Patagonia AZ is the quintessential image of a small southwest town. Pick-up trucks driven by men with handlebar mustaches and cowboy hats, give you a proper stare down as they drive by.
We did not spend a lot of time there, aside from a quick breakfast and stop for some much needed IBuprofen. We are doing everything we can to limit our contact with people.
What followed was a pretty unremarkable road walk out of Patagonia. Dogs barked at us as we passed by, and the sun continued to get hotter.
We were heading strait towards a rather large looking peak. The paved road soon gave way to hard rocky dirt – our feet rolling over loose red gravel. The houses turned into dry grassy fields, and cows mooed at us as we went by.
Up and up and up. We were passed by several off-road locals, all of whom gave us a hearty wave and courteously slowed down to avoid splattering us with mud.
That large peak kept getting closer and closer. My jokes about how we were going strait over it were no longer that funny. By 4:00 pm it became clear we would be getting to camp in the dark.
In theory, while thru hiking you should be able to set up camp along trail whenever it starts to get dark (Following Leave No Trace guidelines on minimum impact camping). This is far from true on the Arizona Trail.
Between the spiky prickly plants, steep slopes, cow patties, and limited water sources finding a good camping spot takes some preparation.
Vance was having a lot of knee pain, and we had slowed down a lot. But the sunset over the mountains was spectacular, and I didn’t mind pulling out my headlamp for the decent into camp.
We limped in around 8:00, to what was possibly the best campsite on the entire trail. Beautiful trees, a gushing crystal clear water source, and zero cow patties. High class luxury.
We were sure to set up our tents 200 ft away from the stream to allow wildlife access, and set up our tents on the pre-existing dirt tent sites.