What a wild few days I’ve had in Flagstaff schlepping my gear to the Loggermat and Snow Mountain River and then leaving it tied up in a garbage bag in the hot sun in hopes every last living organism is wiped out.
I’m up early packing that gear and leaving a small pile of goodies for the maids including the special soap for the sleeping bag which only comes in an extra-large bottle. I feel good, the swelling down now and everything as clean as I can get it.
A little residual bitterness lingers, but it’s funny how many people reached out not so much with concrete help but with calming words, like this one, “Your now is not forever.” Helpful wise words even if what I really needed was help washing gear.
Still, lovely Sam comes to my rescue and swings by at 7:30 to take me up to Babbitt Lake off of West Fort Valley Ranch Road/AZ 180. His mom is a friend of a friend and a big walking advocate. She apparently sent the Facebook post of my face all swollen from bites asking for help to her son, and he and his girlfriend (also named Sam) said, “We gotta help her!”
Funny how all I really needed was someone with a cool head to help me figure out how to get back on trail. If I hike huge days, I could walk from Flagstaff, but I’m exhausted from this ordeal and the super strong antihistamine, so last night at Mother Road Brewing, we looked at a map and found where the trail swings close to the highway about 40 miles north.
Sam actually knows the spot and expertly passes logging trucks and shuttles me up there. We pass an area near the Arizona Snowbowl still filled with snow and he says this is a popular for cross country skiing. I wonder what that might be like for walkers right now.
It’s a few miles down a forest road and I see the lake, smack dab in the middle of nowhere. Most of this country is dotted with cinder cone volcanoes. I step out onto pumice and Sam snaps my picture before heading back into his own life, a bonafide trail angel.
It’s windy and dry here, not a trace of snow or mud. I’m on ranch land – Cedar, Tub and Babbitt. No cattle graze just yet, perhaps it’s still too cold. Sam warns me snakes are out and I keep my eyes on the trail. Ahead is giant, rounded Chapel Mountain, and behind me are the San Francisco Peaks with pointy Mount Humphreys still snow-capped.
It’s funny that further away they appear larger, growing straight up from this expanse. It may be flat, but I’m high, around 6,500 feet. It’s so open and wild here, like Mongolia. Two birds flutter in the wind, spinning around each other in front of me. The barbed wire fence hums.
I take a wrong turn onto a different dirt road, but it doesn’t seem to matter too much delivering me to a single track path that makes many twists and turns for reasons I can’t surmise. Juniper trees are gnarled by wind and snow. Even the dead trunks look like dancers in a dramatic pose.
I am absolutely alone and I love it. Only footprints speak to all the other hikers aheads, ones I hope make the path clear. I get a bloody nose and fill up the bandana I tied on the outside of my pack for this purpose with red mucous. The dryness and altitude make my nostrils crack.
There’s little variation in the trail, but on the single track, I move up and down some. The forest thickens as the day goes on, but my snowy mountains are still in sight. There’s a certain intimacy to today’s walk. The earth and my feet feel as one. Is it getting back on trail after an ordeal or the fact that now I can go a little easier if I like that makes me feel so connected?
It’s still unvaried with very few flowers or cactus. A lizard scurries to the side, then bends his head back in an S-shape to see me. One juniper appears to have fallen across the trail but goes on living in this supine position. I cross forest roads in all types of tread, some with deep ruts in dried mud, others barely showing two tracks.
At one, the sign points to a “wildlife waterer.” The water sources are few and far between, so I walk the half mile to a large gated area. Corrugated metal covers what must be the collection site and I enter a gate to a small, concrete collection area. A sign reminds sportsman that this is here for their game and their expense, so don’t vandalize it.
I set up on the concrete to collect. There’s algae growing, but the water looks clear. Still, everything needs to be filtered and I hang my gravity feed. Lunch is tuna, cheese, a bar and an entire liter of water.
I enjoy this quiet, sunny spot for a good while, the wind whistling through dry grass. I make calculations for where the next water is and where I’ll dry camp, but I do so from this off-trail spot.
That was a mistake.
The mileage is much closer from here as the crow flies, but the trail in actuality, winds and turns and zigzags. Perhaps it’s to prevent erosion, but it does make for a long path and my next water is quite far.
Though it’s not really a problem. The day is not especially hot, and I barely have to work to keep walking. I’m surprised that I manage to walk so far without intending to. No wonder this is where people begin ‘crushing’ big miles. We’re trail fit and the end is in sight. Funny that for me, I want to slow down.
The snowy peaks have followed me all day, but now disappear as I enter a juniper forest. I’m ready to look for a camp site even if it’s early. I walk up and down small rises, the surrounding floor either rocky or one giant ant hill.
I think I find a spot, but there’s nowhere to sit, or too slanty, too cramped, too many small stones. So on and on I go, kicking around dried mud but never quite satisfied, until just ahead I see two stone benches by a fire ring and a perfect flat spot between two trees.
Sometimes, you just have to follow your intuition.
I set quickly making small prayers to all gods and goddesses that my gear is bug-free. Dinner has been cold-soaking since the waterer and tastes so good from my stone chair. Just as I think my day will finish all alone, Joey walks by.
I tell him about my ordeal and getting a ride north. He tells me he started from exactly there. It must have been a late start, but does go to show how little distance and time is required to separate us hikers.
He also tells me the section near the mountain was absolutely dreadful. The snow is still so deep that by mid-morning, it’s a post-holing nightmare.
i suddenly feel incredibly lucky to have chosen to skip forward and miss that section. Utter frustration is not what I need just now. Maybe another day, but a wee break is in order.
Joey pushes on but I’ll probably see him somewhere along the line. Now, the wind has died and the moon, a waxing crescent, is creating branch shadows on my tent. It was an easy day on dry trail and I feel so good to be back, my body moving well and not one moment of itchy bites.
Please, all omniscient beings and those who look after us on earth, let’s keep it that way.
