April 6: my sister had come into town to hike with me, we had spent the night at my grandparents because they were closer to the trail so we could cut out an hour. We took off early that morning and got to the trail around 10. Well, actually we got to the gate I had stopped at a week before. Shandi and I had to walk around the gate and hike down a dirt road to the trail. We went to the ranch I was planning on staying in with my aunt and cousin. It was called LF Ranch and it was entirely in the Mazatzal Wilderness, it was grandfathered in when the area was established as a wilderness area, in the early 1900s. We were greeted by a man who's and was Shaw. He never told Us his name but I knew because if my AZT app, which let me see certain way-points and comment on them. Someone had talked about Shaw so I know his name. While I was talking to him I had mentioned his name was on the app and he got very upset. He prided himself on being off the grid and I think the fact he was on an app freaked him out a little. He seemed like the type who thought the government was out to get him or something, and he would probably hate that I even talked about him on my blog. We showed us around a little, he always described the ranch as "a really working Ranch". We heard those words leave his time every few minutes. The ranch had peafowl, which used to be fairly common but none have them anymore. When we said we were surprised to see them he seemed to get offended and asked "why wouldn't we have peacocks? This is a REAL. WORKING. RANCH." Shaw said he would walk us back out to the trail because he knew a short cut. There were about 5 dogs on the ranch and all of them ran to the sound of the gate opening. Apparently, that was a big deal for the dogs. He hiked us out to the East Verde River, which was flowing a lot more than where I and my aunt had spent the day. Shaw went back to the ranch and me and Shandi made some jokes about how honored we were to go to an actual "REAL. WORKING. RANCH" It was only a few miles down-stream but a lot of water must have flowed in between those areas. I knew that the East Verde was the only river in Arizona to have River otters in it, so as we passed I was looking around hopeful to see some. I didn't see any and I'm not sure I've ever been sadder in my entire life (I wasn't sure if sadder was a real word, but I checked we are good). We had to take out shoes off and wade across the river because the bridge had been washed out. We spent some time just hanging out by the water, letting out feet dry. We hiked up what used to be a road, it was pretty steep. We made it to the stop of the mesa and it was super super flat up there. Grass had overgrown the trail in the area so we actually had to use cairns, little rock piles to mark the trail, to find our way. We followed these nearly the rest of the day, we hit a road a few miles before we got to where we were going to spend the night. We were in ranch land and there was a ton of little calves. We spent the night near a cow tank, Shandi found the water gross but my cooking system cool. Shandi was doing really really well, she kept up all day. She was really really tired and felt sick but I made her eat her entire dinner. I felt pretty silly telling my older sister to eat all her dinner but she needed it. She just wanted to go to bed. She went to bed right after dinner and I stayed up getting water and eating my dinner.
April 7: We got up and I had to force Shandi to eat again, she was feeling better but wasn't hungry.we were going into pine that night and didn't have to go too far away. We walked along a road, then hit a larger road. It was all flat land so it wasn't too much fun. My senior project adviser contacted me and told me when I would have to give a formal presentation on my trip. This got my mind thinking of different ideas for my presentation. I figured it would be pretty hard to make a project as cool as mine boring. We went from the big road to a power line service road. We didn't have very long until we got to the highway that led into Pine. We tried taking a hitch, even though it wasn't far but got no takers. We were staying the night at THAT Brewery, which had a cabin you could rent. THAT Brewery was famous for having the Arizona Trail Ale, the official brew of the AZT. We spent over 3 hours in the restaurant, talking to people and eating some really good burgers.my mom had left a resupply box at the brewery for the next 5 days. We went to the cabin and dropped off our stuff, then went to the local store. It was a pretty far walk and we saw the first elk of my whole trip, there would be a ton to come. They were just walking around someone's yard like nobody's business. We want and walked through the whole store browsing, it was a very cute store. I think all we purchased was a soda. We went back to the cabin and took showers, resupplied all of our food and washed some of our clothes in the sink. We watched the Simpsons and lost track of time...3 hours went by and we realized we really needed to go to bed. The cabin was small but had everything you would ever need. It felt amazing to sleep on a mattress that night.
April 8: we got to sleep in a little that day, not because we had a short day, just because we are lazy. We went to the only restaurant open early, it was amazing. We got there just before the rush and it filled up quick. I was hungry so I got my meal and a half side of biscuits and gravy. When the food came out I realized my eyes were bigger than my stomach. The half order of biscuits and gravy took up a whole dinner plate. that was on top of another whole meal, I ate all I could but it was a lot. We wrapped up and went back the cabin, grabbed our gear and left Pine. We now had to spend the next 2 days hiking up the Mogollon Rim, cliffs that run east to west across the state, separating the low desert with the Colorado plateau. It was about a 4000-foot difference. When planning my trip I was pretty scared for that incline but had done much worse already. We stared up at and I distinctly remember listening to the Moana soundtrack during this portion. We passed by another Bear Spring and met a woman who was running the whole rim. The AZT went along another trail called the Highline Trail, which followed the Mogollon Rim. We gave the woman my card and she later donated to me and posted a pic of us on Facebook. We made it to a place called Webber creek that I think was actually part of Canada or something, because it was so lush and green it didn't look a think like Arizona. Many of the plants there I saw no other time on my trip. As we came around a corner I saw something large and black out of the corner of my eye rustle through the bushes. I freaked out and quickly went for my bear spray. It walked away as Shandi came around the corner but we spent the next few minutes singing to scare away bears, we have frighteningly good voices. We made it to an area called bray spring and Shandi's feet were killing her so I let her go soak her feet while I made up camp. It was a pretty cool area, a little pocket of dense forest within the surrounding shrubs. We wanted to make a fire but neither of us wanted to find wood so we didn't, we are very lazy people. We sang the Moana song that had been stuck in my head all day during dinner and went to bed.
