Date: April 19, 2021
Starting mile: 500.4
Ending mile: 527.6
Miles hiked today: 27.2
Miles to Utah: 261.1
Passage(s): 28-29
Elevation at camp: 7463
I wake up cold, thinking it is wee morning hours, but when I check the time it is only 10:00. I doze in and out, always uncomfortably chilly but not dangerously so. The ground is clumpy and lumpy and the duff scratches against the floor of my tent. The night is calm and quiet. I wake up around 5:00 and even tho I am not warm in my sleeping bag, I do not want to leave it. I get mad at myself for not being better at leaving the tent. I finally start actually eating and packing up at 6:20. Out of three water bottles, the one with the least amount of water in it is frozen. My filter was wrapped in my rain jacket and stuffed into my pack which I keep at my feet. I don’t think it was cold enough to freeze inside my tent. The worst part about a frigid morning is packing away tent poles. The cold metal physically hurts to touch. As I’m hiking out, I stop and talk with Audrey who is sitting up in her cowboy bundle with a stove going. She is making hot chocolate with instant coffee! She was also very cold last night. “It’s funny all of the things that end up in your sleeping bag with you when it is cold,” she says. I tell her how I am switching up some gear in Mormon Lake. She is thinking of doing the same thing and is kind of shocked at what a high elevation we will be at for the rest of trail. It’s about 7:20 by the time I am hiking but the day looks like it will be incredibly flat so I still hope to do a mid-20.
Ponderosas tower, iron gates creak open and shut–a nice morning on the AZT. Early on, I pass a rock marker for the 500 mile point, even tho Guthook has it before there. I take a selfie with it either way bc it was dark when I got to 500 last night. There hasn’t been service which is kinda rare for the AZT. And idk if there will ever be service today bc there will be no high points. I’m at the high point/low point for the day all day. I hike through the flat, somewhat open Ponderosa forest, slowly peeling off layers. I dig my cathole and have no hand sani. I do 11 before 11:00 which is good by my AZT standards. I listen to Upside Down Mountain–one of the best mornings-on-trail albums. Then I am reminded of First Aid Kit bc they are like the back up band on that album, so I listen to one of their actual albums too. It’s warmer today than it was yesterday bc it is not overcast or windy. Still, I’m not sweating a ton and I’m doing good hiking on that water from the last source and the cache.
I stop at the edge of a meadow where I set a timer for 45 minutes and yard sale my tent, sleeping bag, and puffy. I sit in the shade and eat lunch, watching the sun shine on my gear with the sad hope that my sleeping bag will loft up enough to actually keep me warm tonight. As I’m sitting there, I meet Bongo Pete, who I’ve been seeing in trail registers for ages, and Joey. Turns out, Bongo Pete is a woman, and she looks exactly how you’d expect someone named Bongo Pete to look–younger, nose ring, and looks like a funky-fun kind of person.
It’s not quite noon when I get back to it. It’s finally warm enough to just be in shorts and a tshirt. I experiment putting my z-lite in my pack. It fits technically but it looks just as ridiculous as having a z-lite strapped to the top of a Joey.
I quickly catch back up to Bongo Pete and Joey who are stopped on the side of the trail celebrating 4/20 a day early. The landscape is still monotonous yet lovely and easy on the feet. There is no mud like I feared although it looks like there was mud here recently. I pass a few gross stock ponds bc I still have water and I’m trying to get to the one that is supposedly the least gross.
Bargaman Park Tank is out in the open and I hear frogs croaking as I approach. The banks are grassy and it looks kinda mucky but someone has made a log catwalk. I carefully balance my way over the muck where I see a dead frog and to the pond’s edge where there is a decent place to scoop. When I squeeze, the water flows out effortlessly. It is not like my filter to be so fast. f*ck–does this mean my filter froze? Welp, nothing I can do about it now. I take a break at the tank and eat some chips and a Fruit by the Foot. Meanwhile, I meet yet another new hiker! It’s Bubbles who I’ve also seen in registers and on Guthook. Bubbles is a guy from Chicago and it’s his first thruhike. He says it got down to 27 last night. That’s four hikers today–what a social day on the AZT!
The woods begin to feel chilly after my break. Still no service. The frog pond water has hints of algae and muck but it’s not revolting. I am hiking through the flat forest when two elk appear on my left. “Hey girls, can I walk by,” I ask them. They gallop across the trail and to the east. Then several of their friends emerge from the woods and follow them. Elk are huge! Deer poop is maybe pea-sized. Elk’s poop looks similar but it is the size of a grape. I didn’t really associate Arizona with elk so it’s cool to be seeing them out here.
I see more elk trotting through the woods throughout the afternoon. I pass a campsite in which a man and a woman have a campfire going. Don’t know how they are carrying enough water to properly drown it. The forest floor is nothing but dry duff and dry grass. The trail has been so flat that I’m getting shin splints. It’s not too bad…yet.
As I approach Gooseberry Springs Trailhead, the evening is chilly enough to start adding layers. I finally get a blip of service and can let people know that I’m not dead but that’s it. I see robins, swallows and blue jays.
I pass tons of ponds throughout the evening but I still have enough water from Bargaman. I pass a paved road and an open area right before sunset and start scouting for campsites when I feel I’m far enough from the road. I have a wee bit of a headache but it is not a dehydration headache bc I’ve been drinking and peeing plenty. The woods have a bit of a sinister vibe this evening. But the trees are sparse and look healthy enough. I settle on a flat spot in what seems to be a dried pond bed. It’s protected from the wind and there are no sketchy trees in falling distance. I spend the evening looking at Guthook, trying to figure out where I should stop next after Mormon Lake. Also, it’s my biggest day on the AZT so far. I’m proud of myself but also disappointed in myself bc I don’t think it should’ve taken me this long to get 27. Across the trail is another pond and the frogs sing me to sleep. Mormon Lake tomorrow. Hopefully they don’t make me wear weird underwear or do anything creepy.
