Arizona Trail Ez Tour – Part 4!

Now we return to where the story started. Two bikepackers heading north on the Arizona Trail, with no tent and no rain gear. The first storm in months barreling down on them. Everyone statewide was skeptical the storm would materialize into actual moisture. It had been so long.

descending to Kansas

But for us, the incredible wind was a tangible sign that something was changing. Something was in the air. It howled all night, and the morning held no reprieve. It was almost better that way. We knew it was going to be a windy day, that there would be no cover, and that we should just accept it.

It took a few sputtering starts to get going in the morning. The chill was just a tad too cold for our hands and feet as we made our way past Missouri Bill mountain to descent into the plains. So we stopped a few times and praised the sun for its strength, and return to influence in the world.

It was difficult to not be looking ahead on the GPS. Not at climbs to come or potential hike-a-bike, but purely at the direction of travel. If there was any westward component, we were hosed. We fought hard for our westward progress, and were not willing to give it up. I had forgotten what it was like to have to pedal hard just to maintain 7mph while traveling downhill. I’d also forgotten that odd sensation of pedaling a bike on flat ground, leaning it 45 degrees against the wind.

Any time I could see the AZT veering east, only to dog leg back west, I looked for shortcuts. Sure enough, my eTrex 20’s basemap showed a collection of roads that almost connected up. It looked debatable at the Kaibab boundary, but at least it was friendly bushwhacking terrain. We decided it was worth the gamble. Saving even a mile or two of westward travel meant an hour or two in these winds.

It turned out beautifully. The draw that the triple track took us up was as sheltered from the wind as you could get. Still slow, but we lost no westward progress and were soon back on the trail. GPS man saves the day! I’m not quite sure why the AZT wasn’t simply routed this way to begin with…

After the Moqui Stage Stop the route turns north for a long haul, and enters a more forested environment. Now the wind was more of a constant roar in the trees and around us, than an actual force to be reckoned with. It was a relief.

We were probably the first people of the season to travel most of these trails. It’s early season out here, so the trail surface was loose and we found quite a few trees down.

Quite a bit of high quality riding too.

At the Coconino Rim we caught our first fleeting view of the Canyon. One of my favorite moments of the trip. One that the photo doesn’t give justice to. Only when you’ve pedaled your bike across the state to get there, and gotten to understand the geography and topology of the Arizona, does looking at the south rim simply ending and falling off into the abyss, really make sense and really blow you away.

We made the mistake of taking the bike detour for the one up/down on the Coconino Rim Trail. It was hard to follow and full of burned/down trees. Woops. Serves us right for wussing out on a short little hike-a-bike.

The next view of the Canyon is from the Grand View lookout. I knew it probably wasn’t quite Eszter’s team vertigo style, but the step from Coconino view, to Grand View, to actual view off the rim is such an important one to an AZT thru-ride. I coaxed her up there, and her reaction and amazement was priceless. Mine too.

I promised a relatively painless ride to Tusayan from Grand View. The trail wasn’t quite as fast and flowy as I remember it (it needs more tires, more boots on it!), but still good riding. The sun set just as we reached town. We sought Mexican food, inhaled Mexican food. The wind tricked us into thinking it was colder than it actually was. We sought out the cheapest motel, which wasn’t listed anywhere online and had a very enthusiastic and AZT aware owner.

It was a slow morning. I got a bare bones tracker going for an event in Russia, and we talked about various options for approaching the canyon. There was no way to tell how permits and availability were going to go, we had to show up in person. So we pedaled on the back roads into the park, emerging from the quiet and rarely visited woods to:

wow, just wow. I know it’s the postcard shot that everyone gets, but wow.

The attraction! Come one and all. Step right up, boys and girls! It’s a bit of a circus, and strange to be suddenly be surrounded by hikers, tourists and just people in general. But there’s a very good reason for it. It really is just that incredible.

I kind of hope I never arrive at the Grand Canyon by car. Pedaling along the plateau, catching glimpses, and then finding yourself at the rim with nowhere to go but down… that is a very real moment.

First stop was the backcountry office. We wanted to break the canyon hike up into two days, but camping permits are something you apply for months in advance. Walk-ins go fast and early in the morning. I’d been told there was special treatment for AZT-thru hikers, but I was prepared to get the run-around and be told all sorts of mis-information, especially with bikes along for the hike.

