AZT 12 – A Cactus is Not a Toy

Daily Miles: 24

Total Miles: 132

Camp Elevation: 4,000 ft

Had a good zero day yesterday.  Beardoh and Qball shuttled our trail angel friends, Purple and Carnivore, to Summerhaven for an overnight hike.  SweetPea spent time at the library getting some work done on their computers.  Once we were all back at the motel, we took naps, went out for dinner and then got ourselves ready to head back on the trail today.  It was nice to have a day off from the trail and Oracle was a good town.  The Chalet motel was a great place. Marney and Jim took great care of us. 



Today we got ourselves back out to the trail before 7:00.  The trail was mostly rolling hills with lots of nice switchbacks.  There was a strong breeze all morning which kept us cool even though we were on exposed trail.



We ran into a CCC group working on the trail.  There were about 16 of them working on an 8 mile stretch of the trail for about a week.  They warned us that they had just seen a rattlesnake, but they must have scared it off and we still haven’t seen one on the AZT.  Hopefully it will stay that way!

Beardoh had a bad day with the cactuses. He kicked one on the trail pushing big thorns into his foot. He got a little thorn caught in his finger trying to remove a larger one stuck to his pole. Cacti are not toys. 



We started today all carrying at least 3 liters of water each.  We got to our first water after about 12 miles and stopped for lunch.  We were able to get some shade to sit in on one side of the water tank.  Beardoh climbed up the ladder for the water and even noticed some fish living in the tank.

Once we headed back on the trail, it was noticeably hotter with no breeze.  Luckily, the trail remained pretty easy with gentle ups and downs.

Our next water came 8 miles later and was rather unpleasant to see.  The tank was lined with some kind of crud which made the water in the tank look green.  And it seemed that all the bees in a 50 miles area were swarming around the tank.  All that being said, the water was fine. We just put an extra drop of bleach in our water and headed on our way.

This afternoon we saw two roadrunners crossing the trail.  Needeless to say, they look nothing like the cartoon.  They ran away too quickly for us to take a photo.

We finally made it to our camp around 6:30.  We were all really beat after the long day of walking.  We’re planning for an early wake up tomorrow to make the most of the cool morning hours before it starts to warm up.