Murmuring Boulder Creek is loud with frogs and I look for a place to set the alicoop., my tent. I forgo squishy sand thinking it might get inside the tent and settle into grass. It’s a quick dinner as lazy mosquitos land on my toes under brilliant stars. 

Ah, supine at last…I press into the ground, deeper, softer, lower. Oh no. That whole idea of camping in grass as some sort of assurance of comfort does not work in the desert. Even the grass wants to poke you here in the desert and it works its way right through the alicoop, burrowing its way into my mattress. I’m now deflated all the way into the ground. 

And you know, that pokey grass was just covering up lumpy and hard ground. What was I thinking?

Nothing to do now but try and sleep. But I’m also next to a beautiful, babbling brook. The tent is damp and the air is cold, differently than last night on the ridge in the wind. Here it’s damp-to-the-bone cold. Nothing to do but wrap in tighter and sleep until it’s light.

As I mentioned, the night before was dry and cool, the wind a jet engine in a tall widow-maker of a ponderosa pine above my tent. Only its rounded top has needles, but they shake a shimmy.

I’m walking the Arizona Trail and camping all alone high above Roosevelt Lake in the Four Peaks Wilderness, the sunrise a deep orange melting to indigo. I wear all my clothes and sit on a log for breakfast. It’s cold, but I still slather on sunscreen. I was plenty warm last night with my quilt and puffy. 

I’m up high close to the peaks which loom over me, snow still encrusted to their rocky flanks. I work my way down, sidling the mountain on loose stones. The wind is so wild it threatens to take my hat, and maybe even me. The moon is perfectly in half, white on an azure sky. 

I’m wearing all my gear, at least the top half including gloves. The wind is very cold. Nothing froze like the first night when I had chunky water, but I keep moving even when the sun comes out full blast. 

I look for other campsites but don’t see anything as nice as mine until right at Shake Spring. The water is on full blast with a fairly substantial set of falls pouring through jumbled boulders. I skip this water with another spring just a few miles ahead. 

I’m amazed there’s so much water up here in this incredibly dry environment. Everything is brown and half the trees are charred from recent fires, but the water crosses the trail several times before I meet Pigeon Spring. 

This time, water is collected in a concrete tub sunk into the ground. There are some leaves and a few bugs, but when I dip my cup in deep enough, the water is clear and filters well. One thing I’ve learned is to keep my filter clean. There’s so much silt and dirt, it can clog up easily and once the water stops flowing, it’s difficult to clean. 

I take a moment to backflush my filter with filtered water and the flow speeds up again. I prefer to carry 1 1/2 liters, because more than that makes it nearly impossible to walk, I’m so heavy. I usually drink an entire liter before heading on too, especially since this next water carry is nine miles. 

Just as I leave the spring, I reach a road. A sign warns me about the Arizona Black Rattlesnake, one of 13 rattlers in the state. This one is unusual because it can change color like a chameleon. It also partners when tending to its young and is far more docile than most snakes. I have yet to see a snake likely because it’s still too cold. 

It’s definitely odd to reach a road. The trail was so wild on the edge of the mountain, especially with all that wind and my being completely alone. Now I feel domesticated, I can even see a town far below in bright green at the end of the lake. 

It’s hard-packed and easy walking, so I call Richard. Today’s his birthday. We really miss each other but he’s glad I’m giving this a try. One lone mountain biker passes as we talk. 

The road follows the ridge for miles. It’s mostly easy walking, but I’m exhausted and down gets harder for me as the day wears on. The mountains are huge around me in jumbly shapes, sometimes sharp, sometimes more like mesas. The ridge is another ‘land of weird rocks,’ weather-shaped stone in spires and hoodoo shapes. If I turn back, I see the snow-encrusted four peaks getting smaller. 

At the spring, I fill a Mountain House beef stroganoff picked up at the hiker box in Roosevelt Lake with water. I love these dinners because they’re really salty and filling, but pretty expensive. Everyone dumps out items from their resupply and the rest of us benefit. 

I carry it until lunchtime, trying to see how far I get in two hours. The monotony is getting to me. There just isn’t enough to keep my interest and my body is really tired. 

So I sing as I walk. And I look at the weird rocks. And I study this deep shade of blue high up here in the mountains. A bird calls squee-skdkdkdkd and the wind keeps me cool as the sun blazes warm. I walk through an area thick with pine and the aroma overwhelms. Even here, water crosses the road enough to collect. 

