March 9, 2022
- Start: Rincon Wilderness sign (Mile 143.7)
- End: Molino Basin Trailhead (Mile 158.8)
- Miles: 15.1
When I woke this morning at 6:25 am, I didn’t feel like moving an inch. It was so cold that I could see my breath inside my tent. I’m super glad to make it back down to 6,000’ elevation last night, because I know the temperature definitely dropped down in into the 20s overnight. All the liquid in my water bottles was mostly frozen this morning.
And although my 10°F quilt is normally fine in those overnight lows, I kept moving around all night and creating cold air drafts on either side of me. I guess I need to be far more diligent about tightening the straps on my quilt if I want to get a good night’s sleep in this cold spring weather.
I laid completely still in my tent, trying to stay warm as long as humanly possible, but knew I’d eventually need to just face the music. Time to deal with the cold. Once I got going again, I was sure I’d eventually warm up.
After eating and quickly packing up, it honestly wasn’t as bad as I feared. The sun was out and shining bright. There weren’t any clouds obscuring the atmosphere. And that magic heat tab in the sky seemed to be warming me up quickly as it climbed higher overhead.
Moreover, this first stretch of the trail this morning reminded me of the the savannah in Eastern Africa. Tall, golden grasses covered the rolling hills and flat spaces. Low wide trees dotted the landscape. It was hardly the mentally picture I form whenever someone says the Arizona.
You could probably blindfold a person and drop them on the AZT and they probably would have no idea what state (or even country) they were in. It really is a diverse and wonderful trail.
And back behind me, I caught glimpses of the remaining snow covering Mica Mountain’s north side. As cold as it was down here last night, I’m super glad I didn’t have sleep at that elevation or navigate any icy trail this morning.
Poor Prov. I know she planned to camp at Manning Camp. I hope she is staying safe on her journey down the back side of the mountain this morning.
CHAFE
One of the topics I haven’t really addressed yet is my clothing on the Arizona Trail. On all my prior hikes I’ve worn shorts, a hiking skirt, or quick dry leggings. I’ve never really worn hiking pants. One major reason behind this preference comes down to rain and sweat. I find my bare legs dry much quicker than any pair of moist pants.
Yet, I made a last minute decision to try out some rock climbing pants on the AZT. They seemed like a good way to protect my legs from all the prickly things on the trail and to stay warm at the same time.
But here’s the downside to wearing pants. They get looser with each successive day on trail. All the bending, sitting, and squatting over water sources allowed these pants to relax to a ridiculous point. They barely stay up any more.
Moreover, these pants have a wide elastic yoga pant-style waistband with no drawstring to cinch the waistband tighter (or belt loops to use a belt). And so, as I’ve found my pants sagging more and more each day, I’ve had to resort to safety pinning the waist to help them stay up.
The other side effect of my pants being too loose is that the crotch of the pants falls a full inch or two lower than it should have be. All this extra material between my thighs keeps bunching up as I hike, and it’s causing terrible chafing on my inner thighs. In fact, when I tried to clean up last night, the alcohol in my wet wipes made my raw, chafed skin sting so badly that it actually brought me to tears.
So I really need to deal with that problem. But the only item in my first aid pouch to address this chafing issue is a single-use pouch of Neosporin ointment. That’s fine for getting through today, but what about tomorrow? I think I might need to head into town ASAP to find some baby powder.
GOING TO TOWN
Up ahead, I could occasionally see bits of Tucson off to my left side as the mountains curved north around the city. I mentally debated whether I should try to get a ride down to Tucson today (from one of the upcoming trailheads) or just wait until Mt. Lemmon to find something to take care of this chafe situation on my legs.
Once I made it to the Reddington Pass trailhead around 9:30 am, the sunshine was warm enough to swap out my loose-fitting pants for my hiking shorts. At least my shorts had a drawstring waist that allowed me to keep the crotch material up where it belonged instead of drooping down to where the seams aggravated the raw spots on my inner thighs.
After lazily changing out in the open (where god and everyone else could see me), I took a quick peek inside the metal bear box beside the trailhead. It was stocked with several gallons of public water for AZT hikers, but there was nothing in there to help with the chafe. Man, where was Cooper’s trail magic when you needed it??
A sign on the opposite side of the road informed me it was only another 10.7 miles to the Catalina Highway (aka Highway 58). Maybe I could get a hitch into town from there. There had to be a better selection of first aid items down into Tucson then up at the small general store in Mt. Lemmon, right?
And so I make up my mind to endure the discomfort just until the highway. Today will be an easier day. Less than 16 miles and then I’d go into town and take care of myself.
