{"id":304,"date":"2013-03-06T00:58:09","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T05:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/?p=304"},"modified":"2013-03-06T01:02:50","modified_gmt":"2013-03-06T06:02:50","slug":"made-my-decision-for-route-through-arizona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2013\/03\/made-my-decision-for-route-through-arizona\/","title":{"rendered":"Made my decision for route through Arizona…"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n\t\r\n\t

After quite a bit of study and fingernail biting, I have decided to deviate a bit from the Arizona Trail\/Great Western Trail<\/span>\u00a0for the first leg of my Mexico to Canada trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have decided to start my trip at the Mexican Border a little east of Douglas, Arizona. There is a road there called “International Avenue” that follows the border. Just east of Douglas is the San Bernardino National Wildlife Preserve, where I believe I can start my trip. I’m sure I won’t be able to travel through the preserve, as it is likely to be fenced in, but I should be able to get fresh water there and start my trip a bit east of the preserve.<\/p>\n

From there I will head north. It appears to be open range, so few or no fences. From Google Maps satellite view I can see there are water holes and ranches every so often, that I should be able to make it easily from one to the next. As long as I don’t miss too many, I should be fine. Departing in the early spring, there should be water in some of them and I can hit ranches as well. \u00a0That close to the border, I should be able to find well-traveled foot paths between water holes (haha!). I’ll hit I-10 at San Simon, where I’ll be able to cross under it at a bridged wash.<\/p>\n

I plan to go north by northeast to the Chiricahua mountains. As I get into the mountains from the southeast, I should be able to cut into the Sky Islands Traverse trail near it’s beginning. I will follow it north until I get near Mt. Graham, where I’ll turn east and pass south of Safford, picking up the Gila River and following it up to Morenci\/Clifton.<\/p>\n

I will continue past Morenci\/Clifton, following the Gila River, until it forks, then follow the Blue River north to the Blue Wilderness Area. I’ll take a break at a friend’s place there on the Blue for a few days, before taking Foote Creek Trail northwest to Hannigan’s Meadow.<\/p>\n

From Hannigan, I’ll do a combination of road-following, logging roads, and cross-country north to Eagar, where my folks live. I’ll take another break there to rest up the horses and resupply. I expect it will take me about three weeks to get this far.<\/p>\n

I expect I’ll pick up a couple family members there to ride with me a while. I’ve invited them to ride with me to either Show Low or Snowflake, depending on whether I decide to take the General Crook Trail to Camp Verde, or the old Mormon Honeymoon trail northwest, passing north of Flagstaff.<\/p>\n

Either way I go from Eagar, I’ll meet up with the Arizona Trail\/Great Western Trail at the end of that leg.<\/p>\n

Once I meet up with the AZT\/GWT, I’ll follow it north, resupply at Flagstaff, then on to the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n

I’m looking forward to crossing the Grand Canyon more than any other single portion of the trip. My dad and I have talked about crossing the Grand Canyon on our own mounts since I was in high school. I’ve invited him to accompany me on this leg of the trip. \u00a0In fact, he’s decided he wants to make as much of the trip as he physically can. He’ll be turning 81 about the time we reach the Grand Canyon.<\/p>\n

That will get us through Arizona. I estimate it will be a little over 800 miles. The AZT measures 801 miles from the Mexican Border near Nogales, to the Utah state line near Jacob’s Lake.<\/p>\n

Now that I’ve made those decisions, it will be a matter of collecting maps, researching the route more closely, making contacts, and finalizing the plans.<\/p>\n

\"Propsed<\/a>
Proposed route in red. Alternate in blue<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On the map, my proposed route is in red. The alternate route on the Mormon Honeymoon Trail is in blue. The Honeymoon Trail follows the Little Colorado River and much of it is on the Navajo Reservation, so that would require some special permissions. May not be able to do that route, but it would shorten the mileage a bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only four more states to figure out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After quite a bit of study and fingernail biting, I have decided to deviate a bit from the Arizona Trail\/Great Western Trail\u00a0for the first leg of my Mexico to Canada trip. I have decided to start my trip at the Mexican Border a little east of Douglas, Arizona. There is a road there called “International … Continue reading Made my decision for route through Arizona…<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-great-western-trail"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p33SNi-4U","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/westerntrailrider.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}