DWTH Day 16: Bound for Buckeye

Daily Miles: 17.7, Total Miles: 242.1

Last night and early this morning I must have seen and disposed of 20 spiders crawling around my tent. Must be a hatch going on in this wash. I should mention my tent zippers have crapped out and I can’t completely close it up.

Probably not the smartest move but I was up early, headlamp on, and bushwhacking my way up and over the North Maricopa Mountains near Margie’s Peak. I slowly got up to the top without incident although discovered I went higher than I really needed to. At the crest, my chargeable headlamp lost all charge so I had to wait until it lightened up enough to pick my down the other side.

I joined a wash at the bottom and soon came across a bowl of dog food and a water bowl with no one else around. About a mile down the wash an ATV approached and the driver asked if I had seen a dog. The dog, a 5-yr old Silver Lab had wandered off from a campsite a few days previously. I got his name and number and kept on the watch for miles but no sighting.

After filtering and filling up water bottles at a wildlife guzzler (two troughs with a few feet of water), I used a combination of primitive roads, x-country and trails for the rest of the North Maricopa Mountains Wilderness and eventually into the Buckeye Hills. I finished Section 2 of the DWTH at the Robbins Butte Wildlife Area.

For the first time in all my hikes, I “ubered” into my next resupply town, Buckeye AZ. I had heard there were a few drivers and didn’t feel like hitching – I also needed to get to the PO before they closed.

Once at the hotel I moved as little as possible but managed to take a wonderful shower, wash my clothes and order a pizza and salad for delivery.

After this long haul, I am looking forward to a Zero Day and giving various body parts a chance to recover.

New birds today: Ash-coated Flycatcher and a Rock Wren.