That’s it! Finito! Stateline Arizona/Utah reached on April 21st around noon. Though I am happy to be there it doesn’t feel as magical as the end of the PCT, not as epic or life-changing. Which is good haha, cause that much of an excitement is exhausting. Besides the fact there is no nicely looking northern terminus at the end of the AZT, we are also in the middle of nowhere and have no idea or arrangements on how to get out of there. So the adventure is not over yet.
You wanna know what happened in between though?
We left Grand Canyon Village on a Sunday with a permit for two nights in the canyon, one at Bright Angel Campground and another one at Cottonwood Campground. Another fellow hiker named Argonaut got a 6-people permit for both campgrounds and let us subscribe to his permit. 5000 feet lower in this giant crack it was warm and we happily, at least me, soaked up the sun and warmth, hanging out at the beach near Bright Angel Creek. Carried out a blueberry pie and some beers made that time truly feel like holidays.
Without any rush, we left Bright Angel only late afternoon towards Cottonwood Campground. Another warm night there made it easy to get up at 5:30 am and hike up the North Kaibab trail and through the part-time trail closure at Red Wall Bridge before 8 am.
The trail on the north rim as expected was covered in snow and as many other hikers we decided to road-walk this section – the road, closed to the public until May parallels the trail most of the time. One more time on this trail we saw storm clouds rolling in and got ready for stealth-camp in a stairway of a closed down building to hide from severe weather.
After all this, especially the Grand Canyon it couldn’t get any spectacular, the rest was homework. The bonus we earned for doing the homework though was to get one ride all the way from page to Flagstaff and because of this ride being able to see Horseshoe bend which I was talking about for days.
And this is the point to say thank you to all the supporters, trail angels and friendly people along this trip. You guys made it that great experience!
Hmm, now what? There will be some things and more trails coming up ;)…Stay tuned.
