I would like to note that all photos in this post were taken by Sophia Maghran, I can't take anything as good as these.
March 26: My mom drove Sophia, my aunt and I back out to sunflower. My aunt and Sophia were already complaining about the heat because Phoenix is hell. We took some time to get going, my aunt hadn't been backpacking in a while. It was great to have them with me none the less, I get along with them very well. We started out back at Sycamore Creek and took a tunnel under the highway to begin hiking the Mazatzal Mountains, a place I have given up trying to pronounce properly. Pretty early on we found some horses and pretty soon found out they were friendly. We got some really cool pictures with them. Sophia brought her camera because she had to do homework for her photography class, it was her spring break. We petted the horses and lost a lot of time there. I had planned for a long day but had to readjust my plans to make it shorter that day, which was fine. I learned pretty quickly my aunt had a good understanding of the botany of the area. She knew more about the surrounding flowers than I did, so it was very cool to learn from her. As we went through an unnamed creek, we met the local trail steward. He was in charge of giving info and checking trail conditions and probably a whole slew of other things. He was very very talkative. We hiked the rest of that day, talking and talking. I Realized there wouldn't be a long enough gap in conversation to ever need to listen to music or podcasts that week. We made a few miles less than I had hoped, but could easily make it up the next few days. We made camp with a few other hikers, the only one I remember was a girl named Moly Moly. We tried eating dinner with them but is started raining so we had to jump in our tents for early lights out.
March 27: we started out after all the other hikers had left. I can't remember much from this day, I got the halfway point, I was 400 miles in. we ran into a couple that was hiking the trail with their dads, which was very cool. towards the end of the day Sophia was dragging a bit behind so I waited for her as my aunt kept going, stopping for long periods of time would bother her knees. I and Sophia hiked together the rest of the day, getting a little heart to heart which was nice. I and Sophia made it to where we were supposed to stop just before nightfall. It was a place called bear spring, which I had passed like 1000 of already. The spring was just a whole in the ground a foot across with water going down a few feet, but hey it was water. I could tell it was going to be a rough night, the wind picked up and we were on top a saddle, so the wind was blowing pretty fast. As we struggled to pitch our tents the wind was blowing out my stove. It started raining so we all went and ate dinner In my Aunt and Sophia's tent, my tent sleeps 2 so we had to bring an extra. After that, I headed to my tent and we went to bed while the wind howled
March 28: We woke up to the wind howling louder than the night before, it was cold too. We struggled to make breakfast as out tents blew away from us. Again, I can't remember what happened during most of this day, it's probably because I was too busy talking. My memory comes back into focus when my aunt was struggling because she was overheating. She changed shirts and like magic, she was full of life again. We came over a ridge and could see for miles and miles, all the way to the San Francisco Peaks 200 miles down the trail. We stayed the night down by a small creek and got a nice campfire going
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March 29: Pretty early on in the day, we took a wrong turn that ended up helping us. By the time I realized we were on the wrong trail we were already about 2 miles down it. I could see that the trail went down a mountain and hooked up with a road, which we could take back to the trail. We were planning on spending that night at LF Ranch, a small ranch that sits in the middle of the Mazatzal Wilderness. From There my grandpa was going to pick us up the next day. Then I was headed back to Tucson to go to prom because I may be a total shaggy Mountain man but there's no way I'm missing senior prom. As we hit the road we were all getting pretty tired, so when a car was driving past we took the chance to hitch. The road followed the East Verde River, which was supposed to be flowing big time. We found out there was a locked gate miles before LF Ranch, which meant my grandpa couldn't get to us if we spent the night there. We decided to camp at the gate, it looked like people had before. That meant we were done very early so we spent some time at the river, me and Sophia explored a bit and my aunt washed her clothes and stuck her feet in the water. It was pretty cold But that didn't stop me from taking a swim. We spent the night away drinking tea by the fire, we could stay up a litter later than usual (late being like 9) because my grandpa wouldn't get there till 9:30 the next morning, so we could sleep in. We brought our sleeping mats out and later by the fire and contemplated life. That night was a pain because our fire refused to die, it kept relighting itself so I would Have to get up to pour water, or pee on it. We used up all our water trying to put the fire out, which meant we would have to Get more in the morning.
March 30: My grandpa got there long before he was supposed to, but better early than late. We went into Payson and stopped at my and my grandpa's favorite restaurant there, El Ranchero. Once we left the restaurant it started snowing, which was crazy because my aunt was overheating just one day before. We then had a nice long trip back to Tucson, in which my very liberal aunt talked politics with my very conservative grandpa...so that was fun. We then got to go out with the whole family so they could see my aunt and cousin before they left the next day.
March 31- April 5: Prom! And the longest break I took, which let me rest up, shave my beard and get everything back in order for the rest of my trip.
