Day 10: April 3, 2023
AZT mile 132.8 to 150.5
Hiked today: 17.7 miles / 28.5 km
AZT ascents today: 1843m , descents: 773m
AZT hiked to date: 18.9%

We had agreed last night to aim for an early start this morning and we managed to be up before the sun and started hiking at 6 am. First was an easy creek crossing on logs but unfortunately one of my new hiking poles fell apart midstream. Rob managed to strap it up with tape and so far it has held together.

Pretty much straight away, we started to climb, and the gradient became steeper as the day grew hotter. It was beautiful though as we hiked through a saguaro forest filled with wildflowers. As we had mentioned before, we were faced with an 18-mile hike with a 6000-foot elevation gain.

When we stopped to get water at a campground, we were greeted by park rangers who wanted to see our park entry permits. They asked if we planned to camp in the National Park and we explained that we had been unable to get camping permits so were planning to hike over the mountain and camp outside the far park boundary. We found out that nearly all the other hikers were planning to do the same thing.

A few hikers that passed us told us that they had seen a Gila monster walking along the path this morning. We were not so fortunate and contented ourselves with seeing beautiful wildflowers and a tiny gecko.

After a long steep climb with many short breaks to drink water, we finally made it to the top of Mica Mountain and hastily headed down the far side to get past the park boundary and find a suitable campsite. We crossed a number of snow patches but all were soft and melting and did not pose a hazard. Now we are camped just outside the NP with about a dozen other hikers.