Our original plans of spending the winter of 22/23 skiing began to fade when Don needed to do some medical procedures. We began looking at different options and pulled out the Arizona Trail book which we had purchased several years ago thinking that someday this might be a good hike to try. After some preliminary research, we were ready to go hiking in Arizona! In normal weather years this probably wouldn’t seem to be so challenging, but the early months of 2023 were proving anything but normal. Snow falls were hitting records high not only in CA, but also in Arizona. Our first plan was to start at the Mexico border with Arizona and thru hike to the Arizona border with Utah. By mid Feb. we were looking at other options. The joys of not having a schedule allowed us the freedom to look at various options. The acronym of HYOY (hike your own hike) would become apparent as we looked at how hiking this year might be accomplished. Getting out of CA was our first obstacle, the day we had planned to leave was a day that roads were closed due to snow. We are talking southern CA! No worries there are always projects to do at Ryan’s and Beth’s house. Finally we were leaving San Diego and being awed by the snow at the first pass. As we made our way to Arizona, the weather check was a daily occurrence. There were several snow storms moving thru the areas that we had planned to start hiking, it was a constant reevaluating of hiking strategy.
The Arizona trail was completed in 2011 and traverses 3 national parks, 1 state park, 6 wilderness areas, 4 national forests and 33 gateway communities. It is the only National Scenic Trail that crosses one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Grand Canyon. There are a lot of volunteers that keep the trail in good condition. Unfortunately after a winter that we have just experienced the trail will be needing a lot of work. The trail was a dream of Dale Shelter who with much perseverance turned his dream into a reality.
After arriving to Arizona and spending several days going over options, we have come up with a plan. It is quite different from our original plan, but we will be going hiking soon. Our friend Tracy lives north of Tuscon and has offered her house as a base to reorganize our hike. She has also been able to get some time off work and will hike the first section with us. She has a couple of commitments so our starting date will be March 7. We have a couple of days before this date so we decide to drop some resupply boxes off and snag the border section. This involves driving down to the border and hiking about 2 miles to the border and back. There is no road to the border so this section needs to be done if you want to get all the trail miles completed. Some hikers start at the trailhead and don’t walk down to the border monument, but since we have the time we decide to do it.
On the way to the border, we stop at Colossal Cave to drop off a resupply box. The women accepting the box makes the comment that your hiker will thank you for this. We then tell her that we are the hikers. I guess we didn’t quite fit her image of thru hikers. Sitting by the bathroom was a young man who had a backpack next to him. I asked him if he was thru hiking and he said yes, but he needed to get off the trail as there was too much snow and it was also colder than he expected. We offered to take him to the nearby town and he filled us in on the conditions of the first part of the trail. His comments were of the large amount of snow and the cold temperatures. We are liking our plan more and more. We head south to the town of Patagonia where we are also dropping a resupply box at the Stage Coach Inn. We camp nearby and are surprised to see a temperature of 20 degrees in the morning. Fortunately when the sun rises so does the temperature.
Our first stop this morning is the Coronado National Memorial. In 1540 Coronado set off to explore this area with 300 Europeans, 1000 Aztec/Mexica allies, a handful of Franciscan priests and scores of servants and enslaved people. It is hard to imagine the extent of this expedition as we view the landscape. The memorial does a good job of explaining this expedition.
We are fortunate that we have arrived to the Memorial on a day that there is a shuttle that will take you to the top of the pass which is where the trail begins to the border and also to start the trail tothe north. It is a 3 mile drive on a steep and rough road. The winter rains and snows have not been kind to the road.When we arrive to the pass the driver points out the trail and says not to be fooled by this side of the mountain going north. There is plenty of snow out of sight and what he described as dangerous conditions. There have already been some rescues of hikers, one of which was a helicopter rescue.
When we return in a couple of weeks we will be on a trail going up this mountain and will be hiking at an elevation of 9000 feet. Hopefully some of the snow will be melted by then.
Meanwhile we are going to hike the trail that goes to the border. We are advised by our shuttle driver to stay on the signed main trail. This area is used by individuals that are making their way to the United States illegally and there are many side trails that they use. He mentions that most of the travel by these individuals is done at night and we most likely won’t have any encounters.
Looking towards Mexico.
We make our way down a steep path to the border and check out the border wall which is not completed in this area.
On the other side of the barbwire fence is the border monument.
We have made it to the border and our hike has officially began, It just isn’t going to be in a direct path!