Feb 19th: My mom, my little brother, my dad, and I all took off to drive down to the start of the trail. After a quick breakfast at Denny's, we went to the visitors center at Coronado National Memorial where I and Keegan goofed around for a bit and played knights. After that, we all hiked to the border and all took turns boarding hopping through a hole in the fence. My mom insisted on what felt like 1000s of pictures, but I only like about 2 of them. After that, my dad and I were off. We hiked to the top of Millers Peak, and as we grew nearer to the summit our boots got caught in over a foot of snow. This was the first time I had ever really hiked in the snow and it was something. The only way we were able to find the trail was by following the footprints of someone who had come before us. We continued to hike after sundown but still didn't make it to where we wanted to that night. As the sun when down and the winds picked up we froze our butts off and decided to make camp along a ridge. It was a cold cold night for us both.
Feb 20: My dad and I woke up freezing and scrambled to pack up all of our gear. We hiked for around another mile and came to bathtub spring, literally a running bathtub in the middle of nowhere. I had my first freeze dried meal of the trip, honey lime chicken (would not recommend) and got a move on. The pace was slow, we had to trudge through knee deep snow. Following older footprints, we finally made it off of the mountain, though we did have to retrace our steps a few times. We then made it down to Sunnyside Canyon, which was littered with signs of illegal immigrants. We hiked into the night and got a little lost when we tried to take a road that cut across the trail. We had to stop a bit short of our goal for the day, Parker Canyon Lake, which was upsetting because I needed to buy a phone charger there.
Feb 21: We woke up and I felt weak as could be, I know now it was because I wasn't eating enough in my rush to stay on schedule. We hiked a mile or so into Parker Canyon Lake and the store there didn't have a phone charger. I spent the next hour or so trying to ask anyone I could; fishers, boaters, campers, etc. for a phone charger. For a while, I had no luck (though I did meet some people from my church who gave me a banana. I was very grateful for that). In the very very back of one of the campsites, the last place I could look, I met a couple and their dog, who thankfully had a charger. They gave it to me and made me promise to send them a postcard. After that, I bought a soda and a cup of noodles from the store my dad and I headed off. I will admit it, not my greatest day of hiking. I was incredibly tired by the time we made camp, behind schedule because of the phone charger incident. However, that night was the first time I was able to eat a real dinner and I felt so much better the next day. Feb 22: The beginning of the day was pretty slow, we slept in and took out time getting breakfast and water. We had some laughs while hydrating up and went on our way. Pretty easy day of hiking, we spent the night near a water tank.
Feb 23: We woke and everything was frozen. Our water bladders, our filters and even the faucet to get water out of the tank. We had to boil what little water we could find to unfreeze the pipe and hope our filters weren't broken (there is no way to tell if your filter still works if it freezes). We then hiked to where the trail meets a main road, unfortunately, we met a bull on the trail, a very aggressive bull with horns bigger than himself. We whipped out our bear spray and cautiously made our way around him. Once we got to the road we were able to hitch a ride into Patagonia. Lucky, the couple that picked us up were staying at the same hotel we were checking into that night, The Stage Coach Inn. We threw our bags in our room and went to dinner smelling like a bucket of fish. Dinner was fantastic, though my dad thinks the fish fry didn't have much fish. After dinner we visited the town market and got snacks and sodas, then we went back to our room, took showers and went to bed on a nice real mattress.
Feb 24: Zero day. We spent the day in Patagonia resting and waiting for my mom to come resupply me and pick up my dad. We went to a little Mexican cafe for breakfast and talked to the nicest waitress even and met the mayor and fire chief of the town (same guy). I then went back into my room and FaceTimed my girlfriend for hours while my dad had a look around the town. I used up an entire can of Lysol cleaning all of my gear and drank more water than I thought imaginable. My mom and brother came that evening and we went to "The Velvet Elvis" for some good Italian food. Then I got my resupply and my family headed home. I took a shower and went to bed, ready to take off again in the morning
