A typical travel day for the Prescott College AZT expedition goes more or less like this:
wake up at 5:45 (yes, in the morning. and no, the sun isn’t even close to being up yet), think about how nice it would be to go back to sleep, and with a sigh, wriggle out of warm sleeping bag and put on more layers.
before we do anything else we feed our excited equines, who are teaching us about what a big deal it is to them to have their grain at 6 am sharp.
breakfast is important to us too, and it’s curious to see how good granola with hot water seems nowadays…
before moving into the doing and busyness of the day we make it a priority to leave space for spending time with our equine partner (whether it be horse or mule), just being with them and reflecting on what it is they have to teach us on this journey. About 15 minutes are devoted to this, and then we protect an hour of personal practice time. Personal practice is an important part of our trail culture; it serves us as a way of attending to a practice that helps us stay happy with ourselves and sets us up to participate more fully in the coming day. Such a practice might be journaling, yoga, meditation, or simply being alone in nature.
route briefing follows, traditionally led by Nikki, who, sob, is temporarily absent. Theoretically these help us all know where we’re going, but recently the maps have been lying to us so we still have to do a certain amount on figuring things out on-route. It doesn’t help that our USGS maps were last updated in the 60′s.
last minute packing and brushing of teeth may then commence, mule bags need to be balanced ( a mule carries one bag on either side of its body and it’s very important that these bags be within 1 or 2 pounds of each other or the whole load can shift to one side. If this happens the mule’s back can become sore or the whole thing can slip sideways or even under the animal’s belly, which is dangerous) and all the equines have their saddles and tack put on. Some of the animals are more difficult to tack up than others…I’m talking about you, Mary Beth and Black Oak.
then…yay! Moving out! We’ve been traveling around ten miles a day recently, at a little under 3 miles an hour. Who likes Math? If we take a half hour for lunch, how many hours do we typically spend on the trail? Now add in a half hour for getting lost.
when we get to our next camp, we may take some time for a lesson or a discussion, or simply some intentional down time. Equines need water, evening grain and a method of containing them, whether that be by stringing a high line between trees or setting up an electric fence, or both. People need sustenance too, which is provided by whichever cook group happens to be on that day. We try to cook over campfires as much a possible, since those little Whisperlite stoves can be a pain. We circle up as a special way of acknowledging the group before breakfast and dinner to share poems, quotes, things we’re thankful for, jokes or observations.
8 o’clock is past my bedtime, and it’s to the tent or out under the stars.
