Day 25, Red Hills to Y Bar Basin Trail Junction

I woke up about 15 minutes before my alarm went off this morning. I should have taken advantage of the few extra minutes, but I didn’t. They would have been helpful because I needed time to filter the water I collected late yesterday. More time than usual was also needed because I had to take down the tent. 

Until last night, I cowboy camped every night on the trail and got used to saving time by not packing my tent in the morning.

The moon was setting as the sun was rising when I started walking. I wished then that I had started a little earlier because I remembered I wanted to hike a few more miles today.

Since leaving Pine two days ago, my daily mileage has dropped from around 20 miles to 15 miles or less. I’ll need to complete more today and tomorrow if I want to make it into Payson at a reasonable time.

Right away, the trail made a short climb, then a steep descent. The footpath was covered in crumbly gravel and small rocks, which were unstable under my feet. 

When I slipped and fell once on the descent, I had another reason to wish new shoes were waiting for me in Payson. The tread on the pair I was wearing was nearly worn away.

The sky was mostly clear when I started, but that didn’t last long. Within the first hour, clouds began to fill the sky. I found myself checking the sky frequently for most of the rest of the day. 

The Mazatzal Mountains are too remote for cellphone reception. I haven’t been able to get a reliable weather forecast to know if more rain is headed my way. Admittedly, I could have downloaded the forecast on my Garmin InReach, but the few times I’ve done that haven't been reliable.

I stopped for breakfast just before 8 a.m., when I found a log to sit on in the sun. The temperature was rising, but it was still a little too cool to take off my jacket. By this time, I had only walked two miles. I was not going to reach my mileage goal at that pace.

Until now, I hadn’t come across a wide variety of cacti. Mostly, they have been prickly pear, along with succulents like agave. Today, I saw a hedgehog cactus. This is a cold-hardy variety, which is the reason it can thrive in this mountainous area.

The hedgehog cacti I saw in New Mexico were covered in bright flowers. They only bloom in the spring.

An hour later, I had only completed another mile of hiking. I was in the middle of a torturously steep climb when I stopped at the first open view of the day. Clouds and haze obscured most of what there was to see.

From that point, the trail made an abrupt turn and continued climbing. In all, the ascent was 650 feet in two miles, then the trail immediately began another descent.

Soon after that came shorter climbs over rolling hills, followed by another long climb. At the start of this one, the mountain was covered in a dense stand of manzanita. This section of the trail reminded me of many parts of the Pacific Crest Trail in California.

The vegetation changed on the way up. I soon began to see Gambel oak, the only winter-deciduous oak that lives in Arizona. The trees' leaves had turned brown, well past their peak colors of yellow, orange, red, and purple, and they will soon drop.

Gambel oaks typically grow at between 5,000 and 8,000 feet in elevation, and I saw them at around 6,500 feet. Although the Yavapai and Tonto Apache people didn’t live at this elevation, they would venture up this way to hunt. Acorns from this tree were an important addition to their diet.

Farther up the mountain, the clouds looked darker, yet there were also slight hints of blue breaking through some. Were these rain clouds? Were they beginning to clear? I couldn’t tell.

Then, as I looked across mountain ridgelines, I noticed what appeared to be a body of water down in a far-off valley. For a moment, I wondered if this was Roosevelt Lake. That was my destination after leaving Payson, and it is the approximate halfway point of the Arizona Trail.

Then I realized I was looking toward the southwest. That couldn’t be Roosevelt Lake. It was Horseshoe Reservoir, an impoundment of the Verde River.

The dam and lake are part of the Salt River Project, which also includes Roosevelt Lake and C.C. Cragin Reservoir to generate hydroelectric power for the Phoenix area.

The highest point of the day was at 8,800 feet, which also happened to be nearly the middle of the day’s mileage. From there, the trail began the longest descent of the day, losing 1,200 feet of elevation in more than 3.5 miles.

On the way down, I stopped at Hopi Spring to refill my water bottles. The sky was more gloomy, and the temperature had dropped. It had been slightly chilly all day, and now the temperature was down to the mid-40s.

Depending on which direction I looked, however, I saw more hints that the sky was clearing. For the next two hours, a little more blue appeared each time I looked up.

