I stayed in Flagstaff for one zero day. I was really glad to be in town that day because the wind was intense. They were saying 60 mile an hour gusts. When I went outside the wind pushed me around. On top of that, at one point there was heavy hail. The whole time I was there I kept thinking “I really could use another zero day,” but I couldn’t afford to stay at the hotel, so I resigned myself to getting out the next day.

I was really tired, but I pushed myself to do the writing for the blogs which usually takes me about five hours when I’m in town. I felt half asleep when I was doing it and finally just said, “that’s all I can do.” I went to bed still thinking I really wanted to stay another day.

And then in the morning everything was different, reminding me I need to get better at staying in the present. The night before when I was ruing not being able to stay another day, I wish I had just focused on being grateful that in that moment when I didn’t feel like leaving, I didn’t need to.

I woke up around four and finished the last blog. I made arrangements for a ride to bring me back to the trail. Then I took a lovely bath with the bag of Epson salts Chaps left behind.

I’ve been to the Grand Canyon before and I’ve been looking forward to reaching it again on this trip. Once I left Flagstaff, the Grand Canyon was my next stop! It’s about 110 miles from Flagstaff to the canyon, with one big climb going up over the shoulder of Humphreys Peak. I figured it might take me six days so my back felt a little heavy with all that food and 2 quarts of water.

I could feel my little ones saying, “This is too hard. I don’t wanna do this. Whose idea was this,” but I remembered there have been other stretches where I have felt this way and that in reality I did want to do this. I knew that if I kept going just one step at a time, at some point, it would feel easier.

By the time I crossed the 600 mile mark, I was feeling less whiney and I made good time doing the over 20 miles to the water source where I intended to spend the night. Before heading off the trail to drop down to the cow pond. I looked at the app and saw that the next water was 3 1/2 miles away. After that it was around 22 miles to water. I decided to do something I had not really done on this trip. I resolved to push myself to do those 3 1/2 more miles. That way I would have the climb to over 9000 feet behind me and the walking on the next day would be shorter and pretty much all downhill. Also, I knew there would be some snow on the trail ahead of me and that if I hit it later in the day, it would be softer and less icy to cross. It might mean sinking in a little bit more, but it would not be as slippery to cross. so I shouldered my pack and headed on.

All of the water sources in this stretch were cow tanks or water collectors for wildlife. Most of these were green with some growth of algae. Some of them were downright brown with cow pies lining the side of the pond. But still, most of them were better than the water I had encountered in New Mexico on the continental divide trail. By the time I had those final 3 1/2 miles done I almost didn’t care what the quality of the water was as long as it was there. It turned out to be a pretty large, somewhat decent pond.

I got my water and started it filtering while I set up my tent. Then I settled in for what was to be a holy shit night leading to my two pie day, and an interaction with another hiker that while difficult, ended up a real miracle in the end. But those are stories for another blog.