The Journey Continues

Hiking the Arizona Trail.

February 11, 2023 — It’s hard to believe that it’s already mid February, and this spring’s thru-hikers and pilgrims are preparing for their hikes and pilgrimages. The toenail I lost on the Arizona Trail last fall is almost all grown back. And there is still a spot on my right big toe that is numb.

I kind of like it. When I notice these two things, I remember. It takes me back to the trail.

I hiked the Arizona National Scenic Trail from mid-September to mid-November 2022. A bright half-moon shone through the mesh in my tent my first night on the trail, and then 800 miles later, another half-moon shone on my last night. I had planned to walk eight weeks, 100 miles a week, and that is just about what I did. Younger, faster thru-hikers moved twice that fast, hiking 25 to 30 miles a day, some even more. I planned for 15-18, hoping that eventually I could work my way up to 20 and more. The most I walked was 19 in one day, except I’m pretty sure I hiked 20 miles the very last day of hiking, but that was because I got lost earlier along the trail and added a few miles going in circles for an hour.

If you have followed my story, you know that the Arizona Trail is special to me. My father, Wil Passow, along with so many special volunteers, helped design and build the trail back in the 1990s. I actually came across a couple of people who remembered him back at the beginning of the formation of the Arizona Trail Association.

“Your dad convinced me to be a charter member of the ATA,” Just Retired told me in a facebook post.

One thing I have since learned, is that the old trail markers on the Coconino Plateau, those 4X4s with the wood-burned AZT icon, were put there by my dad to show where the trail would eventually go. Later on, when the AZT went to put in the updated trail signs and markers, they couldn’t get those original ones out because Dad installed them with cement, so they just left them.

I remember walking through that section of the trail and seeing the posts. I wished I had taken a selfie in that section.

Dad installing those 4X4s with cement, mid 1990s.

It’s hard to explain what being on the trail means. There were a couple of times, my fellow hikers and I met up with some hunters along the trail. It was fall, elk season, and those hunters treated us like celebrities. They gave us sandwiches and coffee and homemade jerky and candy bars and conversation. They wanted to know what it was like out there, how our legs were holding up, if the water sources were good.

All I can say is that being on the trail the most freedom I’ve ever felt. The people you meet on the trail, and the trail angels, they “get it.” They get why a person would want to be out in nature, sleep under the stars, get legs cut up by cat claw on a narrow cliff in the Mazatals.

Okay, I just re-read that last paragraph and I felt a lump rise in my throat. Here’s the thing. They may not always be able to articulate this, but hikers and trail angels and other folks you meet on the trail know in their deepest knowing why experiencing a sense of AWE is absolutely the ultimate motivation for life, love and giving back.

The challenge of the trail, maybe, is to be able to hold that sense of AWE with you when you return and your journey continues.