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AZT Day 25 – The Flats

Bushcamp to Bushcamp

41 miles

Mile 643.4

I woke as the sun began to rise to find my water bottle frozen solid and my tent walled in with new snow. It was cold, absolutely frigid. Out of curiosity I checked Snowbowl’s weather report to find the temperature at a positively balmy 16 degrees. It wasn’t going to get any warmer sitting in my frozen tent, so I began packing up.

The ground had frozen hard around my tent stakes. Each time my numb fingers freed one from the frozen earth I felt like Arthur plucking Excalibur from it’s stone. I accidentally snapped one of my stakes while trying to loosen it with my foot. Fun fact…I’ve carried 9 stakes for the past 8000 miles, even though I only need 8 to pitch my tent. I’m happy to say my redundancy has finally paid off!

Tent successfully packed away, I began my snowy traverse around and then down Mt Humphreys.

Despite the few inches of snow that fell yesterday, I could still make out the tracks of the hikers who went before me.

A few hours later I was cruising through high desert flatlands sweating with Mt Humphreys looming behind me.

The rest of the day was spent walking past rural ranches on red dirt roads. The terrain was about as flat as you could ask for, so I made good time.

Around 3:00 PM I stopped at East Cedar Tank to fill my bottles. The water in the metal trough and stock pond was fuzzy with algae and sprinkled with floaters, but the creek water spilling from the spigot into the trough was crystal clear.

While resting at the tank, I checked the weather forecast to find a 90% chance of snow on Tuesday…aka the day I’d planned on hiking from rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. Well that just won’t do! I decided I’d hike into the night, and push another 40 mile day tomorrow so I could hike the canyon Monday with good weather. Plans made, I pushed on.

As the sun began to set the temperature dropped precipitously, forcing me to shrug on all my layers before continuing into the night.

Just before 9:00 PM I reached the mileage I’d been chasing. After setting up camp dinner was a quick affair before falling asleep.

Cheers!

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