Another Long Walk: Day 26: The Four Peaks Wilderness

Sunrise! And sunrise was coming earlier and earlier
with each passing day....

May 8: I still hoped I could pull off a series of 25-mile days and reach the small town of Pine one day earlier than I carried food for, so I woke up and started hiking at my earliest start time yet of 5:30 in the morning. It helped that the sun was rising a few minutes earlier each day as well. After 26 days on the trail, I probably had close to an extra hour of daylight in the mornings than when I first started at the Mexican border. (Probably close to another hour at the end of the day as well!)

In my journal, I described today's hiking as "A generally pleasant day. Not hot. Not a tough trail to follow. Rather uneventful, really."

Which is pretty much exactly how I remember it even now. =) I did write a few other notes in my journal to further refresh my memory of the day.

For instance, the day could largely be split into two distinct sections. The first one was hiking along a partly overgrown trail through the Four Peaks Wilderness which had some absolutely spectacular views of those Four Peaks. The trail didn't climb any of those peaks--it just skirted around the base of them. Although the mountains were steep--the trail was pretty well graded and not as strenuous as one might imagine while looking at the mountains. Early in the morning there were a few miles where the trail climbed relatively steeply uphill--which I actually considered a bonus because a high elevation, I knew, was my friend and would keep me cool. The higher the trail went, the happier I would be.

And I was happy. I suspect the temperature maybe hit 80 degrees at the worst, but even that seemed like a reach. It just never seemed to get hot today which was okay by me!

The morning started with a long climb into the
Four Peaks Wilderness.

The second half of the day was on a long gravel road walk. The road walk lasted 10 miles following ridgetops and was certainly one of the longest ones of the trail so far, but it too was a mostly pleasant walk since the roads were nearly empty of people. The entire day I only saw three people, and all three of them were riding ATVs on the road walk. I waved at each of them when they passed--I didn't much care for the noise they made, but they continued on and faded off into the distance and left me alone with my thoughts again.

The most annoying noise didn't come from the three people on ATVs, though. No, the most annoying noise came from the jets flying overhead every five minutes. I wasn't exactly sure where the centerline for the flight path out of Phoenix's Skyharbor Airport was, but I had to be closing in on it because they buzzed overhead constantly. At this point, the trail was largely heading westward as well--closer to Phoenix. Which meant that as the day progressed, the jets were lower and louder when I heard them. It didn't seem like a few miles would make a difference, but it certainly seemed to!

Late in the morning, the trail passed Shake Spring where I filled up at with a heck of a lot of water--planning ahead for a long 20-mile dry stretch. There were water sources before that, but my notes showed that they were largely unreliable and probably dry. So I stocked up with a boat-load of water at Shake Spring and carried a much too heavy pack for the rest of the day.

I could still see Roosevelt Lake behind me at many viewpoints!

Near the Pigeon Spring Trailhead, I had another scare with a rattlesnake. Once again, I didn't see it--I heard it as I passed by and I about jumped out of my shoes when I heard the rattling a few feet away. It sounded like it was coming from under or in a log on the side of the trail and after I got a safe distance away from where I heard the rattle come from, I tried looking for the snake in the shadows. I never did see it, though. I knew it was there--I could hear it! But it was too dark in the shadows to see and I wasn't going to get any closer to search for it. This snake would have to go sight-unseen.

For lunch, I ate snacks as usual, but targeted the most fragile of foods in my pack that I purchased the day before at the Roosevelt Lake Marina: Pop-Tarts, powdered donuts and Red Vines. I also ate stuff that I had a lot of--you don't want to wind up having just one kind of food to eat for 24 hours at the end of your trip! It'll drive you batty if you do! So I ate some beer nuts and M&Ms as well. (The peanut M&Ms were holding up well in current temperatures so they weren't on my 'fragile' list, but if temperatures warmed much more, they would be!)

The road walk had numerous pullouts where makeshift campsites had been set up over the years. None of them were in use as I walked by, and I eventually stopped for the night at one of them near the end of the road walk. I could have reached the end of the road walk and got back on real trail again, but I figured campsites would be more difficult to find there. On the road--heck, I could camp on the road if I really had to! But with all of these wonderful campsite right on the road, I set up in one near the end of the road walk.

I pulled off 23.9 miles for the day according to my maps--it was my best day so far on the trail. But it still fell short of my 25 mile goal. Technically, I knew I could have done the extra mile (and change), so I felt satisfied with my progress for the day. It was a good day. I was starting to think that 25 miles per day to Pine likely wouldn't be fun anyhow.

See the four peaks of the Four Peaks Wilderness in the distance?
I know the peaks on the left look higher in this photo, but that's
only because they're so much closer than the distant peaks
which are actually much taller!

The clouds weren't as scenic today as they were yesterday, but
I still tried to include them in some of the my photos. =)

A couple of the four peaks in the background of this photo.

At these elevations, not only were the temperatures comfortable,
but real trees became common as well!

But I did still see the occasional cactus, even if they weren't
as common up here.

Shake Spring would be the last reliable water source on the trail
for the next 20 miles. Time to fill up! This water didn't look
that great, but the fact I was in a wilderness area and the water
look "okay," I decided to be lazy and not treat this water. =)