Friday, September 23, 2016

AZT Day 17: No more AZT, these tires were made for riding

You know what they say about plans? The best of mice and men come to ruin. "They" being Robert Burns, and the saying being a modern paraphrase. Plans are to my mind the tiny assistants to dreams. The trick is to let them assist, but not to let them run those dreams, for they are wretched at spontaneity and tend to scream DESTINATIONS when one should be slowing their roll, stopping to sit for a while, to strum a banjo, to chat with a new and temporary friend, to watch the clouds roll over and spy ships a'sailing in a marshmallow sea populated with dragons.
Something like 10 moons ago, the plan was this: job ends late August, apply the best prophylactic against employment - stop applying for jobs - and take off to thru-hike the Arizona Trail from Utah through Arizona to Mexico; then cycle from Flagstaff, AZ to Jackson, WY; visit family and friends on the east coast; spend a month plus in a Guatemalan Spanish language immersion program; wander the central and southern American continent; crew a sailboat to Australia to visit a brother; end up back in Alaska some months later and jump back into the job market.


Well, then at the last moment a job I'd applied for months ago, a job I'd wanted to return to since I interned in a similar position for a semester in grad school, rolled down the pipeline and, as if it were a non-housetrained stray puppy, I had to adopt it, mess and all. This meant the plan's timeline was suddenly truncated to two months. When the plan was still in full force, I sold my bicycle in Kodiak, and bought one in Flagstaff via craigslist, with the help of a kind seller and even kinder Flagstaff bike shop. So, on the trail, walking thinking of now, with perambulations to the past and into the future, I thought on how the dream could continue, despite the plan's ruin.


How about I fit a portion of each into the time allotted? So, 200 miles or so into hiking the Arizona Trail, I'm going to shoehorn some southern Utah cycling, a route and means of travel I've hankered after ever since first driving through that landscape nearly ten years ago. Now I'm rounding up gear here in Flagstaff and will soon set off north, this time with my legs pumping pedals instead of toting a pack.


Since the last post, my friend, a Dutch archaeologist, and I wandered the greater Flagstaff area, climbed a cinder cone mountain, walked through a dinosaur graveyard - and went on a backroad water caching adventure that may have ended our friendship! I needed two caches to hydrate me through the upcoming six day journey. The first was an easy five mile drive in. The second was a hellish twenty-five miles that left us stopping in exhaustion to sleep somewhere in the back of beyond, still an hour from the highway, after driving nearly twenty miles back out on a donut spare. My friend was none too pleased about every aspect of this, though she stayed calm during the endeavor. Her parting words - "thanks for the headache"  - lead me to believe she was masking her true feelings while we struggled to escape the deathhold of old fire service roads.


Nonetheless, I was deposited on the trail around eleven AM on the 18th and set out into solitary freedom once again. Ten miles in my backpack snapped with a loud pop - one of the two vertical aluminum rods that give the pack rigidity had taken that moment as the most appropriate, after nearly ten years of service, to give up the ghost. This did not bode well for the beast bearing this burden and I was soon reduced to stopping every thirty minutes or so to stretch my back and dance like a maniac in the woods shaking out the aches. 


That night I camped on a little hillside above a wash, open to the sky. It was a cold one, and despite wearing everything I owned, I did little sleeping in the dark hours. This had its plus side - I was privy to a symphony of elk bugles, resounding from so many directions, ringing like sunlight through raindrops blown through glass pipes, or a pipe organ of crystals played by fairies. The moon rose and the bugles went on. The coyotes joined in with their yip-yip-yips chorusing back and forth from my side of the hill, across the wash to the other side and back again.The sun crept up and I slept in its swift heat for an hour or two before humping the goods on down the road again.


The next night was more of the same, such a delight. Wind picked up around two am, and began to cymbal the tent and strum the trees. Rain began at four am. This is Arizona, I thought to myself as if I knew anything of what that meant, this rain will be gone before I rise. The rain did not stop until the following morning, more than twenty-four hours later. I hiked all seventeen miles of the day in a blustery wind that drove the rain in all directions of the compass. It was not bad - it was certainly a change from the blistering sun, so I was grateful for that and thought of how change truly is the elixir of life, allowing thankfulness for what was and appreciation for what will be.


High-tension power lines are another of the world's musical instruments that I was fortunate enough to hear played. A few days back, it was the dry sizzling hum and occasional staccato pop pop pop. In this maelstrom it poured energy into the air in a rushing torrent that on first hearing gave thought that a river rushed beneath its many-stranded chords. But it was only the wires singing in throng to the wild conductor of the elements, bending to the forces of the wind and the rain and trumpeting its notes for all who could to hear.


The last mile of this day's slog displayed heaven to a wet hiker - sheds on a hillside. I hiked up to sample ranch hospitality. The only occupants, two skittish horses, had little to nothing to say to my request of a roof. I dried gear in an open generator shed and waited. Ate dinner and waited. Wrote in my journal and waited, when here comes a dually Dodge pickup. Tom gets out and answers my query with a non-committal, "don't see why not." So I spend the night in a shed littered with giant rat turds, and skittering with small mice. The rats I didn't see, but could hear when Templeton himself would thump around the perimeter of his kingdom, checking on what this stranger brought with. None of my hosts thought to chew on my gear and I thanked them for it in the morning when I woke to sounds of ranch industry, packed my bag, and slipped out unawares.


A cloudy day with intermittent sun blew over me like a wind-kissed blessing and I grinned into the morning to be wandering back again into woods, away from ranchlands, up over hillsides, into vistas never seen by these eyes heretofore. Swung through the next water cache, retrieving my two gallons, and ambled up the hill aways before finding a likely spot in the pine duff of a giant Ponderosa and its smaller siblings, surrounded by an Aspen forest. No bugles, no yip yips, but the wind returned to sing its songs in the night. I woke to the sun peaking over Humphrey's Peak and into my tent. Smiled at it for a short while before rising to discover the remaining 300 degrees of sky cloaked in a foreboding cloud, pregnant with child, soon to birth a squalling rain. 


That rain proved to be much colder than the earlier downpour, now falling on me here at 9000' elevation on the slopes of the Snowbowl ski area. I trudged on, seeing that the lodge had a restaurant that was a half miles detour about 7 miles up. The detour found a nearly empty parking lot, and one solitary human. Saul, typically an Uber/Lyft/Baidu driver, was on forced vacation and touring the state. Seems his brand-new Chrysler 200, with only two payments made on it at the time, was magnet to a madman. He was parked in an Arby's, enjoying his sandwich, when a car launched itself out of traffic, across the median, over the landscaping, coming to a crunching halt on top of his car. Now, nearly a month later, he is still fighting with the insurance company for repair of his ride, and lost wages to boot. 


Saul looked me and up and down, soaked and grinning, said, "you sure you don't want a ride to Flagstaff? I'm heading there now." I thought ever so briefly about what this would mean - skipping my last day of hiking verses a dry home for the night. The latter won out, and I was soon listening to tales of stalking elk herds by lamplight; and walking the winter mountains of Flagstaff at midnight when the moon gleams off flakes fallen and those still falling so brightly no light is needed. Saul deposited me here at the hostel and here I am. 


Off to gear up for the next stage and see how this new plan gives way to routes and options I can't even dream of now. If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and if you didn't, well glad you listened to your dream instead of persisting with a rigid plan of slip-sliding down this page of text.

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