Wednesday – 4/12/2023

• Start: Pine Trailhead
• End: Chase Creek
• Distance: 17.6 miles + 1.6 mile walk out of Payson (19.2 miles total)

I just couldn’t get comfortable in the back of the cramped Kia Soul rental car last night, and I spent the night frustrated as I tried to sleep. In hindsight, I probably just should have found somewhere flat to set up my tent when I arrived in the dark. Maybe if I had, I could have gotten a better night’s rest instead of starting this thru-hike groggy and mentally fatigued.

Once the sun was up, I figured it was worth checking out the eastern end of the Highline Trail. I wandered about a quarter mile from the 260 trailhead, and my initial impression was that the path looked incredibly nice and well-groomed.

Yet, I knew this assessment could be misleading. Almost every trail looks great when you’re near the trailhead. That’s where the ground is easiest to maintain, and usually where the trail gets the most foot traffic. The conditions are usually far different story once you get four – or fourteen – miles further in.

Nonetheless, my brief reconnaissance confirmed that the Highline Trail appeared snow-free and that everything looked good around here. I had nearly a week’s worth of food in the rental car, and I needed to decide where to cache some of it.

I’d accepted that my original 115-mile loop adventure (which went both above and below the Mogollon Rim) was wholly impractical thanks to the current snowpack at higher elevations. I’d have to remain below the rim for this springtime trip, so I’d come up with some possible alternatives.

1. I could leisurely hike of the 58-mile Highline Trail over the six days I was in Arizona and mosey down the trail at a relaxed pace;
2. I could be super ambitious and try to yo-yo the Highline Trail — hiking from one terminus to the other, and then back again to essentially double the distance of my trip in that same time; or 
3. I could figure out something else entirely that would let me thru-hike the Highline Trail and then explore side trails or additional scenery below 7,000′ elevation. 

I nixed the easiest of the plans (i.e., option 1) almost immediately. Anything less than 15 miles per day would probably feel like dawdling, and I wasn’t out here in Arizona just to sleep under the stars. I wanted to push myself physically as I prepared for my upcoming Mt. Rainier summit bid.

In the end, I settled on hiking the Highline Trail with 4 days of food in my pack, caching the other 2.5 days near the 260 trailhead. If I felt strong enough to yo-yo the trail, I’d arrive at my cache by Friday evening. But if I wanted (or needed) to hike slower, I’d still get to the trailhead by Saturday, and then I could adjust my hike’s itinerary accordingly.

Yep, That’s SNOW 

After stuffing several days’ worth of heavy food into an Ursack, I trotted off into the treeline to find somewhere safe to cache it. I needed to stow it far enough from the trailhead to keep it hidden from curious eyes (human and animal alike), but not so well that I couldn’t find it when I returned in a few days.

With that task done, the smart thing would have been to drive straight to Payson so I could reach the western end of the trail as early as possible. But I was still curious. I wanted to see what the top of the Mogollon Rim looked like in daylight. Last night’s U-turn at the visitor center revealed a ton of snow in the glare of my headlights. How bad was it really, I wondered? 

So I returned to the Mogollon Rim visitor center at nearly 7,600 feet to survey the landscape in the light of day. It didn’t look nearly as bad as the Cascade Mountains near where I lived in the Pacific Northwest. But there was far more snow that I wanted to hike in. What’s more, any patch of ground not covered in snow seemed to be completely flooded from the snowmelt. 

These conditions would make finding a dry spot to set up a tent nearly impossible. The ground was oversaturated and mucky, reminding me of my miserable hike on the Lone Star Hiking Trail back in 2019. Seeing it made me glad I’d bailed on my original 115-mile loop.

PINE TRAILHEAD

With my curiosity wholly satisfied, I drove back to Payson to drop off my one-way rental car. As I handed over the keys, I asked the agent at the Enterprise Rent-a-Car location if she would be generous enough to shuttle me to the Pine Trailhead just 15 miles up the road.

This request was a long shot; I knew that. But I’d gotten a rental company to do something similar when I was hiking the Appalachian Trail – dropping the car in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and then getting a ride back to Pine Grove Furnace State Park (home of the Half-Gallon Challenge). Unfortunately, this rental agent demurred. Pine was outside her radius. I would need an alternate means to the trail’s western terminus on my own.

So I began the 25-minute walk to the northern end of Payson—where all the road traffic on AZ-87 would be headed toward Pine. It was worth trying to hitchhike to the trailhead before I needlessly parted with $40 of my hard-earned money on a local shuttle. 

