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| Backpack | 12.03 Miles |
937 AEG |
| | Backpack | 12.03 Miles | 1 Day 10 Hrs | | |
| 937 ft AEG | | 32 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | The important stuff first:
- The drive from Phx to Picketpost TH on US 60 is nice and smooth. 1 hour, 15 min from N. Phx.
- I saw a recent Picketpost hike video about a speed trap where the speed limit drops to 50 mph along the way. But if you drive the limit, no problem. I saw a Trooper seize/stop a driver during my return to Phx.
- Good signage signaling the Picketpost TH.
- The two short "Forest Roads" to the TH were fine, even after the rain of previous days. (Starts off asphalt, turns to dirt.)
- There is a sign at the TH that says "Day Use Only." But a Ranger told me - after the fact - that you can park overnight if you sign in at a Kiosk. More on that below.
- There are bathrooms/outhouses at the TH.
- When I arrived early Saturday morning, someone had left a couple gallon jugs of water for the taking. Nothing Sunday evening.
- Trail from the TH to the Water Collector (AZT # 17) is easy to follow.
- Very little water along the trail Saturday. Virtually none Sunday.
- There are about four or five campsites along the way. But none close to water. (Save for camping at the Water Collector itself.) All were exposed.
- No snakes that I heard or saw. No bears or bear scat that I saw. (But maybe a bear footprint? And I don't know if bear scat has berries in it in the winter.)
- Many hikers on the Picketpost loop early Saturday morning. But that number dropped to 1 - me - after the turn off along the AZT.
- About 10 mountain bikers, mostly sobo, on the trail Saturday. A couple on Sunday, both ways. Two northbound thru-hikers Sunday. I ran into a quartet on horseback Saturday, who were traveling nobo while I sobo.
- I learned that it's good to talk to spooked horses.
- I met some AZT Stewards and volunteers at the Collector Saturday night. (They had all mountain-biked there.)
- Due to uncertainty over the "Day Use" signage (above), I left my vehicle in Dispersed Camping. (Which, according to posted signage, could still be a problem.) Eerily quiet, animal-wise, at night. No crickets. No bird calls. One owl for a half hour. Some coyotes howling early in the evening. But a lot of road noise from Rt 60. (That quieted down after 11 pm.) But a nice fire pit.
The "Los Hermanos" Restaurant in Superior serves a good breakfast for not much money. (Corrected an error & mispelling.)
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Already a too long trip report, even tho trying to keep it short. (Am already two hours preparing all this at start.) So I've broken this down into two sections. Personal stuff, and the Trip itself. Skip ahead if you want. (Or don't read at all.)
Well, as usual, I'm still committing the newbie mistake of "Doing too much, too soon."
I initially intended to hike from Picketpost TH along the AZT to the Gila River, then east to Walnut Canyon, then the GET #3 to loop back to the AZT # 17 to Picketpost. Two - possibly three - overnights. Yeah, right.
I thought that this would be easy for a few reasons: 1) I saw a trip report here where one of you hiked #17 out and back in one day. 2) I saw another trip report where on of you (J.B.) hiked half of #17 to the GET, to White Canyon and back in one day. 3) RouteScout shows that the Elevation Gain along #17 is only 683 feet. But apparently that's nobo only. My actual sobo Track shows a gain of 2,300 ft. 4) I had been training for two months before this trip, hiking about two to three times a week, often 4 miles, with lately 30 lbs on my back with no problem. 5) I thought that this trip had to be easier than my trip last May from Barnhardt, Cross Y, MDT to Bear Spring, then to Chilson, then down Barnhardt trail in 3 days. That trip was hotter, higher and I hadn't been training much at all. Maybe this trip was easier than this one. Perhaps I am simply becoming too old. (TMI, as the kids say, but I also have a congenital birth defect where I have only 85% of normal lung capacity.)
In the end, I ended up hiking AZT # 17 (a.k.a. Alamo Canyon - that it was a canyon should have captured my attention) to the Water Collector, overnighting, and returning the next day.
Part of the reason for that was because I was afraid that my vehicle would be gone when I returned. That's because when I arrived at the Picketpost TH there was a sign saying "Day Use Only," with hours from "Sunset to Sunrise." (IIRC, I saw another sign later about 6 am to 10:30 pm.) And a Notice on the sign board there saying that any vehicle left in camping unattended for more than 24 hours would be considered "abandoned." Yikes!
So for sure I didn't want to leave my vehicle at the TH proper. So I parked at the closest dispersed camping site. (About 700 feet away.) Although not in the TH proper, I was still worried that the federal govt might consider my vehicle abandoned. So I was under a cloud of "I have to be back before Sunday night." If I had known that it was okay to park longer, I might have spent a couple more nights on the trail.
(I called the Ranger Station this morning. While this could be like calling the FAA - talk to 3 feds, get 3 different answers - the Ranger said to sign in a "kiosk" (a booklet south of the sign boards that I might have seen, but thought was a Guest Book) and everything would be okay. I explained that I decided to park in Dispersed, with a note on my vehicle, and he said that that was okay too. And I asked the AZT Stewards and volunteers that I met at the Collector. They hadn't noticed any of the signage and said that they routinely park overnight at the TH without incident.)
