Hi everyone… I’m right now with John in Oracle, and were thinking of road walking to the gila river on road 77 insted of hiking the trail. Would we be missing anything(except for carrying a heavy food and water laiden backpack) in this section? road walking sounds like a much nicer option.
Hope for a quick reply as I’ll be leaving the library soon…
roni
The trail north of oracle to the Gila should have a lot of wildflowers this time of year. You’ll get the worst part (in my opinion the pipeline road) in the beginning, but it’s only nine miles long and does eventually end. I hiked those passages around this time last year and I enjoyed it.
Sirena
wish we could help you out with an answer to your question!..(you’ve probably already been ‘nudged’ off that computer at the library by now, though,)…but we just wanted to send along good wishes for your hike and a ‘hello’ from us to john as well…happy hiking!..maw and paw
maw-ee (and paw-ee, too)
The Tortilla mnts right before the Gila are actually quite nice and the boulder section after the Freeman water cache is fun and easy. So I agree with Sirena, the only real bad part is that pipeline rd and after that it’s actually quite pretty.
Apple Pie
My wife and I are in superior, just got done with the sonoran section and it was spectacular. Yeah, you have to carry water, but this is arizona right? Even the dreaded 9 mile pipeline road was nice. OK, it got over 100 degrees for our last 3 days, but road walk instead of the trail. Oh my goodness.
Enjoy the azta. 300 miles down, 500 to go!
Brian Sweet
brian sweet
Images of the pipeline road, hikers in rapture pressing on over the next rise, never did make it into the lovely coffee table picture book, “Along the Arizona Trail.” Selective harvesting, I guess.
That’s the spirit, though. And actually, the Sonoran desert persists, on and off, all the way beyond Roosevelt Lake, along the shores of which some of the densest stands of saguaros grow.
blisterfree
Hi guys. A buddy of mine and I are planning a hike from Oracle to the Gila river this February. Does anyone know how well the actual trail meshes with the route in Tom Jones’ official guide book? I think there have been some changes but none listed on the AZTA website. Anyother advice about this section? Problems with the so-called hostile ranchers? Love that trail!
houli
Houli - I believe Oracle to Putnam Wash / Beehive Well is ~accurately described in the guide. Most of the route changes not covered in the guide occur from Beehive Well to the Gila River. Have a look at the Grand Enchantment Trail website description for GET sections 4 and 5, which coincide with the AZT in this stretch. This info is current. The description is written for GET eastbound hikers, which is southbound for AZT’ers. You may be able to ‘mentally reverse’ these or at least plot the approx. route onto maps (or download the ATA map data and plot that, if you’re an organization member).
http://www.simblissity.net/get/guide.shtml
No hostile ranchers that I know of!
blisterfree
I only had one major issue in that stretch last year, and that was finding the nice new trail into Ripsey Wash. Don’t follow the guidebook there. I went back with a trail crew a few weeks later and helped work on the signage. Unless cattle have broken the posts, it should be easy enough to follow now with the official guide.
It was a little hard to follow around Antelope Butte near Freeman Road, too, but it’s easy enough to navigate with the Butte in sight. It’s a good thing cattle don’t build cairns.
Hostile ranchers? You’ll be lucky to see anyone in there.
PS: If you cache water at Freeman Road, be sure to pack out your empties.
Garlic
Thanks for the replies. I’ll check out the GET website and reverse the directions…if only I were dyslexic! I’ve enjoyed reading the Arizona Trail journal entries some of you guys have on trailjournals.com, inspiring! I have been seciton hiking the trail for a couple years now but wish I could dedicate a larger chunk of time to it…but I can’t complain, it’s good to get out when I do!
houli
Some of the great things on these sections, as I remember, were all the gambel quail jumping up and the bees at Beehive well (well named). I’m glad to hear Garlic fixed that part going into Ripsey Wash because I had to use a compass to find my way in from the power line to catch the well constructed trail down to the wash.
Westbrook