TRAUMA
As I hiked toward Catalina Highway, flies started dive bombing my head. I tried swatting them away, but it wasn’t much help, and they returned just moments laster. I couldn’t figure out why they suddenly seemed so attracted to me. Maybe the lack of fresh cow pies out here meant I was the worst smelling thing they could locate.
Up ahead, the landscape was filled with gentle rolling hills that looked like easy hiking. But I wasn’t focused on this terrain – or even the flies any more. What caught my attention was a noise. The sound of helicopter rotors.
I tried to find where the noise was coming from, but I didn’t see anything. It was somewhere up to my right, but the hills were obscuring the helicopter’s actual position.
As I rounded another bend in the trail, I spotted two helicopters. One was hovering low and then slowly began its descent. I figured there must be a ranch or something out there, otherwise why would these helicopter be here in the middle of this desert valley?
At the trail curved north again, I lost sight of the two helicopters, but I could still hear them. My curiosity about the helicopters normally would have ended quickly, except the rotor noise continued. Rather than departing and flying away, they just seemed to be hanging out with the engines running.
This noise lasted for five minutes. Then for ten minutes. And then twenty minutes!
What the heck?! A helicopter can burn 20-1000 gallons of fuel per hour depending on its engine size. That’s one reason why the pilots tend to immediately turn off the engine if they are going to be on the ground for an extended time.
But these two helicopters didn’t seem to be going anywhere AND the pilots weren’t turning the engines off. Instead, it was just that distinct ‘thwack-thwack-thwack’ rotor noise echoing off the hills.
As the noise continued until the thirty-minute mark, my anxiety began to creep up.
After two decades serving in the military, I’ve been around tons of helicopters. So many helicopters that I used to be able to completely block the noise out at times.
But that ability to didn’t exist anymore! My 2020 hike in Utah’s high Uinta Mountains changed it forever. Waiting to be rescued in a blizzard, only to have the helicopter turn and fly away right before it reached me, was a devastating experience!
Being stuck there all alone in the raging elements until the pilots could make another rescue attempt (6 hours later), left an indelible imprint on my psyche. And even though it’s been almost 2 years since that ordeal, the trauma still sits buried deep inside me.
A random helicopter flying overhead doesn’t normally trigger me. Everything is fine as long as I can affirmatively see the helicopter and where it’s going,
But hearing those helicopters in the distance took me right back to that day in 2020 when I was straining to make out the sound of a helicopter flying toward me in that white-out blizzard. I felt like was right back there again. Sitting out in the wind with the heavy snow blowing around me. Wondering if I was imagining the rotor sounds of the rescue helicopter slowly turning away or whether my mind was just playing a horrible trick on me.
I tried to shake it off. But the longer these two helicopters continued to run their engines out of my line of sight, the worse the sharp anxiety and distress grew inside my chest. I was completely on edge and felt like I wanted to crawl out of my skin. Why didn’t the helicopters just lift off so I could see them? Why???
The logical part of my brain knew I was spiraling, but I struggled to keep my arms around my feelings. My heart rate raced, and I had to work on actively avoiding the negative emotions bubbling up.
In that moment, I literally had to talk aloud to myself and assure myself that it would be ok. I was safe. I was less than 10 miles from a trailhead. The weather was perfectly fine. Those helicopters had nothing to do with me.
I repeated this mantra over and over to myself aloud, as if it were another person telling it to me and walking me back from the ledge. The goal was to dial back the intensity so I could keep hiking away from the situation.
I might not be able block out the helicopter sounds, but I could keep my mind busy constructing a whole narrative about what they were doing out of sight. And it had nothing to do with a rescue.
I pretended the helicopters were just moving some farm equipment over behind the next hill. They had to keep low and out of sight because the equipment was super heavy and they weren’t taking the items far. The helicopter pilots really wanted to finish their job and leave the valley already, but someone on the ground was struggling to get the equipment unstrapped, so the pilots just had to hover and wait patiently. And on and on the story went…
This coping mechanism seemed to distract my brain enough to get me past the worst of the panic, but it wasn’t easy. All told, it was over an hour before I was finally far enough away that I could no longer hear the helicopters in the distance and my anxiety could slowly uncoil.
That’s the thing about mental trauma or pain, I’m not sure it ever truly goes away. It just lies under the surface waiting to be triggered.
More HIKERS
As I hiked north, I passed a water source named The Lake, but I couldn’t fathom why it earned such a grandiose name. It was just another low-quality cattle tank and not even all that large in size.
I considered the warm brown water and decided to pass on it. Hopefully the options up ahead were better. And if not, I’m sure I could surely make it another six miles to the Catalina Highway on my remaining 0.7 lites of water, as long as I was careful.
