just testing

Arizona Trail

We (Amy and James) thru-hiked the Arizona Trail (AZT) during the spring of 2016. Since there is a significant amount of data about this trail in print and on-line available to those who may want to walk this route, this trip report will focus on some logistical information and our impressions of the walk.

The AZT is a National Trail that runs about 800 miles from the Arizona/Mexico border north to the Arizona/Utah border. We thru-hiked the trail northbound from March 30 to May 9. The AZ Trail Association maintains a fine website with lots of useful information.

You can download route data in gpx or kml format from this CalTopo map of our route.

Water

Finding sufficient water is the most critical problem an AZT hiker must contend with. Water sources are often far apart and may or may not have usable water depending on the season, rainfall, and other factors. We found two on-line data sources that were extremely helpful. The first is found on the AZT website and is updated a bit intermittently.

The second is the Guthook Arizona Trail App and can be uploaded from:

 

http://www.aztrail.org/apps.html

 

or directly from:

 

https://itunes.apple.com/sb/app/arizona-trail/id1014971295

 

This is a free app but well worth the upgrade price of $10 to get the detailed maps. The app can be updated in real time by trail users and often had very timely and useful information. Our experience was that other hikers did frequently uploaded data at water sources and the new information would post to the site anytime their smartphones were able to connect. We strongly recommend using these sites and doing your part by updating the water info at each source you come across.

 

 

 

Resupply

We mailed food boxes to seven locations ahead of our walk. We have found that this process works well for us as each box contained the basic supplies we would need for the next trail leg and we were able to supplement the contents of the boxes with whatever was available locally. Sometimes shopping opportunities were good, but in a number of places, very little food useful to a long-distance backpacker was for sale in the local shops. Our resupply points are listed below.

 

• Patagonia: mail drop; two grocery stores with decent selections; several restaurants; while in Patagonia, visit the Tucson Audubon’s Paton Center for Hummingbirds to watch dozens of the feisty little creatures squabble over the many feeders.
• Colossal Cave: mail drop; no food available except from a tiny lunch kiosk; you could hitch into Tucson from here.
• Summerhaven: mail drop; a friendly general store with a modest selection of useful items; a couple of restaurants.
• Kearny: a good market and several restaurants; Old Time Pizza had good food and an extremely welcoming owner who offered us much assistance; a laundromat; Kearny is a few miles off route, but hitching there and back was easy.

 

 

• Superior: a worn-out town with OK markets and several restaurants; a public laundromat at the dumpy Copper Mountain Motel; Superior is a couple of miles off route but hitching was easy.
• Roosevelt Marina: mail drop; the marina has almost nothing useful for resupply and very limited items on their café menu.
• Pine: mail drop; a well-stocked and friendly market; many restaurants and a laundromat; a fine trail town.

 

 

• Mormon Lake: mail drop; a small, moderately expensive but friendly shop with limited supplies, shower facilities, and a laundromat; the restaurant wasn’t open when we were there.
• Flagstaff: everything you could possibly want, but if you take the eastern AZT alternate, you may need to hitch into town; on the eastern alternate, it was easy to visit Walnut Canyon NM, which was well worth the time; the decent Mary’s Café is a very short distance south of the trail where it crosses Highway 89.
• Tusayan: mail drop; a very expensive grocery store with limited supplies; several restaurants; a typical National Park border town.
• Jacob Lake: limited supplies but a nice café; we tried to hitch both ways from the trail and had zero luck and ended up walking the six mile round trip.

