The rain is brief and the moon shines brightly.
Also brief.
Until dark. Our visitor, who we’re pretty sure is a javelina from the clopping of hooves, tries one more visit. But there’s nothing carelessly left out, so he gives up.
The quiet is broken by one test chirp by a black throated sparrow. I peak out on heavy black clouds and barely any light.
It’s quiet until he gives his chirp another try. Then goes full on.
He’s in the distance across the wash and I can kind of ignore him and stay cuddled in a bit longer.
It’s the canyon towhee perched right above me twee twee twee scddddddd that makes me realize it’s time to get up.
I cook from my tent, wearing just a tank and my underwear. But that doesn’t slow down Ozoner who stands at my entryway to discuss the finer points of using a Sawyer Squeeze filter.
I’m pretty sure he’s clueless and can’t help himself, so I let him drone on about not actually squeezing but rather letting gravity do the work and to use a bandana when I collect water from the Gila since it’s muddy – all as if I’ve never done this before.
He would drive me crazy normally, but I’m not slowed down as I pack up and he’s nice enough offering to filter a liter for my trip.
I snap pictures of the magenta sunrise knowing it points to a rough day ahead. Ozoner leaves me with the tip that it will start raining at 9 and rain fairly steady until late afternoon.
It certainly makes for an amazing sky. The only other place I’ve seen an entire mountain range turn black is Scotland. Arizona has similar light with sun peaking out under heavy rain clouds ready to burst – or dissipate – at any second.
I leave our long snaky wash and cross an open ridge with views forever. It’s still dry and warm as I follow a long, black hose transporting spring water to cattle somewhere in this expanse.
The trail is lined with purple lupine, thick and stalwart. I try to take a picture but it can’t begin to capture the extraordinary beauty.
Birds are singing loudly, joyous in spring’s abundance or maybe more accurately, staking territory. The huge cholla pop like tinsel in the sun suddenly poking through the heavy clouds.
I reach a large wash, all sand but wide and destructive in heavy rain. There’s a pungent smell from some plant, like burning sugar.
I’m not here long as I reach the ‘big hill.’ Ozoner, so full of information and tips, tells me it’s not too hard, but more like four hills overall.
He’s right at least about the easy part as I move steadily. Most of these trails are built for mountain bikes, so are gradual and well-graded. Mexican poppies are everywhere, a deep yellow-orange contrasting with the brown and gray rock.
I rise fast and can see the mountain range across a valley. It’s turning black with rain, then opens to gray as a rainbow appears, more of a rain bar.
I soon reach the high point, then realize I have a long way to go along the top of this hill – and I’m surrounded by threatening clouds. Not a single drop has hit me yet, but I’d prefer not to contend with rain up here.
It’s stunningly beautiful up here with cholla and saguaro. The mountains ahead are a whiteout in rain, their shapes shades of black.
And then as quickly as it started, it simply disappears.
I come up on what might be hill two, winding on long zigzags up and over. Then again, heading directly east where I can see Kearney and just make out the mountain-sized slag heaps from its mine.
But then I head north again, up and over and up and over, pausing for a moment at a beautiful campsite on a peninsula of land to survey all this magnificence. The flat spot even has its own wildflower garden.
But I need to move on, and begin descending through carpets of wildflowers. Rain is what brings these, I realize, so I’m not about to complain if it rains on me.
And just as I reach a more level area through saguaro, it begins. I brought a jacket to review and put it on, excited there’s a pocket for my phone within easy reach. It’s not cold, so I didn’t bother to bring rain pants and I’m getting soaked by the minute.
My first goal of the day is the Florence-Kelvin Road where the AZT Association has placed a locker. I grab a liter left by the local pizza place, then look for somewhere to drink up. It’s still raining, so I don’t linger knowing in less than three miles, I’ll have more water.
But it’s another good pull up and over a ‘big hill,’ in fact more like sidling, through colorful flowers, saguaro and rain. But it’s cool coming into town and approaching the Gila River this way, coming steeply down on switchbacks to a highway, bit crossing on my own bridge next to it.
The water is chocolatey and fast moving through bright green cottonwoods. It’s bucketing rain now and I duck under the highway bridge to figure out where to go.
The Pinal County Maintenance building is just a short ways past the river. I must look like a drowned rat coming into the fenced off area, but make a beeline for their picnic table underneath an awning.
I drop my soaking pack and try the door. It’s locked, but I figure no one is going to turn me away in this wild weather.
I try to figure out the best course of action. But before I do that, I eat lunch, downing another liter in the process. I could just stay in town and say heck with this weather or fill my bottles, put on my raincoat and get back in it.
