Days 42 & 43. Part 1. April 11 & 12. Mile 556 to Mile 565 to mile 3.6 on Flagstaff urban trail

Days 42 & 43. Tues. April 11 & Wed. April 12. 

Day 11, Mile 556, elev. 7210 ft, to Mile 565 (junction with Flagstaff urban trail), elev. 6622, to Mile 3.6, elev. 6807, on Flagstaff Urban Trail. (Then by car to home of trail angels Tim and Melody Varner). Walked 12.6 miles. Too confusing to figure out up, down and grade. 😏 

Day 12, zero miles, zero ft up and down, total grade zero. 

Dear Trail Friends 

My morning walk started beautifully in the well-lit, almost full moon, pre-dawn dark. I got to watch the sun rise on my right and the moon set on my left (photos 1 and 2). Not quite as spectacular as moonrise and sunset the night before but still a privilege and a joy to walk through and ponder the beauty and mystery of being in this world. Accidental or by design, the beauty around us is astounding. 

 

 

After planning a 20+ mile walk for Tuesday, so I could arrive in Flagstaff on Tuesday and have a whole day of rest and zero miles Wednesday, I found myself having a very weak, tired day. Stumbling and fumbling and shaky, I planned extra rest stops and negotiated with my body about doing a shorter day (and missing the longed for day of rest). It wasn't clear to me whether delayed gratification about rest was in the best interests of my well-being. I pretty much capitulated to the immediate need for rest. 

Then at Mile 9 or so I reach the split in the trail between the official AZT and the Flagstaff urban alternate. The urban alternate is 13.7 miles shorter - sounds good to me!!! I realize I am not clear which trail Melody Varner (trail angel) plans to meet me at - both intersect Highway 40. I try to call her but no coverage. I see that the highway 40 crossing is only 3.6 miles further on the urban alternate, but on the official route it is 11.7 miles further. 

Guess which route I chose? And lucky lucky me, it turned out to be the intersection with I-40 that Melody had in mind, where the trail passes directly by Sam's club and Taco Bell. Photo 3 shows the urban "trail" - by the way, the peaks I have been enchanted by are the San Francisco Peaks, according to a man I met on the trail/street. I was in distinct civilization shock (roads, buildings, cars, people, oh my!) and deep exhaustion and sat down at Taco Bell with a cup of coffee to wait for Melody. 

 

Melody met me with a hug and I soon realized I had entered the heavenly kingdom of trail angel kindness. Melody and Tim, both former ultra runners (like running the Grand Canyon from south rim to north rim and back again in one day) whose bodies no longer support that particular form of abuse, got into hosting runners from other countries in their running days. When Gabe Zimmerman (whom they knew since he was a small child) was killed in the 2011 Tucson shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, it became important to Gabe's parents that people remember their son. His mother is now head of the Arizona Trail Association. Part of the impetus for many people who worked hard to complete the AZT as a thru-hikeable trail (including the portion that starts at the Gabe Zimmerman Trailhead and explicitly honors him) was to honor and remember him. This moves me deeply. I have tears in my eyes. It's as if this trail was partly conceived in tragedy, as a way of living with tragedy. And my little pilgrimage feels part of something much bigger. When Gabe's father suggested to Melody that she and Tim, who had already hosted runners, could be trail angels to thru hikers, she asked no questions. She just said yes. Okay. I have tears running down my face. Now I want to copy the poem on kindness from today's writers almanac. Is kindness the best answer we can give to the fact of tragedy in our lives? ( copying this poem turned out to be messy - blog to continued in days 42 & 43, part 2 - maybe kindness is always messy and that is why we spend our whole lives learning to practice kindness without attachment to outcome. 

Not merely because Henry James said there were but four rules of life— be kind be kind be kind be kind—but because it’s good for the soul, and, what’s more, for others; it may be that kindness is our best audition for a worthier world, and, despite the vagueness and uncertainty of its recompense, a bird may yet wander into a bush before our very houses, gratitude may not manifest itself in deeds entirely equal to our own, still there’s weather arriving from every direction, the feasts of famine and feasts of plenty may yet prove to be one, so why not allow the little sacrificial squinches and squigulas to prevail? Why not inundate the particular world with minute particulars? Dust’s certainly all our fate, so why not make it the happiest possible dust, a detritus of blessedness? Surely the hedgehog, furling and unfurling into its spiked little ball, knows something that, with gentle touch and unthreatening tone, can inure to our benefit, surely the wicked witches of our childhood have died and, from where they are buried, a great kindness has eclipsed their misdeeds. Yes, of course, in the end so much comes down to privilege and its various penumbras, but too much of our unruly animus has already been wasted on reprisals, too much of the unblessed air is filled with smoke from undignified fires. Oh friends, take whatever kindness you can find and be profligate in its expenditure: It will not drain your limited resources, I assure you, it will not leave you vulnerable and unfurled, with only your sweet little claws to defend yourselves, and your wet little noses, and your eyes to the ground, and your little feet. "Be Kind" by Michael Blumenthal from No Hurry. © Etruscan Press, 2012. Reprinted with permission. buy now)