October 7, 2020
Arizona is known for its saguaro cactus desert in the south and its rugged Grand Canyon in the north. Between these two areas lies the Mogollon Rim. It is an escarpment extending about 200 miles, with drops of up to 2,000 feet. The rim forms the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau, home to numerous national parks and monuments in the Four Corners region. The Mogollon Rim was also the location of our latest trek, covering a 104-mile section of the Arizona Trail.
Navigating through the Pandemic, Injuries, and Challenges to Plan our Trek
When we last backpacked in the summer of 2019 on Washington’s Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Darren and I had to stop after 317 miles due to my heel injury. Since then, I have been diagnosed with a stress fracture, chronic plantar fasciitis, and nerve issues. I spent a month in a boot earlier in the year and had to curtail my hiking for a time. And because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we canceled our overseas trekking plans for 2020 and bided our time at home.
In July I got the green light from my podiatrist to begin hiking again. After a local one-night backpacking trip and multiple day hikes, I felt confident about attempting something more challenging. We obtained permits for the Sierra Nevada PCT, but then the devastating fires hit the area. So we decided to complete another section of the Arizona Trail.
In May 2019, we trekked the northern 200 miles of the 800-mile national scenic trail, starting in Flagstaff and ending at the Utah border. Completing another section met our criteria for (1) being located within a day’s drive from our home; (2) allowing us to minimize contact with others by carrying all our food without resupplying; and (3) enabling us to easily social distance on the lightly trafficked trail.
We mapped out a northbound 110-mile section (104 trail miles plus extra distance to water, camps, and our endpoint) that looked appropriate for an early October timeframe. Our starting location was just outside the town of Pine at about 5,400 feet. We would climb up to the Mogollon Rim and then spend most of our time above 7,000 feet until we reached Flagstaff six days later.
Right away we noted some trail challenges, mainly around water. Arizona’s summer monsoon season replenishes many water sources, but it was a drier than normal year. So we did something we had never done before – cache water along our route. This necessitated driving our Toyota Prius gently down some rough dirt roads that the trail crossed to hide gallons of water to retrieve as we trekked.
In all, we cached four gallons of water at strategic locations to help us get through the worst of the dry sections. Even so, we would each need to carry up to four liters (8.8 pounds) at a time and ration our usage on some days. We would also be contending with warmer weather than originally forecast. And the days would be shorter, with sunsets taking place at a little after 6:00 pm.
A Tough First Day’s Climb
We arrived at the Pine trailhead ready to start our first day at 7:30 am. The first 20 miles of the trail would mostly be uphill, as we needed to ascend to the top of the Mogollon Rim. It stayed pretty cool until about 10:00 am when we decided to take our first break.
We stopped next to a dry water tank, which we expected thanks to our phone app that crowdsources the water spots along the trail. With two liters each in our packs, we had ample water until we came to a creek crossing later in the day.
As it began to heat up to near 90°F, we were disappointed that there wasn’t more shade on the trail. And the occasionally rocky path forced us to take things slow. Our goal was to complete up to 18 miles, but it was obvious after our lunch break that we would not make it that far. To make matters worse, my injured foot began to hurt and the same leg became weak. At times I felt like my leg was going to collapse under the 30 pounds of total weight I was carrying.
In the middle of the afternoon, we stopped for another break. I was so tired I couldn’t initially eat or drink. After taking a few minutes to rest, Darren and I discussed our options. We had gone 12 miles and there was a flowing creek about three miles ahead. It seemed like we had enough daylight to make it there for the night. But I wasn’t sure I could keep carrying my current pack weight as we climbed.
We both wanted to continue the trek, so Darren offered to swap out some of my food with his lighter items. This reduced my weight to closer to 20 pounds, and I could walk much easier. We made it to the camp at about 5:45 pm, giving us just enough time to set up our tent and filter water before eating dinner in the dark.
While we hiked, we only saw a couple of other people. It was easy to get off the trail and let others pass. As we neared the creek, we saw numerous elk and deer hoof (and even bear paw) prints, so I hoped it would be an uneventful night. I did hear a few elk in the middle of the night but otherwise, we slept pretty well.
A Final Ascent to the Mogollon Rim and the (Mostly) Flatter Trail
We got up in the dark in the morning and started hiking at 6:15 am, just as it was getting light. The climbing continued, and we reached Washington Park and the East Verde River after a couple of hours. We took a break there and ate breakfast. This would be the last reliable stream for many miles, so we filtered several liters of water to take us up a final two-mile, 1,000-foot climb through General Springs Canyon to the top of the rim itself.
Fortunately, it was still cool as we hiked up the steep, rocky trail. I alternated between looking ahead to Darren in front of me and back down from where we had come.
At about 10:00 am, we reached the top of the rim and a much flatter trail. Now we could increase our speed and enjoy some forest shade, even though it was still in the 80°s F.
When we mapped out our water cache locations, our hope was to reach the first one at the end of day 2. But, even with our early start, we were still behind schedule to reach our water before dark. Our next option was to detour slightly off-trail to a national forest campground and pay $16.00 to camp (with potable water) for the night. Before arriving there, we needed to cross the bone dry East Clear Creek and follow switchbacks up several hundred feet on the other side.
The climb was during the hottest part of the day, and not quite used to the 7,000-foot altitude, we both had to stop and catch our breath several times during the ascent. When we finally reached the top, we drank our last liter of water, as it was just a short distance to the campground. We arrived a little after 4:00 pm. Even though we had only covered about 15 miles, it felt good to have a picnic table and unlimited water available to us.
Increasing the Miles and Collecting our Water Caches
With 80 miles left to cover over the next four days, we needed to start making better progress. We left the campground at 6:40 am the next morning and covered just short of 20 miles for the day. It was still hot, but the trail had much less elevation gain and loss.
