It's 10pm on Christmas night in Flagstaff. We are stuffed silly on my special christmas, 3 meat, 5 bean chilli and cornbread with corn, jalapeno, and cheese. It was a beautiful Christmas day spent with friends. Our last day in civilization for quite a while.

Molly and I did a nice Christmas day hike out woody mountain road till we found a pond frozen plenty thick to support us as we played ice rink. The wind was chilly but the sun warmed us and the view of humphries peak above the tall ponderosa pines made you forget the chill. We are suprised at how in shape we are after a year and a half at sea level (Flagstaff is 6996ft). We still will be huffin and puffin the first week though.

We leave tomarrow morning for the Big Hike. I'll probably lay awake all night from excitement and the chilli. I did my final of 5 repacks. My pack came in at 75 pounds. Molly's pack came in at 65 pounds. Thats pretty good since it has to sustain us for 12 days to the first resupply. Our phantom ranch resupply package will be mailed on our way out of town tomorrow.

The highs this week at the Utah Border are around 30 F with lows around 12. But its going to warm up by Sunday to 36. Our Friends Rob and Tiffany will be driving us from Flagstaff to the Trailhead and spending the first night with us, then seeing us off as we head down the trail the next day.

The pack feels good. It's been quite a few months since we have done any backpacking. I suscribe to the collin fletcher method of training for backpacking. pretty much the first three days are going to get you into shape and after that it only gets easier. Collin Flethcher did one of the earlier hikes back in the 60's nonstop from one end of grand canyon to the other. The pack looks more menacing than it is with sleeping pads and snowshoes strapped to the outside. Everything has it's place though and it all fits snuggly and neatly. as we hike and eat our food the packs will gain some room and loose some weight, untill the next resupply. The amazing amount of snow here will insure good supplies of water, at least for a while till the snow melts. This means less water to carry at a time wich means less weight at 8 pound per gallon. Some days we will cary up to two gallons each.

I'm not usually one for electronic gadgets, in fact I hate them. But I decided instead of buying and carrying heavy expensive batteries, to try something different. The only thing in our packs that require electricity is our headlamps which each take 3 AAA batteries. So I found a 1/2 ounce AAA Battery solar charger about the size of a pack of cigarettes. I can clip it on my pack as I hike and keep the extra rechargable batteries charged. I guess our camera also requires electricity, but we have three very small battery packs that will last the whole trip for us.

Tomorrow we will be at the trail head. Four days till our first check in at Jacob Lake. Then 8 days to the Grand Canyon and down to Phantom Ranch. My brother Jesse will be meeting us at Phantom for a week of hiking through the canyon with us.

Well it is getting late and I am about to barf from all the christmas food and cookies and pie and yummies we have eaten. We will update the trail journal when we can, but not very often. So do check back for more fun stories. You will also be able to track our progress on the map page when we update.

Happy Holidays and Happy Trails to all, Bob and Molly

 "Who in the world would want to be a white collar sissy, when you can have such beauty and granduer such as this?"  - Bert Loper 1922

 

 

We made it to Arizona! It is beautiful here, with about 1 1/2 feet of snow on the ground. The first day we arrived, we picked up our snowshoes at Flagstaff Nordic Center and went for a little hike. Bob said to me, "You'll probably be a little faster than me while we're snowshoeing, since I've never snowshoed before." "What!" I exclaimed. "You mean we're getting ready to snowshoe for at least a hundred miles, and you've never been?" We laughed and I joked that he would be like Bambi first trying to walk, but of course snowshoeing requires no more skill than walking and he did just fine. But I'm getting ahead of myself. First, the adventure of getting to Arizona from North Carolina.

Overall, taking the Greyhound is a fine way to travel. Going across the country, however is always strenuous, and this time proved to be no different. The funny thing about the bus, is that at first, one is totally dependent on his/her bus driver to clue them in. Our first drivers did not do this, which resulted in some chaotic transfers. But in the end, we learned the rules of playing the Greyhound game, and things went smoothly.

Our second transfer apperently no longer exsits, so at 2:00am we arrived in Charlotte and were directed to Atlanta. So instead of heading directly west through Tennessee, we headed south! A day later we finally started in a more westerly direction and felt better about things. We were a bit scared that we may not make it to Arizona in time for Christmas. In the end, we arrived just 4 hours later than scheduled.

By the time we started heading west, we had figured out that connecting buses usually wait for all passengers to arrive, even if buses are running 1 or more hours late. We also figured out that as a passenger on Greyhound, you must rely on your common sense, and not on the employees of Greyhound to get you to your destination.  By day two, Bob was calling Greyhound to get the arrival and departure times for all buses heading in our direction, so if we missed a connection we knew another bus was just 4 hours behind. Always be the one responsible for your baggage, don't assume Greyhound will tranfer it for you. When we got on a bus, I would drop my bag and board while Bob waited to make sure our bags were loaded.