If it weren't for my vehicle, I might have continued south the next day to the Gila (for water and to overnight). And that that would be easy. After all, the lowest point of the AZT is along that trail.
But the AZT'ers I met at the Water Collector (Mike, Maxwell, Mike & Nancy), who were doing maintenance on 16E, told me that the trip south had some hard climbs. There was a nice meadow about 4 miles away to stop. But no water there.
(As a side note, they said that the Gila was "low." About knee deep.)
And Nancy was concerned that I was thinking of backpacking the GET without a satellite communicator. (There were enough people - mostly mountain bikers - on # 17 that if I broke a leg, someone would have tripped across me. (On weekends, anyway.))
But to be frank, I was exhausted from my trip Saturday night. I could barely walk uphill on the way back to Picketpost Sunday. And two days later, the back of my calves still hurt. And I almost fall over when I roll out of bed onto my feet in the morning.
I dunno. One the one hand, this was my "Personal Best" so far - about 12 miles each day. (I had backpacked 12 miles in one day on the Sunflower trail in November - but that was with a lighter (20 lb) pack.) On the other, there was a 40-year old woman with a small pack training for a Thru-hike on the AZT who wanted to ask me about my equipment while hiking. She took the lead at first, but I couldn't keep up. And on my return to Picketpost downhill, where I thought I was going fast, a couple in their 20's sped past me.
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The Trip itself
I started Saturday morning about 8:45 am. The weather was about as good as it could be, 56 degrees to start. Not much hotter (65?) in the afternoon. My only complaint was sometimes bone chilling wind gusts on parts of the trail. (I read here in a Trip Report that it starts to be too hot for this trip in March.)
There was still some water near the trail from the 3 days of rain three days before. But most all of it had dried up/been absorbed by Sunday.
Lots of traffic on the first part that is also Picketpost Loop. After that, mostly solo as far as backpackers were concerned. A bunch of mountain bikers tho. And one incident with horses.
While coming around a switchback, I apparently spooked a horse. The horse started to turn downhill into the canyon. With its rider. Yikes!
It was a quartet on horseback. I climbed uphill off the narrow trail to let them pass. All four horses where still spooked by my presence. (I think it's my broad-brimmed hat.) One of the riders suggested that I talk to the horses, that hearing my human voice would calm them down. (Now I'm wondering if I should have turned my gaze away too?)
I stopped for a half hour just after noon to eat a bit. I trudged my way to the Water Collector at 3: 45 pm. About 8 hours from start to finish.
Overnight was fine. The wind picked up around 9 pm with gusts to 20 mph or so.
It's interesting to hear the wind howl as it swirls in the canyons, coming and going.
I was slow packing up in the morning, repacking my back a few times in the wind. Probably scatterbrained from exhaustion.
So I didn't start back north until 11 am. Kinda late, and I didn't want to hike in the evening.
So I tried to hustle. But there was initially some uphill climbs where I would move 100 feet forward, stop, wait 10 seconds, and trudge another 100 feet. I thought about just stopping at one of the campsites along the way to continue the next day. But no water anywhere. Fortunately, after about 4 miles of this, the trail was mostly downhill and I think I made 3 mph. (I presume that there's a way to analyze my track to break down speed.)
And speaking of water, on my way sobo Saturday, I drank only 0.7 liters of water. I was carrying 3. So, knowing this, I cut back on the water I took with me the next day nobo to save a pound. That was a mistake.
For reasons unknown to me, I was really thirsty on the trip nobo and drank 2.25 liters. (The OAT was only a few degrees higher, but with high cirrus cloud cover.) That left me with only 0.5 liters when I arrived at Picketpost. (I had water in my vehicle though.)
I was back at the TH by about 5:30. So six hours to backpack 12 miles. (And so I'm attaching my nobo Track because it makes me look better than my sobo trip. (Also my nobo is more accurate, since I remembered to hit the "Pause" button more.))
Then another 20 minutes of trudging up the road to my campsite at dispersed camping.
A peaceful night there. When I drove in on Saturday morning, about half of the dispersed camping was taken. But the place was a ghost down Sunday morning.
I didn't feel like eating dinner that night and went to sleep early. But about 11 pm, I started to feel chilled.
I knew that the OAT wasn't lower than it was up at the Water Collector. And it wasn't windy. Yet I was on the verge of shivering.
I thought about it and concluded that I was probably starving for calories, having only eaten walnuts along the trail that day. So I rekindled the fire, ate some walnuts and an apple. That seems to have been enough. Went back to sleep and was fine for the rest of the night.
Drove the short 4 miles to Superior Monday morning. Not many restaurants are still in business there. One of them not open on Monday. But Los Dos Hermanos was open and served a fine breakfast.
Maybe I'll try again in February. |
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| Be careful. It really is "a jungle out there." |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
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. Said he got poured on too. He was trying to make it to the Gila today. He said he did the AZT last year in 29 days. Nice to be on the AZT and reminisce about hiking it. Nice day to be out!