I tried to make quick work of collecting and filtering water from the spring’s trough. I wanted to make up for some of the time lost this morning.

About an hour after I left Hopi Spring, still on a long descent, I passed a deep, rocky chasm. The trail didn’t get close enough for me to get much of a view inside.

At the bottom of this canyon was the North Fork Deadman Creek. Though I couldn’t see it, the map shows that it is usually dry. That's probably true because otherwise, the trail probably would have been routed down there.

The canyon, mountains, and clouds formed dramatic views everywhere I looked. Even the grasses, scrubby trees, and shrubs, which seemed to change with each turn, contributed to the scenery.

Despite my slow start, I still hoped to complete at least 15 miles today. The descent was helping my pace, even though traction remained difficult on the rocky and gravelly trail.

On yet another climb, which started 12.5 miles into the day, the trail passed large clusters of manzanita and several short Emory oak trees. The tree's acorn is a valuable food source for wildlife. Tonto Apache also ate acorns and used them in ceremonial rituals.

Noting this food source lends context to what happened next. As I walked past the manzanita, I smelled something that didn’t resemble a tree or shrub. It was an odor similar to a skunk, though not quite the same.

My first instinct was to assume I had smelled a bear. If this were true, I didn’t want to linger there for long. Later, as I reflected on that moment, I concluded the odor was probably not from a bear, even though bears are known to roam these mountains. For one thing, I had not seen any bear scat on the trail. In my experience, that’s the surest way to know they’re in the area.

Also, bears don’t smell like skunks. They smell more like a wet dog, though they can carry other smells if they’ve been eating garbage or carrion.

Most likely, the odor that caught my nose came from javelina. Even though they resemble pigs, javelina belong to the peccary family and originated in South America. They are present throughout central and southern Arizona, particularly at mid-elevations like where I was walking.

It makes sense why I didn’t see the animals I smelled. Javelinas are most active in the early morning and late afternoon. The rest of the time, they bed down in shade. It’s also possible that the animals had recently left. Their scent is strong enough to linger after they’ve moved on.

Javelinas aren’t aggressive, except when cornered. Even then, because their eyesight is so poor, their panicked disorientation can be taken as aggression. They make up for their poor eyesight by using strong senses of smell and hearing.

The bottom of the long descent soon became yet another climb, and it wasn’t the last of the day. This one went up to 6,150 feet.

When I crested the top at 4:30 p.m., the sun was already hanging low in the sky. I now had less than 90 minutes to walk if I wanted to set up camp before sunset.

A better view of Horseshoe Reservoir could be seen from that vantage point at the top. Sunlight reflected on the water, making the lake stand out against a backdrop of silhouetted mountains.

At this time of year, 5 p.m. is the start of what photographers call the golden hour, and that was evident today. That is an hour after sunrise or an hour before sunset when the sunlight becomes warm and softly diffused. It is often my favorite hour of the day when I’m hiking because the light makes the landscape glow and intensifies the colors.

Thirty minutes later, I was still on the last climb of the day. And naturally, this one had to be the steepest of all. I paid little attention to the elevation gain, however. I focused on reaching my campsite as quickly as possible. It was located where the AZT intersects with the Y Bar Basin Trail and near a water source. I wanted to have a little daylight to collect and filter some.

The campsite was still a half-mile away when the sun dropped below the horizon. I wasn’t going to make my goal of getting there before sunset, but it was close enough. This time, at least, I knew I wouldn't have to hunt for the site. It was listed in the FarOut app, which hasn't been common for the AZT.

When I arrived at the campsite at 6:10 p.m., I decided to set up my tent, as I had done last night. Without a weather forecast and seeing clouds all day, I didn't want to take a chance.

There were many reasons to feel positive about how the day went. Despite a slow start and difficult terrain throughout the day, I felt strong, didn’t tire easily, and completed almost as many miles as I had hoped.

The only disappointment for the day was not having any cell service. My alma mater, Indiana, was playing Nebraska in football today, and I couldn't check the score.

The Hoosiers have a new coach this year, and so far, that's turned out well. Going into today's game, they were undefeated at 6-0. As the team had the worst overall record in major college football, this game was a big test to see if they were for real this year.

(Indiana won the game 56-7.)