Arizona Trail – Twig Adventures

DWTH, SDTCT & PCT Desert Section Summary & Stats

(Scroll to the bottom for a listing of links for all my DWTH posts, see this link for the rest of my 2025 PCT hike) Like my 2023 PCBCRT hike, my Desert Winter Thru Hike ended up being the sum of multiple parts, a conglomeration of 3 different long-distance trails/routes. It’s difficult to summarize such a segmented journey, so I’ve attempted to break some of the data into distinct parts to cover each trail, but also lumped some of the information together. At the core, I’m proud to say that I hiked from the outskirts of Tucson, connecting footsteps from the Arizona Trail to the Pacific Crest Trail, plus also my footsteps along the PCT to the San Diego Trans[…]

Introducing the Desert Winter Thru Hike

January 23, 2025 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Desert Winter Thru Hike, Pacific Crest Trail, San Diego Trans County Trail

From the Hike Invention website: “The Desert Winter Thru-Hike (WTH!) is an adventurous 800-mile hiking route highlighting 20 Wilderness Areas, 7 National Parks and Monuments, and remote protected lands of the Sonoran, Colorado, and Mojave deserts. Featuring mainly low to mid elevation (2000′) desert valleys and mountain ranges occurring at lower latitudes of the American Southwest (the highest point is Harquahala Mountain (5,691ft/1735m), the Desert WTH offers a true winter season thru-hiking option for very experienced walkers looking to extend the US hiking season into the December – February timeframe. And yet despite the aridity and remoteness of this warmer region, the route has been carefully crafted to greatly reduce or eliminate the need for caching water in advance, while[…]

GC Day 6: Phantom Ranch Reset

March 24, 2024 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Grand Canyon Rafting Trip, Hayduke Trail

Saturday, February 24th 2024Lower Cremation Camp mile 87.7 to Granite Camp mile 93.8 6 miles, elevation 2365′ A stop at Phantom Ranch, Mile 88, is pretty much mandatory for most raft trips, since this is the most feasible location to switch personnel. Understandably, it’s hard to commit to 3 or more weeks on the river, so some opt for an abbreviated schedule, either Lees Ferry to Phantom Ranch or Phantom Ranch to the end. Laura had just received a new job offer that she couldn’t pass up, so she was sadly only able to join us for 6 days. We pushed hard to make it to Phantom Ranch in this time frame…other groups typically do it in 9 days. But[…]

GC Prep and Day 0

March 11, 2024 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Grand Canyon Rafting Trip, Hayduke Trail

February 14-17, 2024 To begin this long adventure, I took a direct flight from Miami to Phoenix, utilizing some miles for a free one-way ticket on American Airlines. I also enjoyed a free checked bag as an AA credit card holder, because oh my did I have a lot of crap to bring along for this trip. I managed to fit it all into 2 bags, which was really quite incredible considering how much the other participants brought. Not surprisingly, my ultralight backpacking experience came into play. The typical rafter approach is to bring copious amounts of gear to ensure a comfortable experience…after all, the raft carries the weight during the day. But considering how much lugging and packing of[…]

2023 Recap and 2024 Wish-list

January 17, 2024 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Bigfoot Trail, Hayduke Trail, Oregon Coast Trail, Pacific Coast Bigfoot Crest Rim Trail, Tahoe Rim Trail

I always enjoy marveling at Google bread-crumbs of my ramblings over the past 6 years…mostly by foot. I love how distinctly so many of my trails are depicted. Such a presentation really drives home how much ground I’ve covered on my hikes. In 2023, I added a significant number of dots in Utah and down the coast of Oregon, the result of hiking the Hayduke and Oregon Coast Trails. I also connected the Bigfoot Trail to the PCT to the Tahoe Rim Trail, for a total of about 2300 miles for 2023…notice the nice symmetry of those figures, completely unintentional:) This brought my total to over 17K miles since I began thru-hiking in 2017. I figure I might as well[…]

Hayduke Route Summary & Stats

December 26, 2023 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Hayduke Trail

First and foremost, a huge thanks goes to Mike Coronella and Joe Mitchell, the creators of this route. Their passion and vision for exploring the Colorado Plateau was groundbreaking. Such a challenging and remote route was only made possible by the information generously shared by them and others that followed in their footsteps. There are some notable mapmakers and alternate-seekers that also deserve some accolades: Jamal Green, Andrew Skurka, Li Brannfors and Nic Barth. I also benefited greatly from information contained in many blogs and videos by these intrepid hikers: Buck30, Wired, Katherine Cook, Carrot Quinn, Constantine, Plants, and Samson the Bear. Carrot appropriately described the Hayduke Route, as this: “Walk cross-country towards a canyon, over lumpy slickrock and/or sagebrush[…]

2022 Year In Review

March 8, 2023 kaulua26 Appalachian Trail, Arizona Trail, Colorado Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, Mogollon Rim Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail

I wanted to do recap of all my hiking in 2022, which is something I should’ve been doing since I started this blog in 2017. Maybe I’ll do some back-posts over the next winter season to cover years 2017-2021. I like collecting stats in one tidy place. Call it ego or whatever, really I just want to keep track of everything for personal reflections. 2022 was a pretty busy year! I thru-hiked one specialty route, the Mogollon Rim Trail (MRT, courtesy of Brett Tucker and Melissa Spencer) and also one official National Scenic Trail, the Pacific Northwest Trail (PNT). These 2 thru-hikes were quite different from each other and afforded a very wide array of habitats, conditions, and experiences. They[…]

MRT Day 8: Along the Rim \ Highline Trail

April 22, 2022 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Mogollon Rim Trail

Saturday Apr 16th 2022, 0600-1830Pine to canyon near La Cienega canyon, EABO mm 167, Segment 3 mm 28. 28 miles. I slept pretty well despite all the highway noise, as well as that from a nearby dog farm? Seriously, it sounded like a hundred dogs barking all at once. It was nice to have a long-drop to use at the trailhead in the early morning. It gave me a fresh start to the day…it’s the little things, you know? I was off early, first to sign in at the register. I noted that around 10 to 15 AZT hikers had signed in each of the preceding days. That’s a whole lot more than when I hiked the trail. I wondered if[…]

MRT Day 7: Pine

April 21, 2022 kaulua26 Arizona Trail, Mogollon Rim Trail

Friday Apr 15th 2022, 0600-1800Corduroy Wash to just outside of Pine, EABO mm 139, End Segment 2. 13 miles. It wasn’t nearly as cold overnight, thank goodness. I never knew how good the mid 30s could feel. A long awaited town stop beckoned us, so we were especially motivated to get moving. So was 925. After not seeing him all day prior, we shortly caught up to him at a road crossing. He’d walked past us around 8 pm the night before, after I was already asleep, no doubt. We all walked together for the morning, though I was barely able to keep up with his long strides. We were practically running down a series of switchbacks into Pine Canyon. It[…]

The Backwards Triple Crown

July 8, 2021 kaulua26 Appalachian Trail, Arizona Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, Te Araroa

First, let’s get the “What’s the Triple Crown of Hiking?” question out of the way. Borrowed from the horse racing world, this Triple Crown is an informal recognition of those that have hiked all 3 of the longest American trails end-to-end. The 3 trails are the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), and the Appalachian Trail (AT). According to the American Long Distance Hiking Association’s 2020 records (ALDHA-West), a total of 482 Triple Crown of Hiking Award recipients have so far been recognized. That means more people have been to space than have hiked all 3 of these trails! Chew on that Jeff Bezos! Money can buy just about anything but it takes[…]

Category: Arizona Trail