March 26 – March 29

Miles hiked: 40.8

Total miles hiked: 158.3 in 9 hiking days

So we got off trail in Colossal Cave because of the “historical record-breaking heatwave” and took an Uber to Tucson. We stayed at Davis-Monthan Airforce Base overnight and took a 3-1/2 hour Uber ride on the 26th to Pine, AZ. We did our grocery shopping for our 6-day section (we arrived in Pine before our resupply boxes 🤦‍♀️), ate at a great little pub and arranged our shuttle to the trailhead for the morning.

Cindy, from Beeline Guesthouse shuttled us to the trail at 6:30 am Friday.

We hit trail and oh my goodness what a difference 10 degrees, shade and occasional cool water made. We felt like we were flying. We covered 22.3 miles the first day. We had a couple climbs but otherwise the terrain was mostly small PUDS (pointless ups and downs). We even got to set up camp by the East Verde River. Cool water to drink, bathe in, and even wash clothes in. What a treat!!!!! We were loving trail life finally!!!!

We all had a good nights rest and were up and back at it by 6:15am on Saturday. We were moving well and feeling great. We had a long water carry which made for heavy packs but we weren’t complaining. We hiked 18.5 miles and called it an early day to camp between water sources because the next day was gonna be another heavy water carry and we needed to make at least another 18-19 miles to get to Flagstaff within our allotted 6 days.

During the evening, Assassin got a message through her Garmin In Reach (satellite device) that her mother was ill and was not expected to live. 😢 Devastating news. We were within a mile of a ranger station off trail so we made a plan to hike out Sunday morning to the ranger station and get off trail. We got up Sunday morning and hiked to the ranger station which was closed but fortunately we had 1 bar with Verizon at the ranger station so we tried Uber to get us to anywhere we might could get a rental car. To no avail. We tried 2 trail angel contacts. To no avail. Two hours later we finally got a shuttler, Vince, to pick us up and drive us 2 hours to Phoenix where we will all catch flights out tomorrow morning to our respective states…GA, PA, and TX.

We’ve done so much planning together and this was meant to be a group hike so Maverick and I chose to help Assassin get home to her family and we all decided we would try to give it another go next year and hope for better circumstances.

It seems this hike wasn’t meant to be from the get go. The heat, the logistical nightmare of jumping ahead and missing our resupply boxes we’d mailed ahead, the new info that the Grand Canyon park north rim road isn’t opening until May 15th (we knew the North Rim may not be open, but the road closure cut another 50ish miles), is just too complicated and costly and now Assassin’s news feels like we need to shoot for another time.

It’s disappointing not to finish what we started, but it is what it is and there are many other adventures to explore in the meantime.

I love the rugged, raw beauty of the wilderness. I love a challenge. The bigger the challenge, the more thrilling and memorable an experience is. Witnessing unknown sites can’t truly be captured in photos or tales. Seeing, touching, hearing, feeling nature no matter the weather or circumstances always does something good for the soul. No… we didn’t complete our goal, but the trail isn’t going anywhere and in my mind it’s just a good excuse to return again.

Thanks for following along even though it was short and not quite the hike it was planned to be.