I come back out into the open and find a flat rock jutting out, perfect for a lion or me with my lunch. The stroganoff is perfect and I gobble it up, followed by hiker box fritos and a chocolate-peanut-butter shake. I’d say I was hungry. I sprawl against my pack, then head on to the water feeling revived. 

Several streams cross the road and I pick one to filter, large puddly pools running clear. I can’t imagine any other circumstance where I’d scoop water for drinking from the middle of the road, but it’s delicious. 

I look back at my peaks one last time, then prepare for another steep up which is shockingly short before I head down steeply on loose stones. This walking just wears me out. In fact, it hurts to walk this way and within a mile I’m headed up and, what do we have here? A trail! 

It’s not a massive improvement, steep and full of loose stones, but I head up and over into a deep canyon, my poppies returning happy to see me. I zigzag down into the canyon. It is a mile or so of buggy, cat-claw grabby awfulness, in and out of rocky streambed and up and down barely there trail. The saving grace is the wonderfully fragrant white flowers that calm me.  

Soon I reach beautiful, nourishing, life-giving water and sit my body down in the middle of the wash to fill up. I’ll be out of this rocky horror soon and onto grasslands, with just enough light to get me to some flat camping. 

I pass pools loud with frogs belching, waterfalls pass through the rocks. The crickets saw loudly through here. Spreading fleabane with its many-petaled face crowds thickly against the trail. The poppies have closed for the night, delicate crepe paper umbrellas. 

I still walk in and out of dry side channels feeding Boulder Creek, but my feet have found at least 100 feet of joy as the canyon opens towards grassland and the huge Mazatzals in front of me. The light is orange now on the grasses and prickly pear. 

And I’m lulled into setting myself directly on something sharp. I need to get myself to town and buy a replacement – but how? 

Things are easy at first, I can hear the highway, I can see the highway! But nothing is straightforward. I go in and out of washes, up and down and around. And then I see a ’road’ heading straight for the highway, but two of the beautifully made iron AZT signs seem determined to keep me from it.

Up I go, and up some more. What now?!? So you send me on a road nearly all day yesterday but now I have to climb up on this cliff, further away from the highway for some trail builder ego trip?! This trail is pissing me off!! (obviously I need a break)

Truth is it is a well built trail and any road that might be down there next to the creek where the cows are mooing might not actually be passable even if from up here I see a wide path through the sycamores.

The birds are singing, hummingbird trumpets are a splash of beauty in a drab landscape. I think about how when things go wrong I blame myself. I mean it was a dumb decision to set in the grass, but a test of character and fortitude – a test of smarts – is managing difficulties and finding a way through.

I want to cry about my bad luck but instead I make a plan. Payson’s a big enough town, they’ve got to have a sporting goods store. I’ll get this fixed or find a substitute. I just need to get to Payson and it’s thirty miles away.

Funny how a hike reminds me to make each step the priority. I can’t fix my mattress now, I need to walk now and definitely not fall on the rocks, which I do for the first time, sliding backwards on my butt.

I meet the road, but have to dive down and cross the creek before meeting a gravel road and the trailhead. There I stand trying to look friendly and harmless, as well as a bit needy with my thumb stuck out. I smile and even say, ”Please.”

What goes through people’s minds when they pass me? They’re driving cars far too big for one. Maybe they just don’t want to bother or don’t notice me. Or what they do notice is that I’m a pretty odd out here with a backpack.

I barely notice when a red sports car stops, way up the road. For me? I guess so. Wes lives out of that car, cups and bottles all over the place, a picture of his girlfriend taped above the visor, but there’s room for me and my gear as we drive down the roller coaster of a highway. 

When I get to town, I call a few stores, but only one allows me to leave a message. And that’s when the true trail magic happens.

Margaret is an ultra runner and owner of Rim Runners. When she calls, she tells me they don’t sell sleeping pads or have any to loan, but she just happens to be in the Phoenix in the parking lot of an REI. How about if she buys me a mattress – not the blow up kind - and delivers it?

What are the odds?!?

The rest of my day is about sending home the damaged mattress, shopping for food, cleaning gear and planning for the next section. I’m rested ­– I'm blessed – and I’m ready to face more steep climbs, long water carries and a million rocks…well, I could do without at least a few of those rocks.