I did it. I hiked the Arizona Trail

 I did it. I hiked the Arizona Trail — all the way to Utah — and I’m still in one piece (more or less).

The Arizona Trail is about 1,300 km / 800 miles across the entire state of Arizona. I started in the south, hiked north, and crossed deserts, mountains, forests, and places that absolutely should not be walked through by humans. I got sunburned, frozen, sandblasted, snowed on, rained on, and at one point I think I was being held together by snacks and spite.

There were days in the beginning where it was well over 38°C / 100°F and I was just melting. Later I was literally hiking through frost and snow. Same trail. Same body. Completely different planet.

Feet status: chaos. I had blisters on both heels, taped-up toes, and at one point a toenail just left the job and resigned. I tried to keep my shoes alive longer than they wanted to live, and my feet had opinions about that. I was limping, bargaining with my socks, and inventing new walking styles. Still kept moving.

Mileage got stupid. I had multiple 30+ mile / 48+ km days. I pushed long, hard days over and over just to make water, hit town, or outrun weather. And I’ve done 40+ miles / 64+ km in a single day before, which is just ridiculous. That’s not hiking anymore, that’s a lifestyle choice.

Flagstaff was a big mental checkpoint. I crawled in basically held together by tape and stubbornness, swapped shoes, got food, tried to recover, and then immediately walked back out into cold wind and endless forest. The forest sections were honestly kind of miserable for me. Miles and miles of trees, no views, just wind and dust. Other hikers thought it was beautiful. I was like: “Cool. More trees. Great. Trees.”

And then: the Grand Canyon.

Walking into Grand Canyon National Park after already hiking hundreds of miles felt unreal. Sunrise on the canyon walls, the first huge views — total “what am I even looking at” energy. I got myself a backcountry permit so I could camp down in the canyon at Cottonwood and make it this perfect romantic thru-hiker moment. That was the plan. Reality: I sat around up at the campground in the park and got bored. It was way too early in the day to stop, I wasn’t tired yet, and I didn’t want to just sit there in a tent doing nothing. So I ditched the plan, shouldered the pack, and kept hiking instead. No campground nap fantasy. Just forward.

Climbing out of that area and heading north, you’d think it would get easier. No. Northern Arizona threw wind, mud, random snow, and weird temperature swings at me. But it also finally opened up into the big, wide country up near Utah. The closer I got, the more it felt like the finish line was real.

The final push was intense. I was doing big miles / big km days, barely stopping to eat, hiking through on-and-off rain and just grinding forward. And then finally, the trail opened up. The forest dropped away. Red canyon country started showing itself. The horizon stopped being just trees and suddenly looked like possibility. I could feel it: this was the endgame.

And then I saw it — the northern terminus at the Utah border. That little monument, that sign, after 1,300 km / 800 miles, hit harder than I expected. Instant rush of “holy hell, I actually did this.” My legs were wrecked, my feet were destroyed, my clothes smelled like they’d died weeks ago, and I was still stupidly happy. I touched the sign and it was this mix of relief, pride, disbelief, and pure joy. Arizona Trail: DONE.

After that it switched straight into thru-hiker survival mode. The trail ends basically in the middle of nowhere, so I immediately had to think about getting out, getting food, and getting to town. No clean socks left, brain running on low battery, doing logistics on the side of a dirt road. That’s thru-hiking: you finish something huge, and five minutes later you’re hitchhiking like a wizard with a broken map.

So yeah. I walked across Arizona. Desert, heat, cold, snow, forest, canyon, and all the miles in between. I’m proud of this one.

I filmed the whole thing. Every day, all the way from the southern border to Utah, through the Grand Canyon, through the blisters, through the “what am I doing with my life” moments, through the “holy **** this is beautiful” moments. I’m working on the videos now. It’s going to take a while, partly because editing is a lot of work and partly because I’ve gotten lazy and I like sitting down.

Stay tuned. Trailhunger is not dead yet.