Category: Free Roaming Photography

Day 14

This turned out to be my last day on the trail for the season. It was a hard decision to make, but ultimately the trip was poorly timed and I went way over budget on the trip as a whole. It was a decision I came to after thinking about it quite a bit the previous few days on the trail, but on this day it seemed inescapable.

The day started early in the morning while it was still dark outside. There were some scattered showers when I went to bed, but I was woken up in the middle of the night when the wind started to pick up and I heard a nearby crack of thunder, no more than two miles away or so. Nervous, I eventually fell back asleep thankful that that was the only one.

I woke up when it was starting to get lighter out to complete cloud cover, so there was no sunrise that morning. Without anything else to do, I hydrated, got some breakfast, and packed up. Back on the trail, I actually backtracked about a tenth of a mile to the water cache I had seen the night before for one more liter since I was more dehydrated than I thought.

As I began heading in the right direction, my mind was overwhelmed with what to do with my funds running low and all the responsibilities and opportunities I had abandoned back home, a thought that had become more frequent as the trail went on. Quitting the trail simply wasn’t an option, so the thought itself had a hard time even working its way into my head as a legitimate option. But the more thought I gave to it the more relief I was beginning to feel, an emotion I actually hadn’t felt in weeks. The more I thought about it in that sense, the more I realized how poorly prepared I was mentally and financially. I had been wondering for much of the trail why I wasn’t feeling the same enthusiasm I’m usually feeling when I’m hiking, and now clarity about the situation was finally sinking in. It simply felt more like an obligation to do the trail rather than the adventure I was hoping for.

I began to think about all the reasons that were adding up back home that were blatantly trying to keep me there and how I essentially forced hiking the Arizona Trail because I had been talking about it for so long. As I began to accept the realization that I had tried to deem unacceptable for so long, my attitude began to change and I began having one of my better days, despite only hiking through rolling grassland hills on my way to certain rain showers in the Santa Catalina Mountains ahead.

The more I thought about it the more it made complete sense. I had to leave the trail and go home. It’s not that the trail beat me – I was just starting to average 17 miles per day. I simply didn’t give myself the proper chance to give it a genuine start. Technically, I shouldn’t have even gotten as far as I did since physical endurance had nothing to do with it.

As I began to feel more uplifted, I noticed more wildlife on the trail as well. I came down into a large wash shaded with numerous cottonwood and oak trees, and caught a glimpse of an owl flying into a tree where I lost sight of it. It was too quickly gone to identify, but a large, silent bird of prey flying from the ground and into the trees is almost certainly some kind of owl. Just a bit farther down the trail a gila monster scurried off into the brush on the side of the trail. If I had remembered from the guidebook that they spend most of their life underground and that sightings are relatively rare, I might have tried for a better shot of it. Not much farther from that though, I nearly stepped on a rattlesnake. I would have been ok without that last one.

From there the trail started a lengthy ascent up to a saddle above Molino Basin. Nearly as soon as I started climbing, the rain began coming down. For the desert, it was a pretty significant amount of rain I found myself caught in. Sadly, this was where many of the views began to get really good, but I had my camera packed away to keep it safe from the moisture. On the plus side, it felt wonderful to have freshwater showered all over my body and washing away the dirt!

The rain got heavier the higher I climbed until all I could do was reach the saddle and admire the view for myself. I crossed over to the Molino Basin side where it began to lighten up just enough for me to take out my cell phone and grab a quick shot with it. I made the short descent to the Molino Basin Campground where I waited for Giggles to pick me up, where we started making bittersweet plans to head home.

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Day 13

I got an early start, leaving camp by 7:15am. It was still nice and cool out so it made for great conditions on the climb up to Manning Camp near the top of Mica Mountain. The other plus was that I was beating the gnats out and could actually enjoy my hike for a bit without being pestered by them.

After a cottontail rabbit jumped into the trees, I noticed that a cloud was perfectly placed to block the sun as the junipers began giving way to ponderosa pines. It wasn’t long at all before I was high up in the forest and the cool air, a very welcome change from the heat of the day before.

At 8,000 feet elevation, Manning Camp is a great escape for locals and a great stop along the Arizona Trail. Having made it up in just under three hours, I decided to stop and have some food and a rest since I was happy with my pace.

The trail continued to climb and the air got cooler with it. It was really refreshing since the climb to 8,500 feet would have been much more exhausting had the sun been out. Oddly enough though, the forest had an eerie silence about it to me. It was a little too still. There were no signs at all of bear, deer, or even squirrels. Perhaps they were just all at lower elevations for the season and hadn’t yet migrated higher. At least that’s what I hoped.

