Thursday May 16, 23.0mi/37.0km

Wilford Canyon (222.2/6760ft) to Williams Ranch Bdy (245.2/6600ft) (Arizona)

I left my camp at 6am, and apparently I had camped in a damp meadow, so I would be needing to dry out my tent at lunch. As soon as I hiked uphill out of the shaded meadow, the day warmed quickly.

Pretty much the whole day I hiked up on a Mesa/plateau, there was barely any elevation change. I passed by several of these guzzlers today, they are designed to catch and store water for wildlife, but they also come in handy for hikers too.

And of course there were also a few of these storage ponds as well, they all looked quite silty, and I would only drink from them as a last resort.

In this one part of the forest someone had come through and spray-painted half the trees with an orange stripe, I presume this means they are to be cut down. It looked kind of ugly with all the paint.

But mostly it was just a nice hike through the forest.

A couple times an hour, I would come across a surprised pack of wild horses. Usually it would be a couple of Mares with a couple of young horses, probably yearlings. I was following the General Crook Trail most of the day, which was marked by these white metal chevrons on the trees.

At lunchtime I stopped at another guzzler and refilled my water bottles.

There just happened to be an employee there from Arizona Game and fish, who was refilling the tank from his truck.

Rusty was a nice guy and we ended up talking for almost half an hour about all the different animals that live around here, like antelope and elk. And apparently all these horses are becoming quite over-populated, and the Forest Service is coming up with a plan to reduce them. After he left, I went back to eating my lunch.

The afternoon was relatively uneventful, I passed by more of those gross looking ponds.

I spent hours just walking down old dirt roads, and seeing wild horses.

Yup, not every day is exciting, but it was nice to just walk in the nice weather.

Around 3pm I took a break and joined a meeting call. I’m on the advisory board for a winter education program, and we meet a few times a year to organize the “Winter Mountaineering School”. I sat in the shade as we reviewed spreadsheets, budgets, and other details. Fun!

My phone battery was running low, so I had to leave the meeting early and I continued hiking down the trail. I saw a few strange things, like the stair stringer.

And this pile of bones somebody had placed in the middle of the trail.

As the shadows lengthened later in the afternoon, I enjoyed the shade of a Ponderosa forest.

And the unusual lighting of the sun hitting the tops of the junipers.

Around 6pm I stopped and found a place to camp, as I knew the next mile or so would be passing by a private ranch. Up at this elevation, it’s not hard to find a decent camp spot in the Ponderosa forest.