4/25 zero

4/26 15.1 miles

The water issue again. I hiked till there was a source, then I camped. Today I saw 14 cows, 2 day hikers and a cyclist going the opposite way of me.

4/27 14.1 miles + 1

Just a little bonus mileage for today since the FarOut AZT app didn’t show the icon for a gravel road to trail junction. Fortunately when I realized it, I saw an old abandoned ranch road and traversed it back to the trail past a cow pond water source.

There are these resupply boxes, bear lockers, periodically near trailheads, stocked with gallon bottles of water for hikers, some private, some for any hiker.

After the first one, 6 miles in, there were a series of very cool historic plaques. Generally you only run across these where a project has occurred that required disturbing or destroying federally designated and protected historic properties on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). Tear down old historic buildings or infrastructure and “mitigate” the negative impact to the historic property by installing interpretative displays describing what used to be there. Santa Rita Water and Mining Company invested massive amounts of money in 1904-5 to build a hydraulic gold mining system. Turns out there wasn’t much gold here so the project was abandoned. Guess there weren’t any Mini g Geologists in those days. Anyway I love old rusty objects and other relics of human activity and the interpretative signs along the way gave me a lot to think about.

I went through another gate, and leaned against a little tree when I saw another first coming at me: 4 people riding donkeys! Donkeys?? Plus 1 on a horse.

4/28 12 miles

Including carrying 5 L uphill the last 4 miles to camp. And more cyclists, cool!

4/29 13.5 miles

AirBnB Joanne got me from the trail and I’m staying in her spare room in Vail. She has a wonderful dog, Hachi. It was a super hot day walking down into cartoon perfect desert, flat. All I saw today was 2 day cyclists and 5 horse riders. Tonight a Big Alaska Snowboard & Freeski Club Board meeting via Zoom. I washed up and put on an Aloha shirt with a fern background on the screen, but was so tired, I barely said a word. Lucky Board members!!

4/30 10 miles slackpack

Joanne dropped me off and picked me back up later in the day. Pretty quick miles in the flats. I saw a runner, a cyclist, 2 bunnies and 1 squirrel. The FarOut app was confusing again as I tried to find the Colossal Cave gift shop to pick up my resupply box. 2 tourists tried to help, then a park guy stopped on the road and gave me a ride off trail in time (before 3 pm closing!) to get my box.

“Thanks bro, what’s your name?” I said to the young guy.

“Mike,” and a handshake.

“I’m Catwater, and you’ll wanna wash that hand now,” I said with a grin.

I got my box, ordered a prickly pear margarita and a pretzel dog—delish! Then Joanne got me, we went shopping at Safeway, and I settled back in at her air conditioned house with Hachi, a guest dog, Cholla, and an IPA.