Day 22 - Apache Trail and Lake

Three weeks into my trip I've already crossed the 3,000 mile mark. I will likely do more than 20,000 miles in this Dodge Grand Caravan before the trip ends in October! Driving 1,000 miles a week is better than it would seem though because the roads I travel are mostly backroads and tend to be surrounded by mountain vistas all the time.

After waking up late after a tough trail yesterday, I did some chores: practiced setting up my tarp (trickier than a tent to setup but very light), fixed the air pressure in my tires (I bought an electrical air pump that plugs into cig lighter) and cleaned up the van inside. I then drove to Flagstaff to do some laundry! Highlight of trip.. not, but the first laundry in three weeks because I rinse each day's clothing every night.

Needing to be at the Aravaipa Canyon on Sunday night and having one more hike at the Superstitions left on my list, I decided to drive back down to the Tonto National Forest, near the Superstitions, east of Phoenix. I took the scenic route by Roosevelt Lake formed by a pretty dam and south to Apache Lake, a scenic lake on my "maybe" list. This required driving a dozen miles on a historic well-graded dirt road called the Apache Trail (you can see the road in the 2nd pic). After arriving to Apache Lake I decided to camp for the night there instead of driving at dark on the windy dirt road. Some pics from the day.

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Day 161 - JMT Purple Lake and Tully Hole

We got our first glimpse of smoke far across the valley as we climbed higher. Up on a ridge after a morning climb, we followed a side trail to an open viewpoint beyond the trees. Selfie:) The smoke, while visible, seemed to give the mountains a blue glow-- like a highlighter to a sketch. You could still see the edges of the mountain ridges, the story of their creation. We could hike in this. But the smoke looked worse farther south. Or it was getting worse as time rolled incessantly forward. On day two we had ran into a northbound hiker we nicknamed Speedy Steve. Speedy Steve had hiked 18 miles a day through eight consecutive smoke-filled days, including atleast three "very bad days" when he couldn't see the surrounding mountains, the sun glowed a haunting orange and ash accumulated overnight. On the way to Purple Lake we ran into three dirty, beat up, tired north-bound hikers with a similar story. They had to spend one night in an emergency hut at Muir Pass to avoid the...

Day 41 - Escalante Coyote Gulch

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Day 42 - Escalante Stevens Arch

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