After figuring out the trail system, which isn’t quite as well signed as outside of the park, the trail began to plummet steeply in elevation, something I soon felt in my knees, forcing me to slow my pace a bit. More clouds began rolling in as I reached a small (natural) bench that had sweeping panoramic views to the north in nearly 180 degrees. It was easily one of the best views of the trail so far, showing off distant mountains spread out across southern Arizona. Just a short descent from there was Italian Spring, where I stopped to get a couple more liters, despite the water not being quite as clear as I had hoped.

Farther down the trail I began to feel a bit light-headed. Naturally fears of giardia immediately flooded my mind and wouldn’t leave. Even though I was well hydrated, I sat down at a boulder outcropping with a great view and had a snack and drank some more water. While there, a hummingbird whizzed by as I admired the views to the north and east. I got back on the trail and a short way down ran into a runner named Jeff, whose trail name was JustJeff. He was on his way up to Mica Mountain and a good chat with him seemed to be the distraction I needed to start feeling better and ridding my mind of fears of giardia.

As I dropped down into the grasslands from the forests, a few sprinkles began to hit me. Nothing too alarming, but Jeff warned me that I should be ready for rain the next day. I looked back at Mica Mountain and there was definitely a rain shower giving it a good soaking.

The trail bounced up and down over the grassland hills until I finally reached the next passage. There was still some time left in the day so I decided to head another couple of miles forward to get a head start on the next day, when I was planning on meeting up with Giggles again.

Up and down the grassy hills I followed the trail until I crested one hill and saw someone standing on top of the hill. We began chatting and though he told me his name, I completely forgot it. He was the trail steward for Passage 3 and I told him how much we had enjoyed that area. As we chatted, he let me know he was waiting on his daughter who was also camped at Grass Shack the previous night. He had some cached water he wanted to give her, but after telling him that I left about an hour and a half before her and after him telling me that she doesn’t do more than 12 miles or so a day, we realized she probably wasn’t going to make it that night, especially since I had just done 17 miles. He walked with me to Redington Road and after neither of us could get a signal, he offered to send a text to Giggles for me when he was back in range just in case I couldn’t get my phone charged and/or in signal range.

We parted ways and I went to the other side of the road where I saw more cached water waiting for thirsty AZT hikers. I helped myself to a liter, which I expected would get me safely to the next water supply, and found a place to camp not far from there. With cloudy skies and rain coming in, I didn’t even bother with any photography. I set up camp, and fell asleep pretty quickly.

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I had gotten my interview from Bill Wren and had just gotten out of his presentation when he mentioned that Cindy Luongo Cassidy should be arriving at any minute. I was ready to leave so that I wouldn’t have to subject myself to two straight days of non-stop driving to get to Tucson in time for my girlfriend’s arrival, but at the same time, it would be nice to meet her in person to thank her for the room. I figured that that was the least I could do, so I killed some time to wait for her arrival, but she never did show up. – Read more

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Day 12

This day was a day filled with mixed emotions and experiences. I started off acknowledging a lot of the worry that had been following me onto the trail, and made some intents to release them. While feeling lighter and better about the day early on, I came out of the small desert mountains beyond the ranch, where the trail opened up into a large valley between Saguaro National Park and myself. I also ran into Hemlock who was heading south, someone I had been chatting with before each of us started the trail. We had a nice conversation before we continued in out respective directions.

It was mostly flat and easygoing for the next several miles. Chipmunks, butterflies, and cottontail rabbits all fled the trail in front of me through the wildflowers and cactus. I soon rounded a corner and came upon a snake lying in the middle of the trail. I’m not very familiar with snakes, so although this one seemed non-threatening, I still threw a few rocks in its direction to see if it would voluntarily move. Without much success, I noticed I could pretty easily bushwhack around it, so I did so quietly and carefully while giving it plenty of room. One crisis averted, but more were soon to follow.

I continued down the trail enjoying its easy and gradual descent toward Saguaro National Park when I heard the sound that I most fear hearing in the desert: a rattler on a rattlesnake. Fortunately, this one was behind me a couple of dozen feet, so a safe distance, but still alarming. Two crises averted.

With the rattlesnake rattling around in my mind, I hadn’t even gone a mile before I heard the same sound again, but this time directly ahead of me about 10 feet. My plan to alarm them with extra heavy hammering of my hiking poles into the ground seemed to work. I backed up to give it some room, and it slowly uncoiled and casually slithered off the trail. Three crises averted, but I wasn’t done yet.