Sure enough, the ranger behind the desk had never heard of anything special for AZT thru-hikers. “Who told you about the overflow stock site?”

“Ummm, Matt Nelson, executive director of the Arizona Trail Association.”

“Is there a reason you can’t wait another day, and get a last minute permit tomorrow?”

“Well, no, there’s no absolute reason that we cannot, but we sure would like to continue our trip.”

I tried my best to be diplomatic. I wasn’t going to give up until she checked with a supervisor, and failing that, I’d try a different lane, different ranger. Luckily it didn’t come to that. Someone in the background overheard our conversation and pulled her aside. “Yeah, we have that set up for AZT hikers, you didn’t know that?”

She didn’t admit she was wrong or apologize for the run around, but she did set us up with a camping permit!

AZT thru-hikers (carrying bikes)! She also insisted that since she was a ‘rule follower’ we needed to sign a form acknowledging that she had informed us that our trip itinerary is considered “excessive.” She knew that people carried bikes across the canyon, and didn’t give us any hassle about that (not even a reminder that we couldn’t roll or push them!), but she was very concerned about us hiking 14 miles in one day. I told her I had hiked the whole thing in a day. Then she focused on Eszter, “are you sure you can do this?” 14 miles and 6000′ of elevation. She caught herself, “well, to get here you probably have done 6000′ of elevation or so.” “Umm, yeah, every day.”

It was actually less trouble than I thought we’d receive. In 2005 they tried to talk us out of what we were trying to do from many angles. Snow on the north rim, closed north rim, flooding Wall Creek, too hard an itinerary, bikes aren’t allowed (never heard of such a thing!), etc, etc. This ranger laughed at the weather forecast, claiming there was no chance of snow, no snow on the north rim, and didn’t care what we were going to do once we made it to the north rim.

We pedaled over to the post office to collect our package. In previous trips I’d “run what I brung”, but this was a pleasure tour. It was awesome to have bigger packs, hiking shoes that were broken in and hiking poles waiting for us. We also took the opportunity to send back just about everything we thought we could live without. We whittled it down to one tube, one pump, one multi-tool, one GPS, etc. Minimal is the way to go when you have a bike on your back.

I also swapped out my clipless pedals for platforms, so I could mail back my SPD shoes. This proved to be a very good call, and not just for the weight/space saving.

It’s a fair bit of logistics to consider. Switching from cycling to hiking isn’t the easiest transition to make, and there are a lot of bases to cover. Not the least of those bases, for us, was the yet-to-materialize storm. There were some big clouds around, but nothing threatening. We figured we were good, but decided to get some cheap yellow ponchos at the outdoor store, figuring we could use them as tarps for camping if needed. Neither of us wanted to pony up for a sub-par rain jacket, and storm skepticism was still high. We’d made it this far without rain gear, what could possibly go wrong?

Plus we figured if there was anywhere on the AZT to be during a winter storm, it was at Tucson elevation, down in the big ditch. How cold could it get?

Postcards sent, box mailed back, tasty lunch eaten, food bought, we were finally ready to head back to the rim. Right as we got on our bikes to head towards Bright Angel, light flakes began falling. “Oh good, it’s snowing!”

We took a quick stop to secure a 5am breakfast and sack lunches to go, and at long last, it was time to strap bikes to packs!

“Wooo, it’s brisk.” The snow was swirling and whipping around, storm dynamics at the rim. Part of me just couldn’t believe it. Luckily there is a huge array of bathrooms facing all directions. We chose the group that completely blocked the wind. Eszter ate carrot cake and took photos as I strapped the bikes up. The storm picked up strength, but what were we going to do? We had a permit, had breakfast paid. We were committed.

I love what you can read from Eszter’s body language here. You can see the cold. She’s on the far inside of the trail, leaning away from the edge. There’s a reluctance, or disbelief, but the smile says she lives for this kind of thing. New experiences and adventure, here we come!

Stepping off the rim and into the dark was a very real moment of my 7-day AZT trip. This closely rivaled it, with the canyon completely shrouded in blizzard. Is this really a good idea? (Answer: YES)

Everyone was scrambling back up the trail. No one was going down. You could see people wanted to ask us what we were doing, but were more concerned about getting back to their cars or hotel.