We were now in the cattle grazing areas, meaning we needed to travel through numerous gates.
With no more steep climbs, I took back my share of the weight. Not only did we come to our first water cache (meant for day 2) in the mid-morning, but we also came to our day 3 cache later in the stage. It was a relief to find our water as we had left it at each cache. After the second cache, we actually had more water than we needed, so Darren carried the extra load.
At about 4:30 pm we were satisfied with our day’s progress, so we camped on the edge of a large meadow for the night.
Filtering Water from a Cow Pond
When we came across the few hikers we saw each day, we generally stopped to trade updates (at a safe distance) about water sources. Before reaching our next cache we needed to filter water and had a choice of several iffy sources used by the grazing cows.
We had previously gathered some water into a dirty container just in case we needed to filter it. The cow activity tended to make the water muddy and murky and not too appetizing to drink.
Our app and a hiker we met both confirmed that a spring about a 1/2 mile off the trail was the best water source. After about three hours of early morning hiking on day 4, we arrived in the spring. There were several cows that moved away from the water as we approached.
Darren took some time to scout out the best location to gather the water. He opted to get water from the other side of the barbed wire fence, where the cows could not access it. This meant he had to crawl under the fence but found a good place with plenty of clearance for his back.
Like we did when we hiked through cow areas last year, we ran the water through a pre-filter to take out some dirt (and extend the life of our main water filter).
Fortunately, the water filtered clear, although it had a strange aftertaste.
Back on the trail, we accessed our last water cache (containing two gallons of water) late in the afternoon. We each drank a liter, and then carried the six remaining liters a few more miles until we reached a camping spot for the night. Total day’s distance, with the trail to the spring and back: 20.8 miles.
A Long Day of Hiking in Search of a Campsite
With about 40 miles to go to our hotel in Flagstaff, we hoped to cover at least 20 miles on day 5 to have less mileage on the final day. We left at 6:50 am and marveled at several deer in the distance. Focusing on the deer caused us to miss a turn and get off course, resulting in lost time in connecting back to the trail.
As we hiked, we noticed that the forest was changing from almost exclusively pine trees to pines mixed with oaks. That, and some welcome cooler weather made for an enjoyable morning’s hike.
At our mid-morning break, we happened upon a public water cache, which meant we didn’t need to filter from any cow sources. Soon after we ran into a southbound hiker who told us about another large public cache 17 miles into our stage. Filling up with water there would fit perfectly into our plans to proceed a few more miles after that to find a campsite for the night.
We made good progress on the day’s trail, covering 10.7 miles by lunch. One highlight was walking several miles along an old logging railway bed, built 100 years ago.
We reached our 17-mile point in the middle of the afternoon and took a long break while we ate a snack and filled up our bottles with the water we needed for the night. As we started up again, the trail traversed a series of forest roads. Some large rocks on the road made our progress slower.
After about an hour, we began to look for potential campsites. We were now hiking on the flat Anderson Mesa. Even though the area around the road was level, there were small boulders on both sides of us, making it impossible to set up our tent. We continued to walk.
Soon it was after 5:00 pm, and we became worried. The sun would set soon, and we still could find nothing suitable for camping. The trail soon turned off the road onto a single-track path, but the terrain did not change.
We stopped to regroup. There was another national forest campground ahead that was a 1/2 mile off the trail, via a 300-foot descent. But the turnoff was still a few miles away from us. We agreed that it was our best option, so we sped up our walking as the sun began to set.
At about 6:15 pm we reached the turnoff. From there, we needed to traverse a series of switchbacks leading down to Lake Mary, where the campground was located. It quickly became dark enough for us to use our headlamps to navigate the rocky path. When we arrived at the campground and paid our fee, we had covered a total of 23.4 miles. We were both tired but in a good position for our last day of trekking.
A Final Day to Flagstaff and Our Hotel
After a good night’s sleep, we left at about 7:40 am to climb back up to the Arizona Trail. Back on the main path, we began to see the San Francisco Peaks ahead of us. These mountains are just north of Flagstaff, and we hiked through them on our trek last year. We only had about 16 miles to go to reach our hotel.
In the daylight, we could now see Lake Mary, where we had camped the night before.
The trail continued along the mesa for several more miles, then dropped down into some forest before descending sharply to the beginning of Walnut Canyon.
At about 2:00 pm, we reached the spur trail turnoff to Flagstaff. We now had about 4.5 miles to go to our hotel.
We carried water for the entire day from the campground and needed to ration our last liter as we climbed out of Walnut Canyon and toward Flagstaff. After about 90 minutes, the dirt trail ended, and we could see Interstate 40 ahead of us. As soon as we passed under the highway, we entered the city. We stopped for a moment to put our masks in our pockets in case we couldn’t keep our distance from others on the urban streets.
Anxious to get to the hotel and a hot shower, we walked quickly for the final hour. We followed the signs until we left the spur trail for good and walked the remaining blocks to our hotel.
Our ending point was where we had started in Flagstaff the year before, at the lumberjack statue. After taking photos, we walked two more blocks to our hotel.
We felt fortunate to complete our Mogollon Rim trek in a year dominated by a devastating global pandemic. The six days challenged me from an injury standpoint, and I was pleased that my foot and leg held up after the problems I faced during the first part of the hike. The heat, water availability, and shorter days also hindered us, but we were able to overcome all the challenges while enjoying some solitude and beautiful scenery in the process.
As we did last year, we kept our family informed of our progress by sending messages twice a day using our Garmin Inreach Mini.
With this section complete, we now have hiked over 40% of the Arizona Trail. We will look for other opportunities to continue to trek here as conditions permit.