 

Grand Canyon National Park

Crossing the Grand Canyon is the one place on the AZT where permit issues can be a hassle. The National Park is extremely popular and the Park Service has an impossible job of balancing between user access and quality experience. Since the AZT crosses the canyon on the two most heavily used trails in the park, there are very limited reservation only on-trail camping opportunities available along the route. Since an AZT hiker, especially one going NOBO, will not know when they will reach the canyon, obtaining an in-canyon camping permit in advance is not realistic. The chances of obtaining a same-day walk-up permit during the normal AZT hiking season is also highly unlikely. Thus, an AZT thru-hiker has two choices: prepare to spend a day or two or three on the rim waiting in the queue for a permit or hiking the canyon rim-to-rim in a day. If you walk rim-to-rim, camping on the north rim will not be a problem. We elected to do a rim-to-rim walk, and while it was a long and tiring day, we also finished well before dark and were able to find a decent campsite not too far from the north rim trailhead. The opportunities for stealth camping along the North Kaibab Trail are not good and rangers who know the territory well patrol the trail.

 

James’ Impressions

I truly enjoyed this walk quite a bit. The trail was generally well marked and easy to follow. The walking itself ranged from simple to rough, but never just silly difficult. The terrain and habitats varied a lot, so the walk was rarely boring. The birds were terrific and many are unique to that portion of the US.

 

The trail is well routed to avoid roads and there were very few places on the trail that allowed motorized use. Trail maintenance was generally good, especially considering that most of the work is done by volunteers. Overall, trail conditions were quite decent and old trip reports commenting on the difficulties of this walk are now way out of date. The only area that needed any significant trail work was in the Mazatzal Mountains where a huge fire in 2012 stimulated explosive brush growth. Even there, the overgrown areas were short and not difficult to deal with. There is a marked re-route around the worst section; take it. The tread in the Mazatzals is worn out and in places covered with lots of loose rocks, but was nothing horrible.

 

 

The Sonoran Desert sections were particularly interesting and unlike any other desert we have walked in. The plants were diverse and mostly heavily protected by various types of thorns, spines, and spikes, making campsite location sometimes challenging. Walking through the Saguaro forests is an endlessly fascinating experience as each cactus is quite unique.

 

We were generally fortunate with the weather. We had very few really hot days and almost no rain. We did have a daylong snowstorm in the mountains north of Flagstaff that eventually dropped over ten inches of fresh powder on both the trail and us, leading to one very cold night and frozen boots in the morning. Sine it had rained a bit prior up to our hike, we had some decent, although not spectacular, flower displays.

 

One of the things that struck us both is how empty Arizona is. We hiked through long stretches of territory where we saw almost no signs of human occupation or use. We crossed very few fences and saw a surprisingly small number of cows. We crossed paths with other hikers and trail users, but often only one or two people a day. Almost everyone we met was friendly and local residents were usually welcoming and helpful.

 

 

I would highly recommend this walk to other long-distance travelers, particularly those who want to try something different than the usual trip into the high mountains. If you prepare properly and pay attention to water resupply, you shouldn’t have any significant problems completing the AZT.

 

 

Amy’s impressions

I don’t disagree with anything in Jim’s assessment.

 

I also enjoyed this trail very much, although it was not so magical that I will put it on my top-10 list.  I especially enjoyed the extreme diversity of habitats and scenery encountered due to the dramatic change in altitude.  Saguaro Cactus desert to Spruce forests, then back down to cactus, then back up, repeated over several weeks.  The plant and animal life were more varied than any other North American trip we have previously taken.

 

 

As Jim mentioned, crossing the Grand Canyon is beautiful and a crucial part of the scenic diversity, but it is a logistical hassle.  I would recommend planning to cross in one day and avoid the whole process of getting a permit.  Or, for people who are not strong enough to cross in a day, I’d consider walking southbound, since you would then be able to predict the date of the crossing and secure a below-the-rim camping permit for that date.

 

One noteworthy thing is that long stretches of this trail are not high in creature comforts.  The low altitude desert sections offer very little shade, and simply finding a place to sit comfortably can take some time due to the abundance of cactus.  There were times I craved a nice place to sprawl for a relaxing lunch.

 

 

As Jim mentioned, the current information about water sources made possible by the Guthook Smartphone app is critical to the success of the hike.

 

It is remarkable that we have so much public land that it is possible to cross an entire state on a trail where, outside of the GCNP, one is permitted to walk and camp at will. I think American hikers sometimes take this for granted; we are very fortunate.