What's it actually like to walk 100 miles in five days on the Arizona Trail? A thru-hiker writing for The Trek has shared the second instalment of her trip diary, and it's a refreshingly honest look at long-distance hiking — the highs, the low moments and the cow poop.
Her stretch covered the section approaching Flagstaff, and the logistics read like a survival puzzle. The group night-hiked out of Grand Canyon National Park to legally camp beyond the boundary (only to wake up beside no-camping signs anyway). Water was the constant obsession: one 35-mile gap between natural sources required a friend to stash gallon jugs at a trailhead, and a refill station outside the Tusayan general store earned genuine celebration. Not every source cooperated — a suspicious brown pond turned out to be a smart fill-up when every other option later ran dry.
The diary doesn't gloss over the mental side. Days of walking and thinking led to some emotional wobbles, including a couple of miles crying to a hiking partner about nothing in particular. But the rewards are there too: flat, cruisy miles through open fields, a sunset walk along a dirt road, an impromptu roadside chat with Matt, the director of the Arizona Trail Association, and the simple joys of taking your pack off, drying a dew-soaked tent at lunch and calling your mom from a rare patch of cell service.
The Flagstaff arrival is the payoff. The Arizona Trail runs straight through town, so hikers can bus in two miles from the route for pizza, laundry and a trail angel's spare bed. Our writer spent her zero day on iced lattes, cute shops, resupply and what she calls the best Indian food ever. A tropical storm dumping four inches of rain over three days forced a second zero day — proof that even the most committed hikers sometimes let the weather win.
Why does this matter to regular travellers? Flagstaff makes a genuinely great base for outdoorsy trips in Arizona. It sits on historic Route 66, sits at over 2,000 metres so summers stay pleasantly cool, and gives easy access to the Grand Canyon's South Rim about 90 minutes away, plus the volcanic cinder cones of Sunset Crater and the ancient pueblos of Wupatki. The town has a lively downtown of coffee shops, breweries and independent stores — the same spots thru-hikers beeline for when they come off the trail.
If the diary inspires something longer, the roughly 800-mile Arizona Trail runs border to border from Mexico to Utah, and the Arizona Trail Association maintains water-source info and trail updates. Most casual hikers, though, will get plenty out of day hikes on sections near Flagstaff or the Tusayan area — no 24-mile days or gallon-jug shuttles required.
