Twenty-five years ago I was on the Arizona Trail

In the White Canyon Wilderness

Journal entry. 6.00 a.m. March 29, 2000.

“A calm, starry night. Woke to a myriad bird calls. A thick crescent moon hangs over a red sandstone rock peak. To the north-west a slanting wall of coloured rock ends in a sharp cliff. The wall is split by just one steep gully. The rock is red-brown in various shades with cream bands. A similar wall lies to the east, this one double-tiered with a sloping band of desert plants between the two. Cacti are everywhere & the ‘trees’ visible high on ledges & ridges are mostly saguaro, occasionally cholla. This is a beautiful & spectacular place – the finest camp of the walk so far”.

The camp was in the White Canyon Wilderness and the walk was the Arizona Trail. This was day 21 of my 800-mile (round figure, could be less, probably more) 53-day walk from the Mexican border to Utah.

The Grand Canyon

Several years earlier I’d spent a few weeks walking in the Grand Canyon. From the North Rim I’d looked south over a sea of trees to distant mountains, the San Francisco Peaks, and wondered what a walk to them would be like.

The San Francisco Peaks

Some time later I discovered a trail was being developed that ran south-north through the centre of Arizona that included the San Francisco Peaks and the Grand Canyon. I couldn’t resist and began making plans. I really wanted to spend a couple of months in the desert.

First camp!

At least I thought it would all be in the desert. It wasn’t. The first night I found myself camped on snow on a mountaintop. Then there were forests, rivers, more mountains - a far more varied landscape than I’d expected. Of course there was a great deal of desert but even this was much more diverse than I’d assumed.

A typical camp

The walking was a delight, even if I was hot and thirsty at times, but even better were the many nights I spent sleeping out under the stars. I just loved waking to watch the world coming to life as the sun rose. When it was windy or, just once, rainy I pitched a tarp that still gave me extensive views but more often I just threw my mat and sleeping bag down and called that camp for the night.

A tarp to keep off the breeze in an aspen grove in the San Francisco Peaks

Twenty-five years later I can still close my eyes and be back on the Arizona Trail. The heat of the rocks, the sharpness of the air, the blue of the sky, the clarity of the light, the grandeur of the landscape, the gloriousness of it all. It all returns. It was a wonderful experience.

Back on snow in the San Francisco Peaks

Back home I wrote a book about it, called Crossing Arizona. It’s published by Countryman Press and is still in print

Photo note: these images were taken on the Arizona Trail on a Ricoh RDC-5000 2.3 megapixel compact camera with a 38-86 35mm equivalent zoom lens. This was the first time I’d used a digital camera on a long walk. However my main camera was a Canon EOS 300 35mm SLR film camera with a 28-70mm zoom lens with which I took fifty rolls of 36-shot slide film. The film images are far higher quality than the digital ones, unsurprisingly, but I haven’t scanned any of them yet. I must get round to it! I also had a Ricoh GR1s film compact as backup to the Canon. I took half a dozen rolls of print film with this and again the results are better than the digital ones. I should digitise some of those too.

Always Another Adventure Podcast: TGO Challenge, Arizona Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail

On the Pacific Northwest Trail

Recently I recorded a podcast with Simon Willis of Always Another Adventure. It's just appeared online and you can listen to it here. In it I discuss planning for the TGO Challenge and my walks on the Arizona Trail and Pacific Northwest Trail.

Corrections: the introduction says I am the first person to climb all the Munros in one trip. I'm not, that was Hamish Brown, who wrote an excellent book about it - Hamish's Mountain Walk. I was the first to climb all the Munros and Tops (subsidiary summits) in one walk.

I'm also not one of the organisers of the TGO Challenge. 

Crossing the Grand Canyon on the Arizona Trail twenty years ago

The Grand Canyon

On March 24, 2000, I reached the place that had led me to walk the Arizona Trail, the Grand Canyon, the most awe-inspiring landscape I have ever seen. This was my second visit and the effect was as overwhelming as ever. That evening I walked to the South Rim and stared into the black impentratable depths.

The Colorado River

The next day I descended into those depths, down the turning, twisting Bright Angel Trail as it cut through layers of rock, millions of years, to the Colorado River where the rocks are 1.8 billion years old. Down here I felt I was in deep time itself, the great cliffs rising thousands of feet to the present far above me.

