The steady tut...tut...tut of trekking poles striking rock and dirt is slowly fading away into the soft acoustic music of Starbucks. Richard and I are sitting in Flagstaff, AZ about to head up to the grandest canyon of them all. The last few days have provided more adventure than even we were expecting! As we neared our first destination in the car a few days ago, we were greeted with a brush fire that almost closed down the road leading to my grandparent's cabin. Thankfully the cavalry had already arrived and were taking care of everything. Just to dispell any myths about its cause, Richard and I did NOT start it (I know what you were all thinking). Later that night, we headed up to the top of a mountain to check out the sunset and just donk around. 
The next morning we headed out at about 6:00 AM to start hiking Arizona's own Highline Trail, a fifty mile long trail that has existed since the early 1800's. We busted out the first four miles in under an hour and twenty minutes but then got slowed down mainly due to heat. AZ is having a massive heat wave right now that we got caught in the middle of. Joy. By the end of the day we had logged between seventeen and eighteen miles, camping by a little creek under an eternal blanket of stars. Suffice to say, we were pretty wiped out after hiking that many miles in one day, so instead of trying to overwork ourselves and potentially ruin the rest of the trip, we decided to hike back to town. So we trekked over to a road and caught a ride down to another road leading into town. We trudged down this for five or six miles until another gracious soul gave us a ride back to our car.
In the end, it was a good thing that we hiked out early. The morning after we set out, the trail was closed due to a huge fire on the latter part of the trail, the exact part that we would have been trying to cover that day. Had we continued on, we could have either gotten caught right in the middle of it. Please pray that the fire is extinguished soon, as it is very close to where my grandparent's home and cabin are.
5 comments:
Hey guys! Glad you're doing well (except you, Richard.). How's the equipment working--any advice/tips/anecdotes-where-Richard-gets-burned there? And what about food--how's that going? I know you're busy when you post these--I'm just wondering for our own JMT hike later this summer.
And I dunno--that fire might have been an excellent opportunity to pan-sear the wildlife...
Hmmm... alive on Tuesday, that's a good sign. I'm jealous you're at the canyon, not so jealous you're in the heat and fires and fatigue. I hope all is going well and you've found some wildlife to sear. A pack-mule perhaps? Ewww.
I'm ready for another update guys! Glad your having your adventure...be safe:)
glad to hear you have remained safe thus far...but naturally, not without a fairly close call! arizona was oppressively hot when i was there last week. despite that, i hope you two are having wonderful adventures that will make all of us who are sitting at home/behind desks/in other unsavory locations wildly jealous... and i hope you post again soon! and please don't pan-sear any wildlife, ok? restrain yourselves...yeah, you, richard.
I want to hear more! What other near-death experiences have there been? Any good but-by-the-grace-of-God tales? Be safe so you can come back to me. And I heard from Greg that you two may be stopping to see him, and I instantly became jealous. I miss you guys! Keep updating so even though I'm stuck in my stupid little cubicle I can feel adventurous, too.
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