Day 2 - Flagstaff to Phoenix

Today did not come off as smoothly as planned but nonetheless we still had a good time. Last night when we arrived in Flagstaff it was snowing. There wasn't a big accumulation on the ground but as the temperatures dropped ice began forming on streets, sidewalks and in parking lots. Getting our things from the car into the hotel proved to be a bit slippery. Thankfully we didn't have any problems. We hoped that this morning we would not have any problems on the road as we made our way south. As usual we were up early, we got dressed and organized and the loaded up the car. We then had a bit of breakfast at the restaurant before heading out. By 7:15am we were on the road to Sedona. We usually take AZ89A from I17 but as this road goes through a canyon with lots of trees shading the road we thought it might still be icy this morning so we drove a little further south on I17 and then exited onto AZ179 - this took us north into Sedona. We drove through town and turned onto Schnebley Hill Road and parked in the lot for the Huckaby Trail #161. Back in April 2014 I had hiked this trail and attempted to fine Azroadie's Quercus letterbox. The clues said to look for a bench on the right but after hiking for about an hour the only bench I saw was on the left. So I returned to that bench and tried to follow the clues for the box but kept coming up empty handed. The next day I talked to Azroadie about the trail and told him about the bench being on the opposite side and that the clues didn't seem to lead to the box. The next week he went to Sedona and checked on the box. He realized that the trail had been rerouted and changed. So he reworked the clues for the renovated trail and let me know that he had updated them.

View from Huckaby Trail #161, Sedona, AZ

So when I planned this trip I knew I wanted to return to this trail and get this box - 1) because it is an Azroadie box and 2) the views from this trail are magnificent. So after parking and getting our supplies Thomas and I hit the trail. You leave the parking area and walk on a pretty level trail for a bit and then it gradually dips down into wash and then you climb back up on the opposite side. I guess it took us about 10 minutes to reach the bench. And the new clues were spot on and we easily found the box - I thought back to last year and realized I was no where near the box. We stamped in and enjoyed the early morning solitude and the views. Now that this box had been logged we returned to the car to continue with our day. As we left the parking area a light and message popped up on the dash letting us know that the rear passenger tire was low on air. So we stopped at the first gas station and filled that tire and checked the other three. Once they were all to the normal pressure and the message had disapphttp://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/prescott/recreation/horseriding-camping/recarea/?recid=67313&actid=104eared we filled the car with gas and got back on the road sometime around 10:20am.

We retraced our drive along AZ179 back to I17 where we continued our drive south. The drive to Prescott and then a quick stop at CVS for some allergy meds took us about an hour and forty-five minutes getting us to the trail head at about noon. We parked in the lot for the Salida Gulch Trail #95 where we were going to search for the last four boxes in the Fallen Heroes - Granite Mountain Hotshots series placed by SnakeDoctor back in July 2013. I had hiked this loop with Mark & Sue Pepe on Friday, April 4, 2014 where we found the first 17 boxes (the last four had not been placed yet). So on this trip I wanted to get the remaining boxes. When planning to look for these boxes I had looked at the trail map and decided that I didn't want to hike the entire loop again and decided we would take the loop clockwise which would get us to the boxes in a third of the time. We left the parking lot and started on the trail where we passed through a gate and then we came upon an intersection. I remembered we went counter-clockwise last year so I told Thomas we needed to go the other way. Here is where all my planning just evaporated away. We started along the trail and it steadily kept climbing up and up. As we walked I looked for the landmarks in the clues but nothing fit and nothing look like the last time I had hiked the trail. But we continued on thinking we just hadn't gotten to the right spot. After about an hour or so of hiking we came upon a trail marker that said Trail #9263. I looked and Thomas and told him I had royally screwed up - we were on the completely wrong trail. So we headed back down the trail and got to the intersection where we started - here I noticed a trail marker for Trail #9263 and a little ways from that marker I saw the marker for Trail #95. I looked at my watch and saw that it was coming up on 2:00pm. We had hiked for a little over two hours and had nothing to show for it but tired legs (it wasn't a complete loss because we got quite a bit of exercise - about five miles of exercise). I really didn't want to leave without finding these boxes because I wasn't sure when I would have time to return to Prescott to find them later. I decided to just go for it and Thomas decided to find a spot near the intersection and wait for me. Before I left that area I read the clue for the last box and realized it was about ten feet away from where we were standing - so I grabbed the box and stamped in - and Thomas replaced it for me and I headed up the trail for the other three boxes. I read the clues and made a mental note of the landmarks that I needed to look for. As I was working backwards I had to adjust right and left, east and west, etcetera. Shortly I came upon a landmark of a mutli-trunked tree cradling its fallen neighbor. I checked at the base and found the box - this meant that I had missed a landmark somewhere along the trail for one of the boxes.

