10/12/2021
Azt Map Miles 224.1
Miles Hiked 209.9
Elevation 6,749
Miles Hiked Today 18.0
With this post, I have added a new mile marker. The Arizona Urban Trail is a bypass into Flagstaff. While it is considered part of the Arizona Trail, the navigation app I use, Guthook, shows only the official trail miles and not the bypass miles in its total mile summation.
Well, it happened. Last evening there was thunder and lightning followed by rain. Then in the early hours of the morning, I heard a “prickling” on my tent. It didn’t take long to figure out it was snowing. My tent was holding up fine, and I was warm in my sleeping bag. Nothing to worry about.
In the morning, I took a look outside at my tent. It was covered in snow and ice. I have enough trouble getting my tent into its stuff sack. There is no way it would go in now.
I worked out a solution. My mostly empty food bag was more than large enough for my tent. I emptied what food I had left into the tent stuff sack, and the tent went into my food bag strapped to the outside of my backpack.
I had slept in a bit, so I got a late start. It was 8 AM before I started hiking. I was looking forward to spending a couple of nights in a warm bed in Flagstaff. Scott told me it was an easy ten mile hike into town once on the urban trail.
I had visions of a flat walk on a hard packed, gravel surface or maybe even asphalt like the trail out of the Grand Canyon National Park. Nothing of the sort. The total miles were 18, and most of the trail was a rock strewn up and down, which reminded me of a roller-coaster. But I’ve got a little ahead of myself.
When I left camp, I had trouble finding the trail in the snow. Guthook finally helped me navigate to it, and I was off. The trail, once found, was pretty easy to follow in the snow. Just before a forest road junction, I saw Scott’s footprint come onto the trail. He had camped just a little further up the trail than I had. We, Scott’s footprint and I, moved down the trail. I was fine on the snow and did no slipping, sliding and falling as I had in March when descending Miller Peak on the southern part of the trail.
Starting out and looking for the trail.
I had my first lesson on cold weather as a hiker. My water supply hose froze. I had a bottle of water, too, but that was beginning to freeze as well. Not a good situation.
Out of concern that my water bladder might freeze, too, I stopped late morning and emptied it. That’s when I met a northbound through hiker. I was amazed that he had started the trail in the Arizona summer heat. He did okay, he said, but he was concerned about the last 200 miles. The weather was getting colder and more snow was possible as he went further north.
The rest of the hike was an endless up and down with some significant elevation gains. Then I reached Buffalo Park on the trail. The facilities were closed and water turned off. However, the hard packed wide gravel path started. It had benches on it and not a single rock to stumble over. My vision of the urban trail was finally realized.
About three miles down the trail, I arrived at Route 66, which is the main road into downtown Flagstaff I started walking to the Super 8 Motel but stopped that after a short distance. I called an Uber for a ride instead.
Ah, warm room, soft bed… What more can you want? I ate one of my freeze dried meals while my clothes were in the motel laundry machines. Later, I zoned out on mindless TV programs until I went to sleep.
