Twig Adventures

Category: Desert Winter Thru Hike

DWTH Day 3: Saguaro National Park

Desert Winter Thru Hike

Friday, Jan 31st 2025, 0640-1710Romero Canyon pools, Section 1A mm 3.75 to Catalina SP fee station, then some jockying around to get back to the El Camino del Cerro trailhead, then hike through SNP.14 miles. I’ve never done a thru-hike where I “officially” started the hike in some fashion 3 days in a row. It had been kind of exciting each day but I was also starting to feel like I was stuck in a holding pattern around Tucson. Today was the day I finally broke free, making forward progress west. First I needed to finish the last few miles down Romero canyon. I got packed so early that it was still quite dark, so I had a hard time[…]

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DWTH Day 2: The Highpoint of the Trail

Desert Winter Thru Hike

Thursday, Jan 30th, 2025, 0730-1630Sabino Canyon entrance to Romero Canyon pools, Section 1A mm 3.516 miles, elevation gain 3k Josh once again went out of his way to drive me to my (2nd) start point. We arrived just after 7 am as it was getting light. I so enjoyed the conversation with Josh on the way, plus the warmth in the car, I didn’t want to get out. I realized I was stalling, trying to soak up as much human interaction as possible because I was going to be alone for almost 2 months straight…one of the major causes of my anxiety the past few days. I knew from other hikes that I could handle the isolation, even thrive in[…]

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DWTH Day 1: Rainmaker

Desert Winter Thru Hike

Wednesday, Jan 29th, 2025, 0750-1700Catalina SP fee station to El Camino del Cerro (Sweetwater) TH SNP, Section 1A mm 8.5 to 27.519 miles I stayed up way too late trying to sync all my last minute plans and then had a terrible time trying to sleep. For some reason all the negative thoughts I sometimes get before a hike flooded my mind. It had been awhile since I struggled with that much anxiety. I barely got more than 2 hours of sleep before I had to get up. Josh generously offered to drive me to Catalina State Park before he had to go to work in the morning, so we had to leave bright and early at 6 am.  Once[…]

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DWTH Pre-Game show

Desert Winter Thru Hike

I flew from Miami to Tucson just in time to welcome the rain and cold sweeping in on a front. The forecast called for a 60% chance of rain on Wednesday, plus snow up to an inch on nearby Mt Lemmon. As is typical, this left me scrambling to change my plans. But I wasn’t at all put-off by such weather, in fact I welcomed it as a positive sign.  Hopefully it was the beginnings of the usual winter precipitation patterns returning to the SW. The region had been hit by a very bad drought since the previous spring. The summer monsoons had been weak to non-existent and the winter storms had failed to appear…until now. Yet still, the most[…]

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Introducing the Desert Winter Thru Hike

Desert Winter Thru Hike

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[…]

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