I reached Rincon Creek which was flowing nicely, and knowing that this was the last certain water source, I had some lunch and stocked up on water, forgetting that Hemlock had told me that there was plenty up Mica Mountain, where I was heading in Saguaro National Park. I crossed into the park boundary and just as quickly as the scenery became mesmerizing, the trail began to climb. Wildflowers exploded between a dense saguaro forest as the trail began a grueling ascent up the south side of Mica Mountain.

A few hours had gone by under the hot sun when I noticed I was needing some water. I didn’t want to stop because there were swarms of gnats that would instantly cling to any exposed skin, in this case mainly my face, as soon as I stood still. Regardless, I was getting dehydrated and needed to put a big dent in my water supply. I found a single, armless saguaro along the trail which provided just enough shade for me to stand in, and I dropped an electrolyte tablet into a liter of water and chugged it. I felt a lot better, but the trail was far from being done climbing and my water was getting low.

I hadn’t seen an AZT or park sign in a long time and I was beginning to wonder if I had missed a fork in my slightly dehydrated state. With the relentless sun bearing down and water running low, I decided I needed to figure out where I was. I saw a nice shady spot a short distance ahead and decided that that would do. As I approached, I noticed in the shadows a sign! I eagerly went to read it and discovered that I was actually still on the right trail. And better yet, camp was less than three miles away! Even better, just a short distance up the trail I found more water! I stopped to get a couple of liters before the gnats made the job nearly impossible. Four crises averted.

Feeling refreshed and reassured, I was now making much better time up the steep trail. I pulled out my phone to take a quick picture, but now noticed that my USB cable that I was using to charge the phone had broken due to the plug bending. I killed every process except the tracker I was using and left it in airplane mode and hoped it would at least make it to camp.

Soon enough, the trail brought me to camp where a creek was generously flowing next to it. Despite getting my permit, the campground was already occupied and was about to be more so. A guy sitting with a few teenage girls informed me about 12 more were on the way. He said it might be a noisy evening, but wouldn’t last long into the night. Good enough. Not quite a crisis to avert, but another one was coming.

I headed to the back of the campground where I thought my site was supposed to be and set up my tent. Once inside to escape the gnats, I heard a very loud fly seeming to patrol my tent. I didn’t think much of it since I was desperately hungry. As I began to devour dinner (in my tent), I also took out my USB cable to see if I could crack it open to fix it back into place. A few moments later and it was charging my phone again! Five crises averted!

The bugs had died down by now and so I poked my head out the tent to notice an amazing sunset going on outside. I jumped out to do a few quick shots and then went back a bit beyond my tent to make a bathroom break. I went back by my tent and stood watching the sky when I noticed the fly buzzing nearby again. This was no fly though. I had apparently camped too close to a large hornet and it was clearly upset. Not being completely familiar with hornet behavior, I stood back as it hovered on the other side of my tent facing me, clearly guarding something. I thought I was giving it enough room but it made a pass around the tent, prompting me to back up a bit more. It wasn’t enough though. It came after me as I ran back toward the main campsite and took a swipe near my head, fortunately missing. I was nearly back to the larger group of campers, the rest of them having arrived by this time when I noticed I wasn’t being pursued anymore. I was very tempted to ask the group leader for some help moving my tent, but realized he’d be in the same danger as me. I stood there debating what to do for a little while when I realized that if they saw me, they might assume I was standing there for a different reason. I headed back up to my site solo, slowly and patiently to see if the hornet was still out. With my adrenaline still going, I eased in toward my tent, but no sounds. I opened it up to grab some of the heavier items and brought them down the small hill. One trip down. I went back up, grabbed my camera on its tripod, and brought it down. I was calmer, but the next step had me on edge. I pulled up one stake from the tent, and with five to go, began to make my way around the tent to get the rest, hoping the hornet wouldn’t be alarmed. One by one I pulled them up, and just as the tent began to fall after pulling up the last stake, I caught it to avoid any surprises. I quickly lifted it by the rod and carried it down. Finally my two hiking poles remained resting against a blooming manzanita tree that the hornet seemed to be guarding. No point in hanging around. I made a quick dash in, grabbed them, and ran back down. No pursuers. Six crises averted.

After all that, it was finally time to rehydrate, set up bed, and get in a few token night shots before sleeping the day off.

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