With a monster storm bearing down on Arizona, two thru-hikers on the Arizona Trail had a simple choice: crank out 37-mile days or get soaked. Their account of racing the weather — filed by The Trek — doubles as a surprisingly good look at what the trail's central stretches actually feel like right now.
The day started near Flagstaff's high country with a fog-draped sunrise over pine forest and strikingly vivid orange rock walls, brightened further by recent rain. But the same moisture is causing problems. Flash flooding is a real threat on trail during monsoon season, which is exactly why the hikers are pushing hard to reach a highway crossing near the small towns of Pine and Strawberry before the heavy rain arrives midweek. Their workaround: bailing out at a trailhead roughly 30 miles earlier than planned so they can shelter in town with friends rather than grind through a full day of rain.
Along the way, the route offered a snapshot of the trail's variety. Morning brought shaded pine forest and new wildflowers; by late morning it had shifted to open desert with clay ground and barely a tree in sight. The stars of the day were two large tarantulas crossing the path — it's mating season, so the spiders are on the move, and hikers are spotting more of them than usual. Water, meanwhile, was scarce: the first sources were stagnant cow ponds the colour of chocolate milk, and the pair didn't find decent water until a clear pool under a bridge at 2pm.
Some useful nuggets for anyone eyeing this trail: by midday the hikers had covered just over 243 miles with 558 to go to the Mexican border — the trail runs roughly 800 miles from Utah to Mexico, and an engraved marker on the route spells out the distance to both ends. Near Mormon Lake there's a campground with a restaurant and store where hikers can resupply or rest. The pair also leaned on a trail angel named Gorf, who delivered a food cache to a road crossing, and used the Far Out app to plot alternates — both standard tricks of the thru-hiking trade here.
They wrapped the day at 37.2 miles, camped six miles shy of Mormon Lake with hot chocolate in hand, and planned to hitch into Pine the following evening. Why should a traveller care? Because this is a real-time look at monsoon-season conditions on one of America's great long-distance trails — the flash flood risk, the unreliable water sources, the closed seasonal campgrounds with locked privies and shut-off water. If you're planning an Arizona Trail section hike, late summer means storms and spider season; the flip side is lush greenery, wildflowers, and glowing orange rock you won't see in the dry months. And if a storm pins you down, the twin towns of Pine and Strawberry are apparently a pretty pleasant place to wait one out — especially when friends have already booked the Airbnb.
