Sunday November 12, 35.2km/21.9mi

Below Silver Bell Peak (46.2/2250ft) to Base of West Silver Bell Mountain (67.8/1980ft) (AZ) +0.25mi Silverbell #2 Guzzler

With less than 11 hours of daylight each day, we are starting and ending in the dark. The positive side is that we get to see the sunrise and sunset every day.

After 10 minutes, we turned off our headlamps and walked in a little wash.

This section the trail is heading almost due west, so we got to see the east faces of the peaks light up in sunrise orange.

After an hour we came to our first water source for the day, the Silverbell guzzler #1. As usual, camping is prohibited near the water sources, so hikers don’t scare away wildlife.

There were two tanks at this guzzler, and the first one was dry.

Fortunately the second one had about three inches of water in the bottom, but it also had some skeletal remains of a small critter.

After filtering a couple liters of water, we hiked on a cross country section for an hour. We met up to another small dirt road, where there was an ancient dilapidated windmill.

The temperatures got pretty warm as the morning went on, but fortunately it was flat easy walking.

We also had really good views of Ragged Top peak.

Just before lunch there was some really enjoyable hiking in a wash, and it was a really nice wash without soft sand or any brush.

During our lunch stop I was remarking on how we hadn’t seen any snakes yet on this hike. And a few minutes after we left from lunch I spotted my first snake on the WTH. It was just a tiny snake, maybe only 1.5ft / 50cm long.

We followed a perfectly straight dirt road all afternoon, and it got pretty hot. I could see the west of Silverbell mountains all afternoon. They were our objective for the end of the day.

Towards the end of the day we were on a 2 mile long xc section, when I came across a bunch of trash in a wash. Taking a closer look, I realized it was a bunch of discarded stuff from migrants… Backpacks, water bottles, batteries, coins.

Our next water source was really good, and the tank (in this case a tractor tire) was full of pretty clear water.

There was another water source in only a mile, but it’s hard to be certain it would contain water. We got to that water source, Silverbell mountains guzzler #2, it only had a little bit of water. But it also had a really cool mural painted on the concrete apron.

We hiked for another 30 minutes after the last water source to find a spot to camp.

As usual, the sunset was pretty epic.

It was a little tricky to find a flat spot, but eventually we succeeded and set up our tents just after dark.