I stood there on the edge of the highway for the next 45 minutes, and not a single car slowed down. The day was already heating up, and the back of my shirt was growing damp with sweat under my pack. I could feel my cheeks and nose starting to burn from the bright sun, and I worried I might not ever get to the trail at this rate.

In fact, I’d just given up and called a shuttle driver to arrange a ride when a nice lady named Jen pulled her SUV over and offered me a ride. Jen lived in Pine and was driving back home after her semi-weekly trip to swim laps in Payson. She said she never picked up hitchhikers, she told me, but something compelled her to stop for me today. What a gal!

Once this accidental trail angel dropped me off at the Pine Trailhead, it was time to get the party started. I was finally at the Highline’s western terminus and ready to hike! It was already an hour later than I’d hoped, but I wasn’t fretting. The April days were long enough that I should have no problem hiking 15-20 miles before the sun went down.

Before I started down the trail, I posed for a selfie near the trailhead signs, and a feeling of warm nostalgia washed over me. It was only a little more than a year since I last passed through here on my Arizona Trail thru-hike. Everything still looked the same, and the only real change seemed to be that I was hiking solo this time around, and I had a much closer, different destination in mind. 

I strode over to the AZT’s trail register to sign my name – not sure why I was so eager to scan the list of trail names on the register. I didn’t know anyone hiking the Arizona Trail this spring. But maybe I just needed to reinforce that I wasn’t truly alone in this endeavor. That others just like me desperately craved the feeling of the trail under their feet too.

A laminated sign from the Arizona Trail Association sat inside the trail register, warning hikers about the adverse conditions above the Mogollon Rim – a mere 20 miles to our north. They recommended that people postpone their hikes until later in the season, when trail conditions improved. 

This new warning further confirmed what I’d seen with my own eyes earlier this morning. My decision to avoid the trail above the rim was a solid one, assuming I didn’t want to trudge through deep snow or ford icy-cold creeks that might be waist-high.

THE SAME, BUT DIFFERENT

Within 15 minutes of departing the trail register and making my way through the web of trails near Pine, I crossed paths with two day hikers. After that, I seemed to have the trail to myself as I hiked east.

I’m not sure why I decided to tackle the Highline Trail this east. Almost everyone else hikes the trail in the opposite direction, starting at the 260 Trailhead and heading west toward Pine. And there were plenty of valid reasons to follow the pack.

• Hiking the Highline Trail westbound is physically easier, as the trail ultimately loses elevation between the 260 Trailhead and the Pine Trailhead. 
• Hiking west provides multiple easy bailout points in the first 20 miles of the trail if you get an injury or change your mind. 
• And hiking west is also logistically easier because you end your adventure in Pine (rather than 30 miles from the closest town). 

Nonetheless, I was still mentally set on hiking this trail eastbound. Perhaps I felt like it was a continuation of what I started last year. The Highline Trail overlaps with the Arizona Trail from Pine to Washington Park. Heading east meant I’d essentially retrace my steps until I reached that trail junction, then veer onto the path less traveled. And this was a solo hike, so I could go whichever way my heart desired.

As familiar as my surroundings looked during those first few miles, it also felt different. Creek beds that had been bone dry last year were now overflowing. It was even hard to keep my shoes dry when I rock-hopped to the opposite bank. Everywhere I looked, there was water, and I must have passed a dozen viable drinking sources in just the first few hours of the day. Now this was the benefit of a high snow year.

I also enjoyed plenty of great views of the rim, with snow still clinging to parts of the rocky escarpment. Wildflowers were starting to bloom. All told, it was like I was on a completely new trail.

GRAFFITI & Rocks

After walking for close to two hours without seeing a single soul, I stopped for lunch just beyond Pine Spring. The day felt brutally hot in the 80°F sun, and I clamored for precious shade under juniper trees by the trail.

I definitely wasn’t used to this warm weather. I’d been careful to cover myself from head to toe with my long-sleeved sun hoodie, full-length leggings, a sun visor, sun gloves, and sunglasses. Yet it felt like the sunshine was boring right through those layers and searing my pale skin. What a difference a day (and a 1,700-mile plane ride) makes! Yesterday I was freezing in the PNW trying to avoid the cold rain on my way to the airport, and now I’m worried about too much sun.

I continued down the trail after my lunch break, spotting more white diamond trail markers affixed to the trunks of tall ponderosa pines. The trail seemed so well marked through here, and I was grateful for all the work that went into it. Yet I was silently fuming too – because each diamond I hiked by appeared to have been recently defaced by some jackal with a Sharpie marker. 