That evening I walked out along a side trail and bivouaced under the stars. I woke as the first rays of the sun turned cliffs high above red and gold. A raven called harshly. From a yucca came the much sweeter song of a cactus wren. Otherwise I was alone amongst this vast beauty. It was one of the best camps of my life.

Early light on Zoroaster Temple

A long hot marvellous day ensued as I wound my way up the North Kaibab Trail some four and a half thousand feet to the North Rim. There I camped amongst big ponderosa pines and Douglas firs. I'd left the desert for the forest.

The North Kaibab Canyon

Four more days and I was at the Utah border and the Arizona Trail walk was over. It had been a tremendous trip, one of my favourites. And the highlight was the Grand Canyon, splendid, immense, unfathomable.

View from the North Rim

The full story of my walk is told in my book Crossing Arizona.

A failed attempt on the San Francisco Peaks on the Arizona Trail twenty years ago

The San Francisco Peaks from Fremont Saddle

On April 20, 2000, I set out to climb the San Francisco Peaks. These are the highest mountains in Arizona, reaching 3850 metres (12,633 feet) on Humphreys Peak. At the time there was no official Arizona Trail route, though it was planned to cut below the summits, as it now does. I wanted to climb them, even though they were snow-capped and I wasn't equiped for snow.

Morning before the ascent

The night before the ascent I camped in a beautiful grove of aspens. The temperature fell to -3C and there was a cold wind. Frost coated the inside of my tarp.

Below the snow

The sun was soon warming the air however and the initial walking was easy as a good trail led through beautiful forests. Soon though snow patches appeared, some knee-deep in places. My boots were quickly soaked and my feet cold. The snow became continuous, a mix of soft deep drifts requiring arduous post-holing and bands of hard old snow that I had to edge carefully across - a slip would have sent me sliding into the deep ravine below. After three and a half hours I reached Fremont Saddle on the edge of the Inner Basin over which I could gaze at Humphreys Peak. I'd walked just 6.4km (4 miles).

I could also see the route stretching out ahead, steep and snowy. I had no ice axe, no crampons, no gaiters. I had no idea how stable the snow was, or how icy on some long traverses above big drops. Reluctantly I turned away. My attempt on the San Francisco Peaks was over. Fremont Saddle at 3292 metres (10,800 feet) would be my high point.

Looking back to Humphreys Peak

An hour and three-quarters later I was back at my campsite, having descended straight down some of the snow drifts. A lower snow-free walk around the southern slopes of the San Francisco Peaks led to a campsite on the edge of a meadow looking back to Humphreys Peak. It had been a good day.

You can read the full story of my Arizona Trail walk in my book Crossing Arizona (Countryman Press).

 

Continuing along the Arizona Trail twenty years ago

The San Francisco Peaks

Twenty years ago on April 16 I was on the Arizona Trail approaching the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain range significant in Arizona and to me personally. Reaching 12,633 feet (3,851 m) these are the highest mountains in the state and the only ones to rise above timberline. I was doing this walk because of the first time I'd seen them.

I was on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, during a two-walk. Looking south over the Canyon I could see a distant mountain range rising above dark forests. I wondered if there was a way to walk to them. After this walk I did some research and discovered the new, barely-developed Arizona Trail, which crossed the San Francisco Peaks and the Grand Canyon. That would be my next long walk.

A week earlier the walk had changed. For thirty-two days I'd mostly been in the desert, only passing through small areas of trees on mountain tops. I was used to vast horizons, immense space, stony hills, and spiky plants. Then from the little town of Pine I climbed up to the broken cliffs of the Mogollon Rim, a 200-mile long escarpment that marks the southern edge of the huge Colorado Plateau, which covers 130,000 square miles. This plateau is mostly at an elevation between 4000 and 6000 feet and is a mix of forest and high desert grasslands, split by deep canyons. Ponderosa pines spread mile after mile after mile.

East Clear Creek

Sometimes I was walking beside streams and rivers, a new experience on this walk. There were still arid areas though and I still needed to know where water was and carry plenty. Camps were in the trees without the extensive views I had come to love. In the woods the wildlife made up for this. At one camp I was woken by a woodpecker drumming then cackling raucously as it flew off. Squirrels chased each other over the forest floor and up into the trees. Birds I couldn't recognise sang high above.

A chilly forest camp

More desert reminiscences - on this day on the Arizona Trail

Twenty years ago on this day I woke after a night under the stars to bird song then spent the day walking through the Superstition Mountains on the Arizona Trail. In my journal I wrote: "a great day, but long and hard ..... mainly due to the very rough, rugged terrain, but also the scenery - I spent some time looking and photographing".