Another thing we learned is, take the first bus out. You never know what will happen and it's best to make your move as soon as possible.  On this note, eat when you can, because you never know when your next meal will come. Thankfully, I had packed a bag of snacks on our first leg. None of our buses stopped at places with food, and our 1 to 2 hour waits always turned into 10 minute rushes at the stations because of buses running late.

I was a bit apprehensive about taking the bus at first. I had in my mind a picture of all the crazy stinky people we would be riding with (not including ourselves). I was wrong. It didn't take long for us to get to know the people sitting around us, and we soon became a community. We looked out for our fellow travelers, making sure women and children got off the bus with all their baggage, making sure people knew where to meet their connections, sharing food, and raising moral. All sorts of people ride the bus, and we actually had some intellegent conversations. We did move seats once when some young army recruites started talking about the benefits of invading countries and "fixing them."  And once we did have some stinky men on the bus, and we all joked about it. It wasn't until we were well into the Rocky Mountains did we run into some real crazy people and addicts. Albuequerque, with their new station, security guards, and smooth running operation, had the sketchiest of passengers. From those coming off the Rez or from the inner-city Ghettoes, to men with children who had been riding the bus for a month looking for a job, to a golden-haired granny who was probably the looniest of them all.  This made for good people watching, and I never felt unsafe.

So it makes for a good story, and that's why we chose to take the Greyhound, for a new kind of adventure. And now we know.

Bob and I leave North Carolina in just 5 days for beautiful Arizona. We have packed our packs, decided which sweaters are AZT worthy, and are hunting down the last of our allusive equipment (like my Leatherman tool.) We have made the last of our online purchases. We were disappointed to find that the company that makes our favorite in-step crampons, Ice-Walkers, went out of business. Also, Reyovac stopped manufacturing the best headlamp ever made, a 200-hour, three light (red, LED, halogen) a $12 number sold at Wal-Mart. Luckily these items were still available online, and we received these packages today. We are excited to try out a solar battery charger that Bob found to recharge our AAAs for the headlamps (we will carry no other electronic gadgets, besides our camera with 2 extra batteries.) Besides packing, we have been finalizing the details of the logistical aspects of our trip.

We made a chart of all our resupply points. Included on the chart were mileage and approximate days between resupplies, and availability of goods at these points. I made a lot of calls to post offices and grocery stores across Arizona. I found out that the information from various resources online and the “Arizona Trail: The Official Guide” by Tom Lorang Jones and the ATA, was out of date. The post office rules for general delivery vary from town to town. I found out that generally, if you call when you send the package, the PO is more willing to hold your package a little longer if they know your circumstances. I also found out that white gas is difficult to come by. The only groceries were it is available is South Rim Village at Grand Canyon, Flagstaff, Benson, and  Patagonia only if it happens to be in stock (it currently isn’t). We aren’t too worried as we’ll be using campfire as our primary means of cooking for a lot of our trip, and we also plan to carry 4 weeks worth of fuel just in case. We only plan on mailing ourselves 2 packages: one to Phantom Ranch in the Grand Canyon, and the other by UPS to Roosevelt Lake Marina. The other resupply points have good enough grocery stores. My criteria if a grocery store was a worthy resupply was if they sold tuna in the package, and many of them do. 

 There were two tricky resupply points. One was where the AZT crosses I-10 near Tucson. The trail is 10 miles from Tucson, and we don’t feel like hunting down our necessities in a large city, so Tucson is out. There are a few small towns near the I-10 crossing. But finding any information on these places was like searching for a needle in a haystack. I finally got in touch with the post master in Vail, and she had never even heard of the towns just a few miles down the road. So we have decided to make our way towards Benson at the I-10 crossing and hitchhike or walk from there. They have white gas and a Safeway grocery store.

The other tricky resupply is near Oracle. The two groceries in the town, according to Tom Jones’ book are now closed. The nearest grocery is in San Manuel, 15 miles down the road. After much searching I did find that Oracle has a natural foods store, a dollar store, 2 convenience stores, and a True Value. Meghan at The Station, the natural foods store, was excited to hear about our trip and was willing to special order anything we might need. This was awesome news as Oracle should have sufficient resources to cover our needs. So with that done, all we need to do is find my Leatherman and we’ll be off.

Our t-shirt order has been sent off. They should soon be flying off the Scully Screen Printing press. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you to all those who listened to our pitch, donated to our cause, and sent us positive vibes. We have 6 wonderful sponsors and were able to purchase a good number of shirts for our cause. So here’s to promoting the importance of open spaces and saying thanks to the Arizona Trail Association! Our shirts are available now for a $20 donation, get one before it’s too late!