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| Douglas Spring TH to Mica N Back, AZ | |
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| | Douglas Spring TH to Mica N Back, AZ | | | |
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Douglas Spring TH to Mica N Back, AZ
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| Hiking | 28.64 Miles |
6,300 AEG |
| | Hiking | 28.64 Miles | 13 Hrs 28 Mns | | 2.35 mph |
| 6,300 ft AEG | 1 Hour 18 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Joe and I left the valley at 4AM and started from Douglas Spring TH just before 6AM. We got one of the last open spots, with more cars parked along the street. Lots of people in the first mile or two, but crowds thinned out quickly. It was in the mid/upper 70s when we started, but the still, humid air felt heavy and meant a lot of sweating, especially over the first few miles at lower elevations before the trail steepened.
Early on, a woman was stopping people along the trail because of a crossing snake, which Joe quickly identified as a gopher. It wasn't clear if she was more concerned about making sure no one got bitten (not realizing it was nonvenomous) or protecting the snake from being disturbed. Joe told her it was a gopher snake and that he had a 28-mile hike ahead of him and didn't have time to wait for it to move, and around we went. Hopefully the snake wasn't disturbed  .
After we were ~2.5 miles from the trailhead, we didn't see any other people until we were almost back at the end of the day. Later, we passed a black-tailed rattlesnake and managed to get around it safely without the help of the crossing guard. And then two more non-rattlesnakes crossed the trail over the next few miles...for a while, we were averaging a snake sighting every two miles or less. The trail was national park-level maintained, though we did encounter a few brief patches of overgrown catclaw, and the rock steps were annoying and made the incline more difficult than it needed to be.
It was a steady climb with a lot of sweating in the humidity, and we started to see more manzanita and small trees at ~4,500', with increasing shade as we gained elevation. Not much to see at Douglas Spring Campground, and we took a short break at Cow Head Saddle before resuming the stair climb. From there, I was in familiar territory, having hiked the remainder of the route to Mica a few months ago, albeit going down instead of up.
Darker clouds gathered and gave us a break from the sun, and we picked up more shade as we got up into the pine trees. Joe ditched his pack before we reached Helen's Dome and just carried a bottle of water the rest of the way from there, then we took another break at the summit to soak in the non-views from one of Arizona's most underwhelming summits.
As Joe stood up to start the hike out, he made some painful noises reminiscent of the dying Easter bunny seasonal nature sound of Route Scout: leg cramps. "This could be really bad" are words I don't want to hear from Joe on a long hike, especially 14 miles from the trailhead. Not much we could do about it except start down and hope for the best. Back at Joe's backpack, he realized he didn't have as much water left as he thought...uh oh. The dark clouds persisted, and we heard a rumble of thunder, but the sky never did help with the water situation.
We kept a steady pace going downhill, and the steps were less annoying on the way out. We took a few breaks before getting back to Joe's water cache, and a Gila monster crossed the trail in front of us. There we some big thunderheads around, then a nice sunset before we finished the last mile by flashlight, back to the trailhead after 7PM. I carried 162oz of liquids and drank ~90oz through the first 25 miles, then started drinking more when I could see we were going to make it out without incident.
Very little water out there--just a few very small pools in some of the drainages, but a good day for wildlife with four snakes, the Gila monster, a deer, and a bunch of horned lizards. Great to see Joe again...my first long hike with him was ~21 miles in 19 hours, this one was 28 miles in 13.5 hours, so I'm expecting our next one to be ~35 miles in 7 hours  . |
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