{"id":2757,"date":"2020-02-21T23:45:38","date_gmt":"2020-02-21T23:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/?p=2757"},"modified":"2023-02-18T22:06:23","modified_gmt":"2023-02-18T22:06:23","slug":"first-day-on-the-arizona-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/21\/first-day-on-the-arizona-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"First Day on the Arizona Trail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Date : February 18, 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miles: 1 – 8.3<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I arrived in Arizona a couple days ago, and have been staying with Tim\u2019s parents, who moved down here a couple years ago and have graciously offered to host me and drive me to the trailhead this morning. As an aside, I\u2019ve decided that I could totally buy a golf cart and move to a retirement community in Arizona. That could definitely be my jam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At any rate, this morning Tim\u2019s parents drove me to the Montezuma Pass trailhead. It was a 6 hour round trip for them, and Gayle baked me some cookies to take with me. I am very appreciative of their support. Thank you Tim and Gayle!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Montezuma Pass is not the beginning of the trail, but it\u2019s the southern-most accessible spot. There is a trail from there that takes you to the southern terminus. I hiked on down at about 11:30 am, tagged the border monument, then started heading North! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Hola southern monument. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The first thing the trail does is gain about 2,600 feet, up to a little over 9,000 feet. It\u2019s been a long time since I\u2019ve been much past sea level, so I struggled. Hard. The first few miles were the toughest, as it took me quite a while to adjust to the heat and find a rhythm. I finally settled into a pace that was one level above standstill and turtled my way up to Miller Peak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
On the way up!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The uphill climb took me longer than I anticipated, but I figured I would make up for it on the downhill side. Nope! There was a good bit of snow on the north side of Miller Peak. It was pretty icy because of the number of people who have already tramped it down, so I turtled my way down as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Arg. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

After filling up my water bottles from a spring running through a bathtub in the middle of the woods (because why wouldn\u2019t <\/em>there be a bathtub in the woods), I continued on a little ways to find a camp spot. It was dark, cold and windy by the time I found one, so I set up as fast as I could, shoved some ramen in my face, and bundled up in my base layers, mid layers, all the layers, puffy jacket, gloves and quilt. Luckily I managed to find the one spot that seemed to be largely out of the wind, so I warmed up pretty quickly. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being the first night camping by myself, I didn\u2019t sleep very well. I woke up at every sound. Earlier, I had read someone\u2019s note on the Guthook trail navigation app saying that they had been visited at a nearby campsite by a couple border-crossers who wanted to camp there. They were later visited by border patrol. So I was a little nervous that there would be a repeat incident, and I kept my pepper spray close. The night passed by uneventfully, however. It was actually the quietest night I\u2019ve ever spent on trail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Date : February 18, 2020 Miles: 1 – 8.3 I arrived in Arizona a couple days ago, and have been staying with Tim\u2019s parents, who moved down here a couple years ago and have graciously offered to host me and drive me to the trailhead this morning. As an aside, I\u2019ve decided that I could … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “First Day on the Arizona Trail”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2757"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2779,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2757\/revisions\/2779"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/walkingfromthelaw.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}