This is why we can’t have nice things… There’s always some selfish jerk out there who thinks he’s being funny or clever by carving his initials into fresh tree bark, or defacing a petroglyph, or writing all over surfaces that don’t belong to him. 

I have no doubt this person thought their antics were relatively harmless. But why ruin other people’s outdoor experiences with such vandalism? My anger rose each time I passed another ruined white diamond. What was wrong with these selfish idiots?!? I took several deep breaths, trying to consciously lower my frustration. I told myself to refocus on the trail and my surroundings.

To my north, stunning, unobstructed views of the Mogollon Rim came into view. Red and tan bands of rocks striped the escarpment’s surface, while green trees carpeted the landscape below. THIS was why I was really here!

I was taking it all in and lost in the magic of the moment when something abrupt pulled my attention back to the path right in front of me. I’d just violently stubbed my big toe on a grapefruit-sized rock on the ground!

I’d kicked a rock so friggin hard that I felt like I knocked my big toenail two inches backward into my nail bed! Tears were welling in my eyes as I cried out in pain. Damn it, that hurt! I was barely five miles into this hike, and I was already injured.

Something nearly identical happened on my descent down Katahdin after the tail end of my Appalachian Trail thru-hike back in 2019. I was animatedly joking with my friend Luna instead of watching my footing, and I tripped over a rock that quite literally dislodged my big toenail.

The searing pain inside my left shoe felt just as horrible now as it had on that prior experience, and I limped my way down the trail, trying to convince myself that it probably just felt worse than it really was. I wasn’t taking any chances, though. I wouldn’t remove my shoe or even look at the injury until I got to camp, just in case I was wrong. It was too early in this adventure to contemplate quitting.

PUMA

As I continued to try to walk off the pain, I came across an unexpected souvenir on the trail. Right in the middle of the clay-colored dirt path sat one lonely sock. It was black and gray, with the word PUMA written across the forefoot in bright pink.

I debated whether to just step over the waylaid sock and keep hiking. But then my conscience got the better of me. This wasn’t a dirty, nasty sock that looked like it had been exposed to the elements for days. It looked like a brand-new women’s running sock that accidentally fell out of someone’s backpack!

What if it belonged to someone just ahead of me? If I dropped some gear on trail, wouldn’t I want the hiker coming right behind me to grab it and at least try to return it to me?? 

Besides, even if I didn’t catch up to the sock’s owner, wouldn’t it be better to throw the sock in a trash can than leave it out here like discarded litter? Hadn’t I just spent the last hour fuming over someone ignoring LNT principles? So, I picked up the sock and stuffed it into the pouch of my pack holding my water bottles.  And with that, I continued along the trail.

My left foot was still feeling tender when I accidentally kicked another rock on the trail, sending sharp pains up my already traumatized big toe. What was going on with me and these rocks? Last year, I hiked the entire Arizona Trail – which is lousy with rocks – and I didn’t cause myself as much damage as I had in the last few hours! Were my shoes too big? Why was I doing this over and over again?

As I contemplated this question, I spotted two backpackers just up ahead of me, and I felt a jolt of glee. Maybe I’d found the person(s) who dropped the Puma athletic sock from earlier. I ignored the new searing pain in my foot and picked up my pace, hoping to close the gap quickly. 

When the duo stopped to take some photos, that was all that it took for me to catch up to them. I soon learned they were visiting from Las Vegas, Nevada, and were here on an overnight backpacking trip. They’d set out with a plan to hike a 16-mile loop—hiking east on the Highline Trail, then ascending the Mogollon Rim on the nearby Webber Trail, before returning to their starting point via the Donohue Trail. It was essentially a mini-version of the loop adventure I’d wanted to hike above and below the rim.

However, Susan and Patrick had just discovered that the higher part of their route (the Webber Trail) was still completely covered in ice and snow. We chatted for a bit about potential snow-free alternate routes before I pulled a black-and-pink sock from my pack to ask if it belonged to either of them.

A sense of recognition crossed their faces, but then they both shook their heads. They’d seen the same sock on the trail earlier today too. But it wasn’t theirs. 

Oh well. I had to try. Maybe I’d catch the owner yet. After all, other hikers were clearly out here. I just needed to cross paths with them. And so, I said goodbye, wishing them the best of luck on their hike before I continued down the trail once again.