Then about a half mile south of the West Spring tank I spotted a backpacker sitting in the bushes beside the trail with his giant pack resting beside him. His face was bright red with exertion, so I stopped to make sure he was ok.
He told me he was section hiking southbound was trying to figure out where he was going to get water for the evening. His pack had to be at least 80L and it was filled to the capacity, so I’m sure it was much heavier than he would have liked.
I told him about a few shallow pools I’d spotted in the Agua Caliente wash a bit earlier but he’d need a scoop to water from there. His best best was probably the ‘lake,’ which had plenty of water, assuming he had a good water filter in that giant pack full of gear!
I bid him good luck and started the final climb to the highway. It was the steepest thing I’d do all day long, climbing 800 vertical feet over the next 0.7 miles. That’s about a 20% slope for anyone doing the math, and it really sucked. But I didn’t have any alternative. The trail over the rocky ridge above me was the only way to get to the trailhead on Catalina Highway.
I only had about 8 ounces of water left for the climb as the sun blazed overhead, so I rationed precious sips of water and I tried sucking on some Jolly Rancher candy to keep my mouth from completely drying out as I huffed and puffed up toward the crest.
It seemed to take me forever, and my calf muscles were burning the entire way up. But I eventually I made it to the top of the pass where I could see dozens of cars driving on the curvy mountain highway between Tucson and Mt. Lemmon.
TANQUE VERDE
From the pass, the trail descended sharply back down toward the trailhead. The views were great, but I felt as if I was moving as slowly downhill as I had been going up. Any misstep could lead to turning my ankle on the steep trail or loose rocks.
When I arrived at the bottom, I spotted a middle-aged hiker crouched next to the brown metal bear box under the shade of a tree. He was filling his bottle from a water cache in the box and called out to me.
I slowly ambled over to introduce myself, and he returned the gesture telling me his name was Cheez-It. Ah…I recognized his name from the last few trail registers. He was one of the northbound AZT thru-hikers ahead of me these past few days. I finally caught up with someone!
Cheez-It offered me some of the remaining water, but I told him I was good. My bottles were nearly dry, but I was going to try to grab a ride into town and could get plenty there. It was better to leave the cache for hikers continuing on the trail.
So I bid Cheez-It a temporary goodbye, fairly certain that I’d see him again tomorrow or the next day. And walked across the highway to try to catch a ride into Tucson.
Unfortunately, this trailhead didn’t seem like a great place to hitch. Most of the cars heading down the mountain seemed to be going 55-60 miles per hour and didn’t show any inclination of slowing as gravity increased their momentum. After the 25th car raced passed me, I decided to see if I could find an alternate ride.
I walked toward the Molino Basin parking lot hoping to find a generous day hiker heading home. That’s when a compact car started rolling toward me at 5 miles per hour. I waved to the driver to get his attention, and soon discovered the car was being driven by a man who looked older than God (seriously, he looked exactly like George Burns circa 1990.)
He had a chihuahua sitting on his lap and rolled to a stop to see what I wanted. When I asked if he was heading down the mountain, he looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language. Then he said, “Hold on. Let me put my hearing aids in so I can hear you.”
When he could hear once again, he cheerfully agreed to drive me town to town and I hopped into the backseat with my pack.
We chatted the entire way down the mountain and, honestly, I think he was grateful for the company. He told me his wife, brother, and son had all died in the past two years and he was completely alone now (if you didn’t count the dog). He went off on a number of tangents and I listened politely, just grateful to be heading to town.
Twenty minutes later, he was dropping me off at the Comfort Suites in Tanque Verde, right across the street from a Walgreens and Safeway. I could undoubtedly find something to treat the blisters on my feet and the chafe on my thighs there.
Plus, I’d get a nice warm shower and fill my belly with a ton of town food! Not too shabby of a day.
HIGHLIGHTS
- Today’s terrain was easy walking most of day with some beautiful weather.
- I finally caught up to another AZT thru-hiker. I know there are too many more ahead of me given how easy it is in the season, but it sure is nice to see another face out here.
- I was humbled by kindness of the old man who gave me a ride to town. Even though I offered him some cash for his gas, he wouldn’t accept it. He just seemed happy to have a human connection and some conversation today.
CHALLENGES
- OMG, my thighs are so chafed. I’m hoping a shower and a little first aid will help the issue. If not, I may need to switch to hiking in my sleep leggings instead.
- The post-traumatic stress from the helicopter noise really did a job on me today. I thought I was mostly healed and past that ordeal, but clearly I’m not.
- The final climb over the ridge before the Molino Basin trailhead was a beast!! Definitely not as well-graded as yesterday’s ascent over Mica Mountain.