It was nice to think it would get warmer as we descended, but I was hoping the snow wouldn’t turn to driving rain.

can you say switchback attack?

It never did. We walked out of it, for the most part, with only a few minor resurgences. The bigger focus became minimizing the damage of hiking downhill. We’d chosen Bright Angel trail since in theory it is less steep and has less huge water bars. It still tore our legs up.

We took our time heading down. Took breaks to rest the legs and shoulders. Answered burning questions from hikers heading up. “Intense” seemed to be the adjective of choice to describe us. It’s funny how having a bike makes you an instant trail celebrity.

The clouds hid the sun from our internal clocks. When we reached river level it hit us — it was getting dark. Better go find camp!

It gave us a bit of false urgency, which was kind of unfortunate. It was dark when we got to Phantom Ranch anyway, and we wasted a bunch of time and effort trying to find the overflow stock site. Unfortunately it didn’t have any gazebos or structures we could use for semi-shelter. But it did have some nice trees and looked largely unused (no poop).

Our timing was good. As soon as we dropped our ponies and hitched them to a tree, it started raining. We’d seen the line of headlamps heading to the Canteen. It must be 8 o’clock — it’s opening! We spent the next hour and a half indoors while it rained outside. The girl inside knew about the 750 race and was kind enough to let us use hot water to make our dehydrated meals. It was perfect. Lucky us. We peeked our heads out of the door every once in a while to check on the rain, still figuring we’d be trying to ghetto rig our ponchos as a tarps.

At 9:30 it seemed to have let up. Canteen was about to close anyway, let’s head to bed!

It was hard to tell if it was still raining, since our tree was now dripping on us. At some point I woke up and still felt drops, but could see stars! Lucky us.

The 5am breakfast call was pre-dawn, but a great motivator to get out of the sleeping bag. It was fun to talk trail at the table, and our helmets (with headlamps) were dead giveaways that we were up to something silly. Even more silly was that everyone was passing extra food our way. It’s a big hike out, even without a bike! We were so confused by people not inhaling everything in sight. When they first put out the bacon, eggs and pancakes I got worried that there wasn’t going to be enough — that the breakfast had been a bad call. Turns out your appetite may not kick up if you’re only on day 2 of a backpack trip.

As we walked out of the Ranch they were hitching up the day’s mule train. The cowboy that didn’t speak much English took a few moments to get my joke when I called us bike wranglers. He got a good laugh when he did get it, though.

It was still nice and chilly as we headed up ‘the Box’ and along Bright Angel creek. The trail was dark, quiet and empty. These are miles you’d kill to be riding, or pushing a bike on. Flat and smooth, easy, gradual.

snow fell low that night… copter landing

A NPS ‘copter came whipping up the canyon. We marveled at the close quarters flying. I was telling Eszter that a copter had come by in this same spot when Lee and I hiked the trail. We had wondered if they were specifically checking on us, to make sure we were not riding the trail. Right as I said that, the copter flipped a U-turn right back at us! It then went and appeared to be landing on the trail ahead of us. Huh.

When we got to the spot we saw there was a break in the water line they were checking out. Not two bike wranglers.

ribbon falls in the background

One foot in front of the other, is how it went.

If there’s any where in the world worth carrying a bike through…

It’s here.

Carrying a bike is anything but comfortable, but you know these are moments that are going to pass by all too quickly. Part of you wants to reach the end, and part of you wants it to never end.

We saw several of these blooming purple trees in the canyon, something I’d never seen before.

We had the trail to ourselves, mostly. Our own private Grand Canyon. Only a couple rim-to-rim-to-rim nutjobs came down from the rim, warning us that it was slippery up there.

And what a trail. Check out the cubby hole they blasted out of the wall in order to sculpt a switchback. That might be my favorite switchback, ever.

Words fail.

Team Vertigo did not fail. I knew Eszter was nervous. She kept asking how much longer the exposure lasted for. I wasn’t sure.

“I’m a little pack mule, not afraid of heights!”

“Umm, there’s cones on the trail up there, what’s up with that?”

When she got there she didn’t deliberate too long, just grabbed the fixed line the park service had installed, and scooted across. Without a bike it wouldn’t have been too big a deal. But with one, you had to face the wall and walk sideways. You did not want to slip.

Pack mule is not afraid of heights, or at least didn’t let that stop her! Yeah Team Vertigo!