GERONIMO

Barely a half mile after parting ways with the duo, I made it to the edge of Webber Creek. A flat, dirt parking area and signs for the Geronimo Trailhead sat on the opposite bank of the creek, and I could see another hiker already on the far side setting up camp at barely 2:30 pm. Was that the sock’s owner?

Before I could find out, though, I’d need to cross the raging creek in front of me. Crossing this obstacle wouldn’t be easy. I was amazed, once again, by how different the Highline Trail was this spring compared to last year. The creeks and rivers that had been completely dry in late March 2022 were now flowing at 100% capacity in April 2023.

None of the other water crossings I’d done earlier today even remotely compared to Webber Creek. This creek was perhaps 20-25 feet across from bank to bank, and water was raging through it with serious ferocity. I couldn’t see anywhere shallow enough to ford amid the large submerged boulders forming rapids directly ahead of me.

I dropped my pack on dry ground, then walked about 200 yards up and down the bank, searching for somewhere to cross other than where the trail met the water’s edge. But nothing seemed calmer or shallower as I roved back and forth. Wild berry brambles lined the bank downstream, and there just weren’t any more appealing or easier options. 

I returned to my pack and hollered over the creek to the hiker setting up camp, asking where he’d crossed. I hoped he might have a better solution, but he just pointed to where I was standing on the trail. So, I hesitantly began poking my trekking pole in the water to see how deep it sank. 

The fast water immediately propelled the tip of my pole downstream, nearly pulling it from my hand. I’d have to be very careful as I crossed and keep at least three points of contact with the creek bed at all times if I didn’t want the raging, icy water to sweep my legs out from under me.

Based on some initial probing with my trekking pole, the water seemed only knee-deep. So I pulled my leggings up above my knees, hoisted my pack onto my shoulders, and started across to the other side.

The first few steps into the frigid water were challenging, but the real surprise came when I got halfway across the creek and the ground dropped sharply. The cold water that had previously been rushing past my kneecaps was now a mere inch from my crotch. At 5’9” tall, with a long (33”) inseam, I knew this water had to be waist-deep on shorter hikers! Yikes!

Once I made it safely over to the far side and waded out of the water, the hiker who’d been watching the show with amusement came over to introduce himself. His name was Tom, and he said he was thru-hiking the AZT. Apparently, he wasn’t taking the trail register’s warning to heart. He intended to plow forward with his plans to hike north toward Utah despite the high snow just ahead. 

His plans seemed like a fool’s errand to me. I remembered post-holing in snow up to my knees and fording across so many cold creeks just above the rim last year. And that was during a “normal” snowpack. Tom had real challenges in store if he thought he could “tough it out” through this abnormally high snow year.

I asked him if he’d dropped a sock as I pulled the pink and grey running sock out of my pack for the second time in just a half mile. He laughed and said, “that’s the sock that made me to twist my ankle!” 

He’d seen it lying on the trail earlier that morning and was trying to decide whether it was an animal, a piece of debris, or something else when he stepped into a shallow hole and inadvertently turned his ankle. It had taken a mile to walk off the pain, he said. But the sock definitely wasn’t his.

I guess its owner was still on the lam somewhere ahead of me. So I stuffed the sock back into my pack beside my water bottles and wished Tom good luck on the rest of his hike. 

NOT REALLY 18 MILES!

The sky above me started to shift immediately after I crossed the creek. The sun disappeared and was no longer shining brightly against a blue sky. Gray clouds rolled in, and a steady wind started picking up. Was an unexpected rainstorm coming my way – despite the 5-day forecast I’d checked (yet again) this morning before beginning my hike?

Even without the sun, the desert air was still warm enough that my Nike leggings were completely dry barely 40 minutes after I crossed Webber Creek. Hiking in Arizona’s arid climate is wonderful.

Tomorrow’s forecast was supposed to be dry too, but 15-20 degrees cooler than today’s temperatures. I can’t decide if that’s a good thing (since I won’t feel so parched) or a bad thing (since the desert gets so darn cold at night). I guess only time will tell.

The trail jogged north, and the Mogollon Rim looked simply majestic juxtaposed against the red clay ground. Before I started hiking this morning, I had aspirations of making it all the way to the Washington Park trailhead today. That would have let me camp near the East Verde River and minimize my water carries. But that goal looked less and less likely as the day wore on. 

All the trail signs said it was just 18 miles between the Pine Trailhead and Washington Park. That seemed like a feasible first day on the trail—even with my later-than-intended 10 am start. But it turns out those distances were off. Way off! 