 
Mostly I was in red rock desert but in Cottonwood Canyon "suddenly and delightfully it became a deciduous woodland in spring with fresh grass, clover and even dangling wild grape vines under a canopy of freshly green sycamores, oaks and cottonwoods. Through this narrow strip of verdant luxury runs Cottonwood Creek, a spring-fed stream. Through the trees saguaros and other cactii can be seen on desert hillsides, a strange juxtaposition. In places saguaros and cottonwoods are only feet apart." Water in the desert is always a wonder. Soon the stream faded into the stones, the greenery went with it, and I was back in the desert under the harsh sun.

Another memory from twenty years ago on the Arizona Trail

On this day in 2000 I walked through the splendid White Canyon Wilderness on the Arizona Trail. Again much of the route was cross country following cairns. The views were tremendous and this was one of the most impressive sections of the walk. In the evening I wrote in my journal "fine desert canyon and mountain scenery all day". The seemingly dead dry sticks of the tall ocotillo shrub had burst into life and were covered with tiny emerald green leaves and topped by nodding red flowers. The hedgehog cactii had bloomed too with bright purple flowers. Vultures soared overhead, quail scuttled over the ground and flew low and fast over the rocks. Bright lizards raced for safety. A squirrel watched from a bush, a snake slid away. The air was full of the sound of crickets chirping. It was a magical place to be.

That night I slept out under a brilliant starry sky in  a desert garden of paloverde, sagebrush, ocotillo, century plants, prickly pear, barrell cactii and tall saguaro cactii. A desert in name but full of life. An owl called in the darkness. Dawn came with bird song and a woodpecker drumming.

Far away and twenty years ago: On the Arizona Trail

Antelope Peak

On this day twenty years ago I was on a cross-country section of the Arizona Trail, walking through the desert below Antelope Creek. Part of the day was spent in aptly named Bloodsucker Wash, though the bloodsuckers plants not vampires. In my journal I wrote "slow going picking a way through cactii and spiky catclaw and mesquite bushes. Teddybear cholla especially bad as lots of small pieces on the ground - stabbed several times, used poles to remove them".

The story of my Arizona Trail walk twenty years ago

The Arizona Trail, which I began twenty years ago (see previous post), is one of my favourite long-distance walks. I really enjoyed both the walk and then writing about it.

My book, Crossing Arizona, is still available. If you've read it and like it do please put a review on Amazon (and for any other of my books you like!). Such reviews really do help.

In the Superstition Mountains on the Arizona Trail

On this day twenty years ago I set out on the Arizona Trail

First camp

On March 9, 2000, I left the Mexican border to hike some 800 miles through the state of Arizona to the border with Utah. I was excited and apprehensive. A desert walk was challenging. I knew from information from the excellent and helpful Arizona Trail Association that the winter had been dry and the always scarce water sources were less reliable than usual. I'd arrived in torrential rain though and spent a day picking up supplies wandering round Tucson in waterproofs as rain crashed off the gutter free buildings. Maybe there would be more water than I expected. There was. And snow.

At the border

The first day was tough, probably the hardest start to a long-distance walk I've ever done. The trail climbed steeply up for 4,880 feet with no water en route and nowhere flat to camp. I had a gallon of water in my pack and I needed it as it was very hot at first. Halfway up I encountered the first snow, which gradually became deeper and deeper until I was wading through a foot of it.
 

Looking back into Mexico

I looked back to dry brown lands stretching into Mexico. Ahead lay 9,466-foot Miller Peak, the highest in the Huachucas Mountains. The first water source was beyond the summit. On the map it said Bathtub Spring. I hadn't expected an actual bathtub though but there it was, sitting surreally in the snow. The water was frozen but a tiny trickle came out of the spout feeding into the bathtub.

Bathtub Spring

My first camp of a desert walk. In the snow. In trees - big magnificent ponderosa pines. As I was to learn the significant timberline here is the lower one, the point at which the desert starts to fade and trees start growing. The mountains aren't high enough to have an upper timberline and the summits are forested.

The walk had begun.

Photographic note: pictures taken with my first digital camera, a 2.3mp Ricoh RDC-5000. I also had two film cameras, an SLR and a compact, and shot over fifty rolls of film. I haven't scanned any of these yet though.