Oh the ponchos. The ponchos, the ponchos. Great idea in theory, terrible in practice — for bike wranglers. A cold snow squall had us scrambling to pull them out of our packs (no easy task), and attempting to put both them and our bikes back on. Bikes are hard enough to remount as is, and it proved near impossible to get them on without ripping the ponchos up. It was our finest amateur hour moment, that luckily no one else was around to witness.

By the time we were hitched back up and walking, it let up. Of course!

As long as you can laugh at yourself…… and we sure did.

We made the mistake of believing hiker’s mileage estimates. I knew that the climb was full of false summits, but it still seemed ever so long. Pole leaning breaks became more frequent. 5″ travel bikes with dropper posts are harder to carry than titanium hard tails, it turns out!

At least it wasn’t currently snowing. But what were we going to do on the snowy north rim?

Put bikes together!

Take a victorious smiling picture! Celebrate attaining the rim!

And then go in search of water. It was too cold and we were too tired to pedal to Jacob Lake. I actually had half a mind to just endure a cold night and go camp right out on the rim.

Then I opened the bathroom and saw the space heater chugging away inside. It was almost like an invitation.

We warmed up, ate dinner and decided to take a “privy bivy.” There was just enough room for us to catch some rest and head back out into the night.

Threat of moisture was off the table, but the ponchos finally started to pull their weight. We donned them for extra wind protection, and I had the brilliant idea to fashion mittens and vapor barrier socks out of them. They were already torn up anyway, why not?

The mittens proved to be the key in our ability to pedal the highway in sub-freezing temperatures. I wouldn’t have been able to ride otherwise. We looked over at the AZT, covered in snow, and weren’t tempted in the least bit.

Hmm, that started at room temperature water just an hour ago. Based on the quick freeze, and the ice beard I was growing, we guessed that the temperatures had to be in the teens. I had appropriate core layers, but only thin, 60* knee warmers for my legs. Luckily the poncho sort of blocked my legs from the wind, but I wondered what 40 miles of pedaling in these temperatures would do to my knees. Sorry knees!

It was amazing how long the day took to warm up. The Kaibab plateau is special that way. Only right near town did we finally start to think about stripping layers. The ponchos came off as we returned to civilization (the whole road is closed for the winter, so we didn’t see anyone out there). We do have a slight bit of pride, though photos of us in the ponchos eventually became our facebook profile pics.

Jacob Lake is up there for best trail towns. They had a nice fire going. We ate a big breakfast. Then shortly after, a big lunch. We took homemade cookies to go. Called my parents to arrange the pickup. Chatted with a road touring cyclist. I was excited to ride the rest of the trail, but also a little reluctant to end the trip.

It took a good hour+ for my legs and ankles to warm back up. But they seemed fine.

Back on singletrack! It’s the final stretch. Mostly good trail, and minimal climbing. Good thing, because our legs were wrecked from the hike. Sore, sore, sore. Platform pedals were awesome here. I could shift my feet back to cut my calves out of the equation. No pain in clipping and unclipping either.

Down trees become a major nuisance. Luckily there weren’t many.

Cow potholes are the last major challenge. Bump, bump, buh-bump. Maybe an odd hike-a-bike or two.

the last and best gate on the trail

Mostly it’s just miles of good pedaling. Miles that almost seem out of character with the rest of the AZT. It gives you some good time to reflect on the trip, attempt to start processing it.

And then you’re looking down on the red cliffs of Utah. I loved seeing Eszter’s reaction to catching the view for the first time.

She thought it was so ironic how easy and smooth the last descent is. I said it’s the reward for making it this far.

Utah stateline! We made it. My parents were there, having hiked a nearby slot canyon. Thanks for the pickup, guys, that was awesome!

It took us 14 days and change. 772 miles and some 100,000 feet of climbing. I think we really nailed the balance between touring and going fast, between taking trail and skipping sections. This was my favorite AZT trip, for sure, and one I was so very lucky to share with Eszter.

Thanks for reading along. Hopefully we can come somewhere near to this trip’s level of success on our next endeavor: a summer on the Continental Divide Trail. That same sweet spot of moving fast vs. taking time, hard trail vs. detours, is what we’re looking for. We don’t know the CDT like we do the AZT, though, so it’s going to be an adventure. More about that soon.