One thing I should remind you about: I don’t know exactly what’s next. I can read all day, study up, look at photos, and make a plan, but until I set my feet on it, there’s no real substitute.
The key is having a plan for how to manage things. The worst that could happen is I get wet. My sleeping bag and extra clothes are packed in a trash compactor bag at the bottom of my backpack, so even if it pours, I’ll have something dry to get into.
The trail ‘follows’ the Gila, but the only real access is twelve miles down the trail. That’s because the trail goes high up on the surrounding cliffs and deep inland before meeting it. So I’ll need to ‘camel up’ by drinking now and carry two liters for tonight and in the morning since there’s not enough light for a 12-mile walk.
Just as I suss all this out, the sky clears and the sun shines brilliantly. I take the dry opportunity to walk around the building to the faucet and fill up. When I return to get my bag, it begins to thunder.
I’ve already made up my mind so walk back to the river and follow a road along the river. I cross Mineral Spring which must have exploded in a recent flash flood as the road is washed away and only recently bulldozed in place.
It’s hot now and giant cumulus fill the azure sky. A car passes me with bikes, then another which I flag down to ask for the weather report. Hayden is friendly and tells me it may be sunny now but more rain is coming. Still, the next two days should be beautiful.
She then asks if I’m headed to Picket Post and tells me they’ll see me later on trail as she is bike-packing this stretch. I assume – rightly – beginning tomorrow to avoid the rain.
But I head on, feeling excited to keep moving and to be putting sunscreen and my sunglasses back on. The trail climbs up and up through crazy shaped saguaro. The mind tailings pile is as high as these mountains and black clouds form over them.
The wind is high and the flowers exploding. It’s gorgeous up here as I lose sight completely of the river and eventually of the town. I leave my raincoat off as long as I can, but the mountains across the river are a gray blur and it’s coming for me.
The rain patters on me but I move along happily in this glorious canyon, eventually cresting and beginning to descend. Below I see a trestle bridge for the railroad glistening from a few stray sun rays.
Down and down on zigzags and over one wash after another. Beyond the bridge is a ranch and I soon reach two gates and some mooing cows. The grass is thick and wet and I may be close to the river but it’s sandy and filled with brush pushed here by floods.
It’s still early and I want to close the gap to my water for tomorrow morning. The rain lets up and I take down my hood as I head up again away from the river.
And that’s when it really begins to rain.
Each episode today was short and over quickly. Now it appears to have settled in. The surrounding mountains are grayed out as if blurred focus and, while I’m not cold, this is far from pleasant.
The other issue is the jacket does not seem to seal at the neck and I am creating a V of damp on my hiking shirt.
It’s still beautiful but so dark, it feels much later than it is. Since it will be dark by 7, I tend to make 5 my time to look for a camp spot in earnest. But even an hour early, I keep my eyes open for an appropriate spot in this steep, rocky terrain.
Just as I’m beginning to feel spooked out by the dark and my solitude, a family of three carrying umbrellas pops around the corner. We have a laugh seeing each other and take photos. They have bern out a few days and haven’t seen a single person.
It always cheers me to see others out in it. The man was wearing a bright blue rain skirt and the daughter rain pants, but the wife was like me, just letting her pants get soaked. I figure if they are happy in it and managing so can I.
I tell them that I’ve told the heavens that’s enough rain, the flowers and cacti are happy. You can stop and then send wind, please.
We wish each other luck and it’s up steeply again, then down to a wash where I see a campfire ring. Washes can be good places to camp because they’re flat but it gives me the creeps somehow, down out of sight where water pools.
So I keep moving. But it’s up again on steep rocky cliffs – and the heavens did not get the memo.
I look and look for something flat, not too rocky, not right at the edge. I think I find something that might work just below with a small climb on lose rock.
The rain keeps falling and I don’t like it. 5:30 now, not a lot more time to keep walking but maybe ahead just one mile seems slightly less steep. I climb back up the loose stones to the trail and walk about ten feet when right there is a camp spot, flat, wide, cleared of stones.
I check where I am and it’s exactly where I had hoped to get to this afternoon, mile 270, just 4 miles away from the water access and easily done in the morning with just one liter for breakfast.
And just like that, the heavens listen up and stop the rain so I can set everything up in the dry. I’m gifted with a rainbow along with a couple hooting owls. Paradise!
Of course, as I make dinner, I get one more blast of rain. It’s short but assuring me who’s boss.
I cuddle in, warm and dry and eventually the crescent moon appears and even a few stars.
