AZT 17 – The Best trail and The Worst….

Daily Miles: 20
Total Miles: 337
Camp Elevation: 4,500 feet

Woke up to a nice sunrise this morning.   The wind had died down during the night and we all ended up being quite hot overnight.  

We got on the trail just after 6:30.  The trail was quite nice.   We ran into what appeared to be a youth group coming back from an overnight trip.   They said they had temperatures down to 29 degrees last night.   That seemed strange since we were so much warmer at our campsite.

We had several nice hours of walking on the best trail so far… hard packed dirt trail with pine needles ,  flat,  and many trees around to give some nice shade. 



 We had quite a few small creeks and springs during the morning which was nice so we didn’t have to carry a lot of water with us.

After we passed Reevis Ranch,  the trail started to get quite rocky.   We had a short up and down and then the trail just followed the contour for awhile.   The trail became quite frustrating when it went steeply down 1,000 feet and then back up 1,000 to the same Ridge we had started on.   The trail was really steep,  full of loose rocks,  and  lots of pokey plants growing into the trail to scratch us up.   We all decided that the trail today in the afternoon was the worst of the trail. Much of the trail wasn’t actually built trail,  but simply places where several people had walked in the same area avoiding cacti.   The north bound descent is very eroded.    Several miles of trail that need some love.

We had a bit of a hard time finding a good campsite this evening.   The terrain was quite sloped and there were cacti and other pokey things all around.   Luckily we finally found a place for Qball’s tent and our hammocks around 6:30.  We are well protected from the wind tonight,  so hopefully we will all sleep soundly.