According to my FarOut app, the distance between the two trailheads was now 19.8 miles. Nearly two miles further than I’d planned to hike. I’m not quite sure if this mileage disparity is a result of really poor measuring or from reroutes and newly built trails that increased the trail’s length.

No matter the cause, I knew one thing for sure. I wasn’t going to hike the entire 20 miles to Washington Park before dark. My feet hurt from too many months of sitting on my butt indoors through the winter. My big toe felt like it was on fire from when I stubbed it on those rocks. And my pace was slower than normal because I was now at 6,000 feet of elevation, which made even the easy climbs feel daunting.

All told, I probably needed to readjust my expectations. Last year, while I was on the AZT, I’d set up camp near Chase Creek, and I knew there were some flat campsites there that weren’t too far from the water. Chase Creek was 17.6 miles from the Pine Trailhead according to my FarOut app. That seemed like a much more achievable goal today, given my glacial pace.

MOLDY WATER

As I settled on this new plan of where to stop for the evening, I reached down for more water. One of my two 1L water bottles was completely dry, and the other was running low. I probably should have filtered more water back at Webber Creek, but I didn’t want to carry a bunch of water uphill. So now I was on the prowl for more water.

I eventually found a lovely running creek filled with nice cold water about a mile later. It wasn’t quite as big as Webber Creek, but the water was clear, and its icy temperature assured me it was fed by snow from another 1000 feet higher, somewhere above the rim.

After filtering two full liters of water, I did an honest assessment of my water consumption for the day. Even if I’d been fully hydrated when I hit the Highline Trail, I really should have consumed more than just two liters of water by 4 pm.

It was a hot day. I was working hard, going up and down this rugged path. Plus, I was hiking at elevation, and it was so arid that the sweat virtually evaporated off my skin as soon as it hit the air. 

I knew drinking just two liters of water over six hours of constant exercise was NOT sufficient, and I could feel the throbbing dehydration headache coming on from my careless mistake. I needed to force myself to drink more regularly. So I took the remaining bladder full of water and held the filter over my mouth to guzzle a liter right there on the banks of the creek.

As soon as the water hit my mouth, though, I wanted to spit it out. It tasted like mold or mildew. What the heck?!? What was wrong with this water? I tried another swig. It was just as bad.

Then I reached down and grabbed one of the two bottles of freshly filtered water. Yep. This water tasted mildewy too. Was something in the creek tainting it? Why did this water taste so horrible?

I looked back at my Sawyer Squeeze and wondered if perhaps my water filter was the culprit, not the creek water. But this was virtually a new filter. I’d bought it last summer right before my trip to the Wind River Range in Wyoming. I used it for a total of maybe 9 days, then I drove home, cleaned my gear, and stored it away just like I always did.

Is it possible that the filter wasn’t dry when I stored it? Had the hollow membrane inside gotten mildewy or moldy somehow? This has never happened in all the time I’ve used Sawyer filters, and I’ve always stored them the same way in the off-season. 

In that moment, I wanted to kick myself. I’d carefully checked almost all my gear before my trip. I set out my tent to make sure it didn’t need any repairs. I made sure my pack was in good condition and had a new waterproof bag lining the inside. I even tested the fuel canister I bought at the REI parking lot in Scottsdale last night, just to make sure everything worked properly.

Why had I never thought to run some water through my filter and test it out before my trip too???

What’s even more devastating is that my filter was my only real way to purify water out here. I wasn’t carrying Aqua Mira drops (chlorine) or water purification tablets as a backup. Sure, I had a stove and I could boil water on it in a pinch. But I didn’t really have enough fuel to boil six days’ worth of water!! What the heck was I going to do??

Before panicking, I decided to see if I could “MacGyver” my way out of this dilemma. Maybe I just needed a ton of water to flush the filter clean. So I set about running a liter of water through it backward (to backflush it) and knocking loose any potential debris. Then I forced six liters through the filter in the normal direction to try to expel any remaining crap.

Meanwhile, I also poured 0.75 liters of water from my water bottle into my cooking pot and boiled it for three minutes. This way, I’d have at least some water that I could feel confident was free of bacteria or viruses.

I started running the potential scenarios through my head. 

Would I have to bail on this hike less than a day into it because of a faulty water filter? Are my water bottles now tainted too? Should I try to hitch to town when I get to the Washington Park Trailhead tomorrow to buy a new filter and fresh bottles from the Walmart in Payson?

Or was I overreacting?