April 10: Short day, 9 miles was all we had to hike. I planned this Because it was a steep portion of the rim and I had my sister with me. I can't recall the first few miles of the day. We met 2 women who were trail runners having a beer at one of the trailheads. We talked to them and pet their dog Mogollon (or Moggy). One of the women, who was either Aussie or Kiwi, kept calling the other "honey" so I thought "aw what a cute lesbian couple". Turns out one of the women's name was honey so we had a good laugh about that. One of the women later donated to my campaign which was very sweet of her. We got a portion of the trail that was incredibly steep, but that was the last mile or so we had to climb. it was pretty early on in the day so we had lots of time. There was a side trail we had heard about from the 2 ladies that went to an old train tunnel. It was a mile off the trail so we thought we would go take a look. It was pretty big but didn't go back very far. People had written all over it, some dating back almost 100 years. We then went the last mile up the rim, and it really wasn't that bad. I had been scared for nothing. We then made it to a historical marker, indicating the battle of "Big Dry Wash" had taken place there, which was weird because the was no wash at all and it was on a hill. Like I've said before, Arizonans are great at naming things. We then went to an old cabin in an area called General Springs. The cabin was totally empty but the door was open. It was managed by the forest service. We debated staying in the cabin that night but decided no on account that it was illegal and that it was super spooky. The spring turned into a small stream and we hiked along it for a few miles. We came to a nice campsite and decided to spend the night there. We made a fire and as soon as the sun dropped so did the temp. It might have been the coldest night of my whole trip and it wasn't even supposed to get below freezing the whole week.
April 11: All I can remember from the beginning of this day was hiking near the Blue Ridge Reservoir, we were near one of its tributaries and the reservoir was so full it almost made it impossible to pass the creek. We hiked all day and made it to a campground. Which, unsurprisingly, was closed for the winter. We walked along a dirt road that connected the campground with a highway. We had to walk along it because Shandi's feet were killing her. Her hiking boots were a tiny tiny bit too small, which she had never realized till now because she had never spent so much time in them before. We came to the highway and started walking east, there was a ranger station near there and we thought it would be cool to check it out and stay over there. We made it in after everything closed, after a little while a ranger showed up and we asked him if we could stay in the parking lot that night. He said it was fine even though there were signs saying no camping. We asked where we could get water and he told us there was water at a hotshot camp behind the station. We walked around the camp for a quite some time and didn't see anyone, or a hose. We hiked around that they were all ignoring us because they were such hotshots. We found the faucet, then coming back found one right next to our camp we hadn't seen earlier....whoops. We talked to another hotshot and later we both talked about how we were hoping he would let us stay in an empty cabin. It was a long shot but it was really cold. We went to bed in the parking lot and had a nice chilly night.
April 12: we woke up and visited the station office, there was a small gift shop and we looked around in there for a little bit, the head ranger talked to us and told us we shouldn't have camped where we didn't but said it wasn't that big a deal. The Blue Ridge ranger station as some if the coolest merchandise ever, it was all smokey the bear themed and I got a cool iron-on patch I was going to add to my backpack and I got my sister an absolutely dope smokey the bear hoodie. We hiked around 17 miles that day, largely through a burned forest which was sort of creepy. We saw more elk than I thought existed in the state, at least 60 over the course of a day. We got off trail for a bit because we were following a road and lost our way. We went past lots of cow tanks, which were beautiful and more like lakes. We stayed the night at one of these, called wild horse tank. After we set everything up for the night the frogs started, the whole pond sprang to life with the mating calls. For whatever reason this is like the only sound of nature I don't find calming, I knew I would have a hard time falling asleep that night. Shandi had no trouble at all and went right to bed, this had been every night while she was here. She would fall asleep in what seemed like seconds because she was so tired. I stayed up for quite a while listening to frogs and even debated picking up my sleeping bag and mat and walking a half mile or so to get away from frogs. I got to sleep at some point though. In the middle of the night, Shandi woke me up in a panic. There was a shadow on the tent in the moonlight. I'm pretty sure it was a tree but Shandi made me check. It was. A free. I had to go to bed again, listening to the frogs. Thanks, Shandi.
April 13: Today was Shandi's last day, We were going into the town of Mormon Lake, where Shandi would get picked up and my other sister, Casie, would come start hiking with me. We hiked along roads almost the entire day, and at one point we didn't see a turn and kept walking an extra mile or so. We had a pretty short day and a very beautiful last couple of miles. There was a lot of snow melt so the roads were nice and muddy. The day was pretty flat, as most days would be now that I reached the rim and got onto the Colorado plateau. We made it to the highway. we would hitch from the trail into Mormon lake and stay the night in the lodge. We were getting worried because of the general store, the only thing open in the town, closes at 3 and it was about 2. If we didn't hitch a ride we wouldn't make it into town on time. Quite a few cars passed by us and no one pulled over. We started walking and pretty soon one of the cars that had passed us earlier had turned around and picked us up. I don't remember the man's name but he was awfully friendly and was telling us about the elk populations in the area. Apparently, the elk here were not native and were introduced by Teddy Roosevelt in 1913. We made it into town pretty early and we're able to get to our room at the lodge, we had a very nice cabin that was pretty inexpensive, pretty early. We then went to the store and picked up a very strange assortment of food for dinner, lots and lots of microwaveable meals. We washed out clothes and took showers, it felt amazing and the lodge had really nice complementary products. We stayed up watching the Travel Channel super late, and by super late I mean like 11. My mom came in with my sister at around 2 am. Casie lived in NYC and her flight came in at like 9 and then they went and drove up from Phoenix. They woke us all up as they came rattling in and I said hi to Casie, who I hadn't seen since Christmas.
