Mile 725 - Stealth To Mile 737 - Patagonia The AZT originally went right through the small town of Patagonia on a long road section. Recently, however, a new section of trail opened, bypassing the town and eliminating the road section. This was a very welcome update to the route. The new trail section is … Continue reading Day 41. Patagonia

Mile 705 - Stealth To Mile 725 - Stealth We continue to move in and out of fall colors depending on elevation as we move south with colder temperatures. Fall colors We're planning a short day tomorrow into town, so it doesn't matter too much where we stop this evening. When we spotted an area … Continue reading Day 40. Fall Again

Mile 683 - Stealth To Mile 705 - Stealth With our last town stop coming up in a couple of days, we are feeling the end of the trail getting closer. We're in a relatively flat section before one last big climb at the end. So, the hiking feels easy and fun. Because of all … Continue reading Day 39. The End is in Sight

Mile 662 - Pistol Hill Rd. To Mile 683 - Stealth We decided to actually leave Magic Camp today. We got up after sunrise and packed our stuff. Breakfast was pancakes and bacon; they had enough for all 8 hikers and bikers there. We were the first to leave, reluctantly, at around 9 am. Verde … Continue reading Day 38. Diversity

Mile 662 - Pistol Hill Rd. This morning, Debora offered to drive Rocket and I to the Titan Missile Museum, which is nearby. They are also homeschool parents and thought This would be a good learning opportunity for Rocket. This was definitely not in our plan, but, we are slightly ahead of our scheduled end … Continue reading Day 37. Titan Missile Museum

Mile 641 - Saguaro National Park North Boundary To Mile 662 - Pistol Hill Rd. Entering Saguaro National Park Next up on the sky island parade is Mt. Mica, inside Saguaro National Park. Camping is restricted inside the park to established campgrounds. Because neither of the options align with the number of miles we were … Continue reading Day 36. Magic Camp

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 … Continue reading Day 35. Climbing Again

Mile 602 - Summerhaven To Mile 620 - Stealth Fall, again Leaving the top of My. Lemmon felt like going back in time. We were in a pine forest with peak fall colors. There were sounds of a flowing stream and birds chirping in the trees. It is difficult to comprehend that yesterday we were … Continue reading Day 34. Descending Mt. Lemmon

Mile 589 - Stealth To Mile 602 - Summerhaven We waited until we could see sun shining on the tent before venturing out this morning. It was cold, but we quickly warmed up as we hiked the rest of the way up Mt. Lemmon. It was a fun hike in the snow and bright sunshine. … Continue reading Day 33. Hiker Trash

Mile 571 - Stealth To Mile 589 - Stealth Today we leave the low desert for the first sky island heading southbound: Mt. Lemmon. The top is around 8000' elevation where we'll be back in pine forest. The extreme amount of diversity in such a small area makes this section special. We've been looking forward … Continue reading Day 32. Clouds on the Horizon