Thursday November 2, 40.9km/25.4mi

Octagonal Water Tank (505.6/3700ft) to Mineral Creek (531.0/1760ft) (AZ)

It was a warm morning and we got moving at 6am. The saguaro cactuses have a creepy silhouette in the predawn light.

In a few more minutes the sky got a little lighter…

And then I rounded a bend, and there were heaps of saguaro cacti backlit by the rising Sun.

We spent all morning gradually descending down to the Gila River, sometimes following old dirt roads to get there.

It was funny and a little sad to see a giant saguaro cactus collapsed across the trail, like a fallen tree.

Some of the rock formations looked really spectacular in the low angle morning light.

It was a peaceful uneventful morning, as the trail contoured down the ridgelines.

I came across a big old butte!

During one of my morning breaks, I sat down at a little junction and a curious cow just hung out nearby.

We kept on continuing downhill all the way until lunch.

Once we arrived at the Gila River, it felt very hot and there wasn’t any shade either.

There was even an official marker for the lowest point on the entire Arizona trail!

We stopped for lunch at a shady spot that had some river access so we could refill our water bottles.

The water tasted a little salty, even after filtering it, so I wasn’t excited to be drinking it all afternoon. We were joined at our lunch spot by two other hikers, Lil John and Heiko. After lunch it was a very hot afternoon hiking along the Gila River.

Even though we were near the river, we never really had access to the water, which was a little annoying.

For most of the afternoon, it was just expansive views of the Gila River valley and hundreds of saguaro cacti.

Eventually the trail descended back down next to the river where there was some shade.

TopShelf caught up, and we took a small shortcut along some railroad tracks.

It was easy flat walking, much preferred to the pointless climb over a hill that the trail would take. Amazingly, we saw a javelina walking along the tracks in front of us.

We hiked along until dark, and then stopped at a water spigot to fill our bottles and to look for camping. Suddenly a car pulled over to the side of the road dropping off another hiker, and he offered us a ride into the town of Kearny. He even agreed to give us a ride back to the trail in an hour, so we accepted his generous offer. Ten minutes later, we were at Old Time Pizza!

After a couple slices of pizza, a few root beers, and some chicken tenders, I finished off the glorious meal with a sherbet ice cream cone.

After we got dropped off back to the trail at 8pm, we set up our tents in a little gravel wash and pretty instantly fell asleep.