Day Zero of the Arizona Trail

It was a very long day for what ended up being a zero day due to some “mistakes”! If you plan to hike this trail, learn from us! We started with arriving at the airport at 3:40am for our 5:40am flight in Indiana to start our epic journey! American Airlines first class food and service was excellent! We landed in Phoenix at 6:48am due to the time change (9:48 for our Indiana followers)! With a 2 hour layover we just hiked around the airport, after all, we needed to move! Our flight left at 8:48 Phoenix time and landed in Flagstaff at 9:39 (short flight on a small plane)! Now the journey gets to begin….so we thought!

We reserved a car from Enterprise to get us from Flagstaff to the northern terminus. Upon reserving days prior, we were mislead! Our reservation couldn’t be found! However, they found us a vehicle but WE WOULD HAVE TO RETURN IT verses it being picked up like we were originally told. This wouldn’t work for us! So new plan in place!

Uber to the rescue, well at least for the next 10 minutes. They took us to the shipping company so we could mail back our suitcase. On a plane you can’t check your backpacks because of the straps and they are too big to be considered a carryon. So we condensed to a hard suitcase then took all our important stuff and put it in duffle bags to carry on with intentions of just mailing it all back. We unloaded the bags and packed our backpacks on the sidewalk (looking like a couple crazy homeless people) then took it in to mail it. It was going to be $186 to mail the suitcase back the cheapest way possible! The suitcase cost $100, I said forget it and let’s donate it! They had a Goodwill in the town that a nice gentleman in the shipping company drove us to!

A nice coffee shop was connected to the Goodwill (formerly a Barnes and Noble), so we decided to enjoy a burrito with some type of tea and coffee (it had special names they gave it) as we hashed out a new plan.

We checked the Uber and Lyft which was going to cost about as much as our flight! Local taxis and shuttles only went around town. So we moved back to calling and getting prices from the list of shuttle companies from the AZT website. Unfortunately, (several didn’t answer or were no longer in business) we finally found one who could pick us up the following day! The cost was $747! Yes, you read that right! This was our cost but we were stuck at this point, so we agreed.

Next we needed a place to stay for the night. We found a Drury Inn not far so we hiked over and got a room. After tax the price was around $177 a night. The hotel offered hot tub, pool, dinner, breakfast, and three drinks for each guest. It was clean and the people were friendly. We dropped our bags and started hiking to the REI in town to find the things the plane wouldn’t allow like a knife, lighter, and fuel! We found everything and was set as far as gear! We found a little Mongolian place to eat that was pretty good and right next to REI!

Once back at the hotel we enjoyed our three free drinks and we went to bed! It was 8:00 Phoenix time.

Starting the journey at the airport!