Petroglyphs along the Salida Gulch Trail #95, Prescott, AZ

I quickly stamped in to the box I found and replaced it and decided to continue up the trail for the next box. This one was a quick and easy find as it was only a short distance from the box I had just found and it was hidden near a rock outcropping that contained some petroglyphs. I didn't want to waste too much time so I stamped in quickly, replaced the box and took a few pictures and then started back to the beginning of the trail. But as I walked back I needed to find this one last landmark and box. The clue stated that this one could be tricky as I was looking for a 4 to 6 inch tall stump with three X's on it. I had missed it on my initial pass up the trail so I walked a bit slower and kept looking. Since I was concentrating on the landmark I hadn't realized that I was arriving at the starting point and I had again missed the stump. I wasn't about to leave without a complete set of this series - so I told Thomas I need to try one more time (thankfully the trail was pretty level and it wasn't that far. This time I kept my head down looking on the left side of the trail for this stump - I also moved along a bit slower than before. About half way from the start of the trail to the petroglyphs the darn stump jumped right out at me - I felt really silly that it took me three passes to find it as it seemed so obvious now. Five minutes later I had stamped in, replaced the box and was heading back to the car having found ALL the boxes. At the car I checked the time - 3:20pm. I calculated the drive time from Prescott to Phoenix and immediately knew I wasn't going to be able to get the remaining two boxes that I had so carefully planned out to get today. One of the boxes is in Phoenix and one was near Florence (which was planned as a major detour - I needed this box to satisfy my Arizona 15 award for Pinal County). All the other county boxes that I needed were along the route I had planned for this trip to complete Azroadie's Arizona 15 and Squatchis' Arizona Counties series. And since we had planned and booked a hotel in Phoenix for the night I knew that it would be easier to get the box there in the morning since that is where we were starting our day tomorrow. So we left Prescott sometime around 3:30pm headed down AZ69. We took this road until it merged into I17 south to Phoenix. As we got into the Phoenix area the Garmin had us exit onto AZ101 Loop - up until this point everything seemed as though we could get to Florence and find the box before darkness set in - boy was I wrong!!! As soon as we merged onto AZ101 the traffic completely backed up. The Garmin had originally told us that our arrival time in Florence would be 5:20pm. The traffic along AZ101 moved at a snail's pace and eventually we exited onto US60 which was no better than the road we had just been on. So we crept along and just past Mesa the traffic began to clear and soon we were traveling along at the speed limit. I checked the Garmin and now it was telling us our arrival time in Florence would be 6:10pm - a whopping 50 minutes later. At this point we both knew that we would be finding this box in the dark. Thankfully we had three flashlights with us. As we made our way into Florence we followed the clues for Azroadie's Olneya box. We finally arrived at the pullout along AZ79 (the Pinal Pioneer Parkway) near mile marker 118. The clue had you park in the pullout and walk down a short road and then turn right. We decided to just drive the short road and use the headlights to help us find the box. This worked out perfectly - we quickly found the box and I stamped in while sitting in the car. After replacing the box we backed out to the pullout and I reset the Garmin for our hotel in Phoenix. The directions took us back up AZ79 and then to AZ79 Business Loop. From there we took AZ287 to AZ387 to I10. A 45 minute drive later we pulled up to the hotel. We checked in and got our things into the room and realized that we hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. Thankfully there was a Rudy's Bar-B-Q just across the parking lot from the hotel. That suited us just fine and after sharing a 1/2 pound of turkey and a 1/2 pound of brisket we were hungry no more.

Finally we are settled and have tweaked our plans for tomorrow everything is again hunky-dory. Our plan for tomorrow is to get to Lake Havasu by way of Yuma - I know that is not the best route. But remember this trip is about completing the County series. I still need a Maricopa county for Squatchis and I need Yuma, La Paz and Mohave counties for both Azroadie and Squatchis. Thankfully we have more time since none of the boxes we are looking for tomorrow are on long hikes. So I don't foresee any issues in getting the boxes I need and still making it to Lake Havasu at a reasonable time. But I will let you know if things go hinky (I love this word - Abby on NCIS uses it all the time, so now I am adopting it) again. Today was an adventure and we had a great time even if it didn't go exactly as planned.   

Today's Stats . . .
Starting Time: 7:15am; Ending Time: 8:30pm
Total Time for the Day = 13 hours 15 minutes
Miles Driven = 321
Roads Taken: I27 ➛ AZ179 ➛ AZ169 ➛ AZ69 ➛ AZ101 Loop ➛ US60 ➛ AZ79 ➛ AZ287 ➛ AZ387 ➛ I10
Weather: Cold → Sunshine  → Warm
Temperatures: AM ▸ Flagstaff = 26°; Noon ▸ Prescott = 50°; PM ▸ Phoenix = 59°
Letterboxes Found = 6; Letterboxes Attempted = 6