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| Hiking | 32.30 Miles |
2,096 AEG |
| | Hiking | 32.30 Miles | | | |
| 2,096 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Raising money for The Foundation for Blind Children
The day started with dreams of the Best Breakfast Burrito in Flag(Dog Haus) but ended up with a continental breakfast that included awesome Belgium Waffles.
We were dropped off at our stopping spot, and about a 1/4 mile later we were at the official start of passage 34. The 3-4 inches on Schultz Pass road, at 8,000ft made me wonder what was in store for us at over 9,300ft.
We took off with ambitions of another 24 mile day. I brought my camera today and snapped some pics at the start. In the first 2 miles, we'd gain 800 feet of elevation to the Wilderness boundary. It was slow go in the 6-8 inches of snow and altitude and leading a blind guy on a trail I couldn't see but could make out the contour most of the time. It would be impossible to hike and read a GPS and lead. We got hot pretty quick and shed a layer. It was snowing on and off. We knew we were in for a huge challenge. The only way I could tell we were on the Kachina trail at times was by the old cuts of fallen trees. I saw a group of Elk in the snow but the bell scared them away before I could get a pic. To make a long story short, it took us 6 1/2 hours to go 8 miles. We had averaged about 3 miles yesterday. We met Dave (Mike's in-law) at the Humphreys' TH where we ate lunch at 2pm. A little bummed and very physically and mentally spent. We each had a 1/2 quart of cold mac and cheese and a full half chicken each. Mike had a beer and pondered on what we were doing. Would we be risking our lives moving forward, etc, etc.? We decided to move forward thru the snow and it was starting to snow harder. It was getting a little hairy as Mike fell for the 10th time. He was getting frustrated and we decided we'd give it a mile and if things got crazy we'd turn back and get picked up. The Aspen trail was totally covered and we wandered down to the .9 mile mark from the Humphrey's TH. We saw the sign that said Utah 190 miles and got psyched. I left my camera in the truck because we started in what was almost a whiteout. Things were looking up, there were blazes and trail signs for the first time today. The trail was easy to follow and the scenery was awesome. I saw some more Elk and heard some strange sounds. We were making great time and we covered 7.5 more miles thru this great section and stopped where the trail crosses FR 418. This is where we were going to camp but plan B kicked in and we roughed it in Dave's house on mattresses with our sleeping bags. It was great to finish on a high note. Dinner was from the grocery store, a huge sub and a cobb salad and a Fat Tire bomber. Easy falling a sleep after we planned our next day. We had now hike 15.5 miles for the day and a total of just under 40 miles for our two days.
Day 2 Passage 34
We woke up and headed to Mike and Ronda's for a Burro that was unbelievably good. Hash browns were cooked to perfection and Pepsi to get the caffeine fix.
We made it to our start place at about 8am. We had about 17 miles left of this passage to make Cedar Ranch. The rest of the passage was either on dirt roads or along the roads. We planned a lunch meetup at about 2pm which would leave us a little short of Cedar Ranch. We made excellent time at times... moving at 3 miles per hour but sometimes 2mph because of the rocks and other obstructions. Most of what was left was boring except for the snow capped mountains that were visible from behind us. The terrain was more prairie-like as we got to lower elevations. I had Mountain house lasagna for lunch. We finished the final push and we were at the AZ trail sign at about 2:20pm. The original plan was Wed=24 miles, Thurs=22, Fri =10. Wednesday went as planned and Thursday we were about 6.5 miles short due to nasty weather. Today we made up the difference and decided we'd get a head start on the next section. Total miles to this point 56.7 and total for the day 16.8. |
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