AZT: Mormon Lake to Roadside Ditch

The stats:

We spent the night at the Mormon Lake RV and took showers and did laundry.  We only occasionally pay for a hook up as Arizona has lots of free dispersed camping, but we had stuff to do AND we were asking the folks here for a favor.  We want to leave our truck and camper while we hike to Flagstaff.  They generously consented and we took off hiking at twenty minutes to eight.   

We cheated the trail and hiked the Lake Mary road 2.75 miles to the Double Springs Campground.   This saved us from climbing back up the wet Navaho Springs Trail and we were quite happy to have dry feet all day.  Yes, there were small drifts of snow and muddy spots, but no water running down the trail.  It was easy peazy hiking and nine hours later we had gone 24 miles.   

We hiked along an old railroad grade through pine forests all morning.   It reminded us of our hike in the panhandle along the Florida Trail in 2019.   Only thing missing was alligators.   

We came upon this little reptile and I dubbed him alligator for the day. 

                         horned lizard

We made 12 miles by noon and soon climbed up onto a mesa where we found tanks (ponds) full of water that looked like cafe au lait, or diarrhea, take your pick.   Lol!   We had enough water for continuing on, so we did.   Our plan was to go to a lake up ahead, only it was quite a hike off the trail and to get to the water was through lots of mud- so we passed again.   

The shadows were getting long and we found this gorgeous water source.
A roadside ditch, perfect!   28 drops of part A and Part B of Aquamira and we had 4 liters of clean water.  Or so we hope.  

Bottoms Up!   Cheers.