Sunday, April 21st, 2019
It’s Easter Sunday and we’re heading into Flagstaff today! We walked by the Lowell observatory, then continued on the single track trail through the pines with views of the San Francisco peaks along the way.
We made it to the Flagstaff Urban Trail which was less urban than I visualized it to be. However, it slowly did become urbanized as we got deeper into Flagstaff.
We’d walk along Route 66, which was part of the logging detour.
Once we got downtown, we were on a mission to locate Biff’s Bagels for coffee. When we were in Flagstaff during our road trip six years ago, we spent most of our mornings there.
One of the girls who worked there asked us if we were Arizona Trail hikers. She planned on giving us food for free after they got the long list of orders out of the way first. Once the crowd died down, she was surprised we only wanted coffee. She planned on hiking the AZT in September with her friend, who was hanging out in the cafe and joined us. He hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2017 like us, and went by the name General Hendrix. It was going to be her first thru hike, and he gave her the trail name Squirrel Pilot. We only talked briefly; they were minutes away from closing. But she exchanged numbers with us, promising us leftover bagels once she got off of work.
We hopped from outfitter to outfitter before walking over to REI, where General Hendrix happened to work. They’d catch up with us there soon after we finished browsing with a bag of bagels. That was super awesome of her!
We sat in the parking lot a while and talked about gear and trail experiences. General Hendrix was planning on getting a little more lightweight than he was on the AT, so he picked our brains on the topic. While we were chatting and eating bagels, Rosey popped up out of nowhere. He was done his section hike now that he was in Flagstaff, and he was waiting for his friend who lives here to pick him up. It was awesome to hang out with him one last time.
We said goodbye to Rosey and told Squirrel Pilot and Hendrix that we’d catch up later before walking to Whole Foods Market to charge our electronics and eat dinner. We wandered around town a while before hitting them up. They offered to drive us to a place to set up our tent and it was starting to get dark. When we saw her Subaru pull up to the red light, we dove in the car and they drove us to the National Forest right outside of town to camp. They were super rad people and we were grateful that we crossed paths.
13.0 miles (20.9 km)
Jump Ahead to The Arizona Trail: Part 30
Jump Back to The Arizona Trail: Part 28
Start from the Beginning
Stubbs Rambles On 