HikeArizona.COM

Hey all - I'm planning a thru-hike in the fall of 2016. As such, I'll be scouting many of the trailheads and trails this fall (to get a feel for location/weather expectations).

As of yet I do not have any dates/locations set, but I'll be camping at various locations throughout this fall (and maybe the spring of 16). I am happy to cache stuff for people if you're not in a hurry.

Also, I'll be leaving gallons of water at select trailheads - if you see a jug of water with "TRAIL MAGIC" written on it then feel free to use it. Make sure to collapse the bottle and stash it back in the pile so I can pick up the trash on my next way through.

Lastly - if you happen to see me camped near any trailheads (white Ford van) then introduce yourself - I'll have other goodies and am happy to offer my kitchen/solar showers/etc for use.

Feel free to write with questions - bgleadbetter@cox.net.

Paz.

Good luck with your plans to hike the Arizona Trail and have fun with your planning.

A week ago I finished section hiking about 111 miles of trail from Flagstaff to the South Rim. At the Moqui Stage TH for passage 36, there were two one gallon water jugs, one 2.5 gallon water jug, and one 2 liter water jug, all empty and strewn about. It was really disheartening to see and I'm not sure what my feelings are on caching jugs of water along the trail. The fact that it was raining and I had plenty of water may have influenced my thoughts.

Trail magic is a wonderful thing and leaving it with the intention of retrieving the empty containers later is a bit of a different story than what I encountered.

@rcorfman

I absolutely agree that leaving your cache garbage behind is bad form. It really goes against the spirit of the backcountry in my opinion. I'll only be leaving bottles of water at the trailheads I frequent most.

I was at the Winter Rd. junction this past week and there were about 10 Walmart bottles of water under the tree; I married the open ones and took the garbage with me. It appeared to be a "at large" cache; the bottles were strewn about the place thanks to the cattle. There was also someone's personal cache that was a bit disbursed so I re-collected it into the pile of rocks.