Mile 620 – Stealth To Mile 641 – Saguaro National Park North Boundary
We woke up surprisingly warm, for our elevation. Descending only a few hundred feet, the temperature went down instead of up. We had camped so high to avoid a drive-in campsite down in the valley. As soon as we arrived at the bottom, at sunrise, we were glad to not have been down there. Most campsites were packed with large groups from Tucson visiting for the weekend. Those that weren’t smelled of privy.
Hiking for the rest of the day was gorgeous, but sweltering. We had to be careful about how much water we were consuming between sources. We had gathered emergency water from the campsite, but it was rather close to a privy. We dumped it out at the next water we found, opting for mosquito-y water instead. We dumped that water at the next puddle, clear but dirty at the bottom. We finally found good water near the end of the day, and got enough for the night. A steep 2000 feet ended our evening just before the entrance to Saguaro National Park, with views of the sun streaking through the rolling hills. Another hiker, Penguin (guino for short) gave us a tip on camping and we settled in a forest of Ponderosa pines right at dusk.
RocketWalk 