of the world’s greatest natural wonders will do that to you. My second thought was more akin to wondering what...
The Grand Staircase
Date: 10/7/21 Miles: 13.7Total Miles: 103.8 One hundred miles north, far from the banks of the Bright Angel Creek on which we slept, Bryce Canyon National Park sits at the top of a geological feature few will notice. Known as The Grand Staircase, layer upon layer of sedimentary rock stretches from the high elevations of...