My brain tried to rationalize staying on the trail and driving on with the gear I had. As a kid, I used to drink water straight from the hose. And I’m pretty sure I also drank untreated water from streams too. I never got sick. But was I willing to flirt with drinking untreated water out here by myself—knowing it could lead to something like giardia?

After a half hour, I was done flushing the filter. I’d boiled 0.75L of water in my pot and then cooled the full pot of water back down by placing it in a shallow part of the creek. It was time for a taste test. 

I sipped the boiled water first. It was horrible! Drinking this water might be safe, but it was wretched and still tasted like mold. Now it tasted like warm tea steeped in a moldy sock. I wanted to spit it out immediately. I would have been better off boiling unfiltered creek water if I intended to use boiling as my purification method for the rest of my hike.

Next, I sipped the newly filtered water. After flushing six liters (1.5 gallons) of water through my Sawyer Squeeze, it was better. Not 100%. It still had a faintly off-kilter taste. But it no longer tasted like a mouthful of moldy water. I could actually drink this.

If the bad taste diminished that much after flushing six liters through the filter, then it stood to reason it would get even better as more water went through it. But was this newly filtered water actually safe to drink? That was the million-dollar question…

BUMPS IN THE ROAD

In the end, I decided to just roll with it and see how I felt in the morning. If my stomach was upset from the water when I woke up, I’d head back into town from Washington Park. But if I had no adverse effects, I’d keep hiking east with my questionable filter until the end of this adventure. And then I’d worry about replacing it before my next backpacking trip. 

Right now, I needed to pack up quickly and get back on the trail. It was already close to 5 pm, and I’d just wasted nearly an hour on my water debacle, putting me even further behind schedule. I’d have to push if I wanted to get myself to Chase Creek in time to set up camp before dark.

Although I really tried to pick up my pace, the big toe I’d stubbed earlier today was throbbing. The pain worsened whenever the trail descended, forcing my foot to slide forward and press my injured toe against the toe box of my shoes. But I ignored the pain and pretended it didn’t even bother me. I was on a mission to get to camp.

I was closer to the rim now and higher in elevation than I’d been all day. The trail was following the folds of the escarpment, weaving back and forth toward ravines and then back out again. The shadows grew longer as the sun dropped, and I hurried toward camp.

Eventually, around 6:40 pm, I reached my destination. A small fire ring of rocks sat beside the trail. Beyond it sat a nice flat spot for tents, clearly used many times before. I’d squeezed into this same wonderful campsite 13 months earlier with Volt and Elliot on my AZT thru-hike. But tonight I have it all to myself as I quickly set up my tent before the sun disappeared.

Just beyond my tent, a familiar sign from the Arizona Game & Fish Department warned that fishing was not allowed in the creek. I commented before that this seemed like an odd place for a sign, so far out here in the backcountry. But maybe the local fishermen were adventurous folks if there was trout to be caught.

As the sun slowly disappeared and the stars came out, I lay in my tent trying to will myself to cook dinner. I wasn’t the least bit hungry after a full day of hiking, but I knew I needed to eat something—even if it was just so I wouldn’t have to carry all this heavy food in my pack tomorrow. 

Today has been a pretty rough start to my Highline Trail adventure. But everything eventually worked out. I just needed to stay positive and enjoy the ride, no matter how many bumps in the road I hit.

With that, I shoved some food in my mouth, turned on my headlamp, and set to tending my injured foot in the vestibule of my tent. I still hadn’t looked at my big toenail, and I was afraid of what it would look like when I peeled off my sock. It hurt like nobody’s business, but I needed to assess the damage. Days like this were why I didn’t skimp on my first aid supplies.

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Highlights

• The Mogollon Rim was an absolutely beautiful backdrop to hike near today. I just love the geologic diversity in Arizona.
• I lucked out with a hitch to the trailhead from a lovely woman from Pine, which saved me from shelling out $40 for a shuttle.
• Water was so plentiful on the trail today that I don’t think I went an entire hour without seeing a viable source! But I wonder how many more swollen creeks like Webber Creek I might have to ford ahead.

Challenges

• I wish I’d tested out my water filter back home to make sure it was in working condition. If I had, I could have avoided a really unpleasant surprise this afternoon. As a seasoned backpacker, I really should know better. Especially given how much I rely on this single piece of gear!
• Stubbing my big toe (twice) on rocks hurt so friggin bad that I was almost certain the nail would be loose this evening. So far, I just have a large blister near the cuticle and a lot of swelling. But I know I’ll need to baby it the remainder of this hike.
• The owner of the wayward Puma sock is still MIA. Maybe I’ll find him/her tomorrow.