Chased into town

The wind howled all night. My tent shook with each gust crinkling like a bag of chips. Fortunately, I was on hardpacked sand which kept the tent stakes in well. Around 6:30a I opened my eyes to what seemed to be some sort of light. First thought was a car, but the way it was moving seemed more like a headlamp. At first I was going to go back to bed, but realized it was town day and I could cook breaky in the dark and head out a bit earlier, and so I did.

Within about 30 mins, a light sprinkle started. Surrounding me were dark clouds with visible precipitation of some sort. Higher elevation was definitely getting snow.

The days hike itself was relatively smooth sailing. More rolling hills and twists and turns. Not a ton of water sources, but the one saving Grace about being overcast is I wasn’t sweating as much, so didn’t require as much water as I may on a sunny day.

I was definitely pushing for town, the 28 mile day prior slowing me down a hair, but everything was feeling relatively well.

Before I knew it, I had my 15ish miles in, and I was at a road to civilization (ironically, the very same road I walked out of Patagonia on. Had I just stayed on that road, I likely would have been there a day or two earlier). I was looking forward to lunch, and had eaten much of my bar in anticipation of real food, so rather than trying to deal with a hitch, I took advantage of my few mile proximity from Tucson and called an Uber.

Less than 15 mins later, and face planted on my bed. Few mins later and I was showered and running to the sandwich shop. After dazing off into the florescent lights and sipping as much lemonade as I could, I walked across the green to Walmart to do my resupply to get me to Mt Lemmon (about 76 miles).

The dark surrounding clouds still lingering around the peaks, and a day of rain on the forecast tomorrow, the climb to Mt. Lemmon starts to make me curious. A difficult climb normally, but with fresh snow, probably not the greatest. However, as I’m researching the stretch ahead, the memory archive knocked and reminded me of another massive climb before hand, and the this location of snow Andy and I experienced on the AZT last time. Hitting just about 9000 feet again, all that snow is definitely falling hard up there. With an entire day of it, should make for exciting climbing! Rumors of mountain lions in the area as well (Seguaro National Park). Yay!

So my errands are done, I’m hydrating and refueling with food and so I rest.