Oct 1: Kaibab Plateau

Nano found us a ride back to the trail--turns out an employee at the thrift shop is an Arizona Trail trail angel, so he just asked her. Funnily, I separately simultaneously almost found us another ride by chatting with someone at the library.

We were hiking by 8AM and started Buckskin Gulch right at the highway. It's pleasant enough, but it's a solid 10+ miles before you get to the famous narrow part. I hiked the whole thing with Amy in 2011, but Nano had never been. We dropped our packs at the Wire Pass junction and did an out and back in the amazing narrows. There were quite a lot of people. 

We'd been considering whether to go to the Wave. It's not on route, but you can pretty easily make it on route. What you can't easily do is get a permit, since they only give out enough for 20 people a day and getting one on foot is basically not going to happen (apply 4 months in advance or at 8AM the day before in Kanab). Anyway, we didn't. Something something saving it for a trip with our partners, being able to go at a better time of day for photography, spend a whole day there, something something I'm a rule follower and I'm scared of authority.

So we kept going and crossed into Arizona at State line campground, where someone had left some water jugs for AZT hikers. We waited out some of the heat under a shade structure, then climbed up to the Kaibab Plateau. All easy (if hot) walking on maintained AZ trail! A lot of the area has burned (some of it prescribed?) but so far no blowdowns or trail blockage. We got water from a wildlife guzzler and hope we have enough to get us to the next one.

Few days to the Grand Canyon! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adze Picket Co. (I Love the PCT)

Image
Me at the Border I spent the weekend at the ADZPCTKO with Nitro , Tatu Joe, Ducky (the Wise) , Tomato, BearCan't , Mattress, Love Barge, Nano, Sly, Disco , WeatherCarrot, Too Obtuse, Nacho, Tall Paul, Mags , and Wildflower (AKA Icognito Cheeto Bandito). I got a ride down with Firefly. I'm tempted to just end my post there, as it would seem like complete gibberish to many of you. But I won't. The ADZPCTKO is the Annual Day Zero Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff, held the last weekend in April (also known as NFL Draft weekend, where, miracle of miracles, the Redskins, despite Dan Snyder's best attempts to screw it up, actually managed to avoid throwing away multiple draft picks on Chad Johnson and instead traded for more picks. Hallelujah!) at Lake Morena campground, 20 miles north by trail from the Mexican border near Campo, CA. Conventional wisdom says that the weather window on the PCT is such that there's not much point to starting earlier thanks to snow in the S
Read more

Hardrock 34:42

Image
It's Tuesday, I'm back in Berkeley, and I just ran my first Hardrock last Friday/Saturday in 34:42. I wanted to record thoughts immediately after the experience, because it was hard , and now that it's been a few days, I'm already forgetting the pain. [I don't want kids, so you'll have to insert your own reference to childbearing here if you so desire.] Start The race started at 6AM. I slept reasonably well the night before in my truck just behind the school gym where the race starts--Silverton is very low key, so it's easy to dirtbag inside the city limits. I did, however, have a bit of GI non-normality, but it didn't seem like a big deal. I started in shorts, T-shirt, and a windshirt. As expected, the windshirt soon became too warm, likely because of the clouds that were obviously going to bring rain sooner rather than later. First Climb I started maybe 30-40 deep in the field, going faster than I'd ever climbed in training, but not feel
Read more

Should I run UTMB?

That's it, the title is the post. No, of course that's not the post, but I am wondering. My schedule has filled in a bit for the year. I'm now signed up for: Orcas 100 (Feb), Paiute Meadows 50K (May), Scout Mountain 100 (June), TRT 100 (July), and hope to run the fun runs Lupine Loopfest (Feb), Desolate Peaks (August), and Euchre Bar Massacre (October). But the big news is that I got selected in the UTMB lottery. I have until the 29th of January to confirm my registration. For the non-runners: UTMB is a 106-mile loop around Mont Blanc through France, Switzerland, and Italy, starting and ending in Chamonix. By all accounts it is spectacularly beautiful and very difficult, with about 33,000 feet of climbing. For most of my running life I haven't really cared about European races or followed European runners, but I got swept up in the spectacle of it last year. It was the race's 20th year, an American man finally won (Jim), and also finished second (Zack), and Courtney
Read more