Category: Grand Enchantment Trail

Thursday Apr 1st, 2021, 0730-1600Outskirts of Safford to Bonita Creek, mm 26122 miles We had a productive town stop, but I was anxious to get back to the trail. Looking at the maps during my trip planning, I’d noted another long road walk of about 20 miles out of town. Most was on dirt roads heading into the mountains, which I didn’t mind, but about 5 miles was leading out of town through suburbs and past cotton fields. A nice endpoint at Bonita Springs waited if we could hike a 27 mile day. Or, if we could get a ride past the blah outskirts of town, we could hike a more moderate day and still have time in the afternoon[…]

Wednesday Mar 31st, 2021, 0610-1000Marijilda canyon to Safford, mm 23014 miles I’ll make this a short one since this was mainly just a town day…pretty boring. We had about 10 miles of dirt roads to walk in the morning, which quickly heated up under the fully exposed sun. I felt like we were walking through a wasteland on the outskirts of town. There were the typical revolting scenes…illegal trash dumps, charred remains of waste, broken bottles and beer cans, and impromptu target ranges with spent shells strewn all over. Am I painting a bad enough picture? These are the realities of off-road vehicle access and mismanagement of lands in such close proximity to people. It was a disheartening walk, not[…]

Tuesday Mar 30th, 2021, 0610-1830Clark Peak Rec area to Marijilda canyon.22 miles It was another fun-packed day in the high mountains. We were off early, walking the road that’s known as Swift Trail most of the day. It was built by the CCC. The upper part was still snow-bound but it was easy to walk over the frozen crust in the morning. We skipped a north-facing trail that led to Webb peak, instead opting for a cross country route that brought us to the 10,000′ top (highest point on the GET route in AZ) with minimal snow. This peak also had a nice fire tower, with views to nearby Mt Graham at almost 11,000′. It rises 8,000′ from the desert[…]

Saturday & Sunday Mar 27-28th 2021Kane Spring to Klondyke Road, mm 17216 miles I’m combining 2 days, one of which was a zero. Day 10: we covered as much ground in half a day as in a full day the day prior. But the going was still not easy, at least not the first 5 miles. The trail went up up up and we lost it at the switchbacks numerous times. I didn’t see any footprints on this trail, #66. We saw quite a few older footprints the day before, which we could only assume were some other GET hikers that were 1-2 weeks ahead of us. But then we didn’t see any more footprints since before the cross country[…]

Friday Mar 26th, 2021, 0615-1700Stock pond to Kane Spring, mm 17216 miles This day held an incredible amount of stuff packed into relatively few miles. We finished the dirt road walk after less than a mile and were on a series of trails as well as 3 miles of cross country orienteering the rest of the day. We began with route finding up a canyon along a very faint trail. It crossed a creek quite a few times where it was easy to lose among the rocks. But we made pretty short work of it with our keen searching. At a saddle and stock pond, we picked up a much better trail into Holdout Canyon. The trail was so lovely[…]

Thursday Mar 25th, 2021, 0615-1920North Bypass Cement tank to stock pond off mm 8.3 of section 8, mm 15624.5 miles Just as I predicted, everything was super wet in the morning….my first time packing a wet tent this hike. But my site selection was still pretty good. I shortly found frost in the open field. At least being under the tree seemed to keep the temperature higher. I was a bit cold in the early morning, but not so cold that I couldn’t sleep. I set out first and was immediately confronted by a maze of fences. Just like a cow, I was funneled into a corral, wondering around trying to figure a way out. I climbed over several gates[…]

Wednesday Mar 24rd, 2021, 1045-1800Aravaipa Canyon Ranger Station West Entrance to North Bypass Alternate to cement tank East Branch Horse Camp Canyon.17 miles We were hoping that due to the inclement weather, there might be some last minute cancellations for Aravaipa permits the night before. No such luck. Permit fees are nonrefundable less than a few days in advance, so it seems that nobody bothers to go online to cancel their permits, they just don’t show up. In a last ditch effort, we decided to take Violet up on her offer to drive us to the ranger station, to see if we could talk to a live person the day of. It was still very cloudy in the morning and[…]