Cows, Cougars & Courage

From Mission’s Strava journal:
AZT Day 14 Picketpost Mountain to Whitford Canyon 16.4 miles
Started hiking around 6:30 and met Kayla from Colorado who was section hiking the AZT. Started walking into Superior once I hit the highway but had to eventually call for a ride. MJ, the local trail angel picked me up and took me to her home where Loren, Lightning and Mismatch were waiting for me. MJ made us an amazing breakfast, coffee, let us do showers and laundry and play with her cat. Zach (now NoGo) and Flying Pig joined soon after and we all hung out for a while before I went to the post office.
On my way to the PO, a man on his porch with a loud chihuahua yelled at me “Hey! Do you want a job?”
“Not really”, I replied, “but what do you need?”
“I got a bunch of weeds in my rock garden I need pulled!”
I asked how many and he said “a MILLION!” It was pretty comedic.
Mismatch and I got burritos and then packed up. MJ drove me back to the trailhead and I started hiking again around 4:30. Saw my third rattler and fourth Gila. Met Shack who was new to hiking and doing a three-day section. Walked through lots of cow land and found a nice spot to camp right as it got dark. Just then I heard the cows mooing like crazy followed by shrill whines and screams.
I turned on my headlamp and saw some distant eyes moving quick along a ridge. I told myself I wasn’t going to bed until I knew what it was so I got a little closer but still couldn’t make it out. It kept screaming and its partner behind me did the same. I decided to keep hiking and went down into a canyon where I came across some cows. Fifty feet later, I look up and see them again about 100 feet away. I still couldn’t make them out until one turned to the side revealing his long puffy lion tail. No confusion this time. Guess they work in pairs now??? Camped at mile 307.4

Meet MJ, Granny Hat’s new trail angel hero.

Mission says that trail angels are few and far between on the AZT. He says it is so different on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) which has hundreds of trail angels, some organized into territories. There are so many annual thru-hikers on the PCT that the angels typically keep things simple and expedient, handing out bottled water or prepared food for a crowd near the trail or showing up at junctions to give shuttle service into towns for re- supply.

MJ does her angel work solo out in a lonely desert town a few miles from the trail. She is truly blooming where she is planted. For a $20 donation, she hosts hikers, feeds them, and gives them rides to and from the trail. (Granny Hat knows from experience how much a hungry hiker can eat, how dirty his laundry is and how much hot water he needs for a shower. $20 is a bargain and a half!) Mission said MJ left several clean hikers with full tummies in her house telling them to “make yourselves at home” while she drove out to the trail to pick up a couple more. There are few hikers on the AZT so MJ can welcome all that come her way. She has a tiny house, to the hikers it seems a palace with clear, pure, running water and the smell of home-cooked food. Look at her smile. She has a handle on happiness, I think. MJ, the desert flower, the lone angel!

And now the other item in the Strava account above, the one Granny Hat doesn’t really want to talk about. When she spoke with Mission’s older brother about the mountain lion sightings, this was verbatim what he said: “So awesome for Stephan. Very, very jealous!”

Granny just doesn’t get it. She is completely happy to never ever see a mountain lion in the wild. She doesn’t even like seeing one in a zoo! She is not jealous at all, unless it is of Mission’s courage. Some of her readers may remember the fuzzy Sasquatchy quality photo of a wild cat in the North Angeles hills on the PCT trek in 2018. There was debate about whether it was an innocent little bobcat or a cougar. Mission was convinced it was a bobcat. This time, he seems sure about what he saw and heard! Granny hasn’t slept well for a couple of nights. She keeps telling herself that fear paralyzes while courage inspires confidence. She sure is glad Mission could keep hiking past those lions.

Meanwhile, it was time this past week to mail two re-supply boxes to Pine and Flagstaff. New Lone Peak 4 shoes, stuffed with Larabars, sunscreen, dried fruit, jerky, dental floss and socks, had to be squeezed diagonally in to the Flagstaff box. Re-supply on the AZT is a piece of cake compared to the PCT though.

Today, Mission is in Pine, Arizona where he feasted, sent all these lovely photos to Granny Hat and will pick up his re-supply at the PO. He is climbing up to 8,000- foot heights where there will be trees and mountain views as he makes his way to Flagstaff.

As Granny promised: A Brief History of the AZT (from Your Complete Guide to the Arizona National Scenic Trail by Matthew J. Nelson and the AZT, Wilderness Press)

The Arizona Trail is the “little brother” among the Appalachian Trail, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail. It was established in 1994 largely thanks to the efforts of 5th grade schoolteacher Dale Shewalter, appropriately dubbed “Father of the Arizona National Scenic Trail”.

Dale had a dream during college to hike the Appalachian Trail but put it off while he started his career as a geophysicist. He moved to Arizona in 1974 and when he saw the Sonoran Desert, he was “instantly converted” and decided he wanted to thru-hike Arizona instead of the AT. But there wasn’t an organized, established trail yet.

In 1982 he walked the length of the Mogollon Rim, the easterly-westerly escarpment that divides the lower deserts from the pine covered plateaus of the north. After this he began to dream of a south-north continuous hike through the state.

Dale tested sections of the trail and then began traveling around the state giving presentations on his vision of the AZT and how it would connect communities, mountains, canyons, deserts, public lands and historic sites. In the late 1980s the Kaibab National Forest management hired Dale as the first paid coordinator for the AZT. In 1994, the association was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and became an advocate for the trail.

Granny Hat just noticed a few entries on Mission’s Strava that might be interesting to her readers:

AZT Day 16 Cottonwood Creek to Buckhorn Creek, 15 miles Spent seven hours swimming, talking and eating at Roosevelt Lake with Kayla, TFP and Trash Pocket. Left around 4, crossed the Salt River Bridge and began the long ascent into the Four Peaks Wilderness. Camped at Buckhorn Creek, mile 348.

AZT Day 18 Sunflower to Barnhart Junction 29 miles Started a climb through Ventana Wilderness type land as the weather changed to chilly winds and clouds. Moved through very green hillsides and eventually powered up a lot of switchbacks into a beautiful pine forest with great views of surrounding peaks. Passed the Halfway Marker and started dropping down into Bear Spring Camp……the spring was very sulphury. My heels felt tense so I moved slowly through a beautiful section underneath the towering Mazatzal Peak. My second favorite section on this trip so far. Camped at Barnhart Junction, mile 409.

AZT Day 19 Barnhart Junction to near Pine 29.5 miles Did not make it out before sunrise as my alarm never went off. Walked about 10 miles to Hopi Spring where I saw a poor little fox that I think was dying or something because it was shivering a lot. Walked through rocky hillsides and mini pine groves with my first views of the San Francisco Peaks. Saw my first Mojave Green Rattler near Bush Spring and then went down, down, down near the Verde River where I met Lowrange from Liverpool/Boise. It was 3 pm and he was the first person I had seen all day. Crossed the river and stopped to soak my feet and eat some food. Met Dozer who was heading south to meet up with “Two and a Half Statches”, a hiking group, after a knee injury forced him off the trail. We talked for about an hour about Florida and hiking. Left and walked through cruisy cow forests and found a small spot to camp at mile 438.5.

“It is not the strength of the body that counts but the strength of the spirit.” J.R.R. Tolkien

“I find the great thing in this world is not so much where we stand, as in what direction we are moving.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes