FAQ
Answers
to common questions about the route
| Q:
I've never heard of the Grand
Enchantment Trail. What the heck is it? Where on earth does
it go? |
A:
The Grand Enchantment Trail
is a 730 mile backcountry route across the Southwest United States.
It travels from Phoenix Arizona to Albuquerque New Mexico, and
along the way passes through a largely wild, undeveloped landscape
that includes the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts, the Continental
Divide, sky island mountain ranges, and riparian canyon environments.
The route emphasizes scenery, solitude, and access to water over
maximum efficiency of travel between Point A and Point B. Yet
it is also fairly well graded and physically accommodating, compared
with other long-distance trails like the Appalachian Trail, even
as the GET is much more primitive in character and more challenging
to navigate. [ GET
Overview Map ]
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| Q:
How did the trail come
to be? |
A:
The Grand Enchantment Trail,
or GET, as the trail's acronym goes, wasn't actually built so
much as it was conceived. The trail was then born of many hours
of map work, phone calls to land management agencies, and field
research, in order to determine a feasible and enjoyable route
between Phoenix and Albuquerque that would also provide a wild
and scenic backcountry experience. It uses a combination of existing
trails, primitive roads, and a small amount of cross-country travel,
all linked together in a fairly natural, fluid manner, and described
by map and guidebook, to produce a hiking experience not entirely
unlike that found on the Continental Divide Trail, for example.
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| Q:
So you're saying the GET
is a "route" rather than a trail, in the traditional
sense of that word? |
A:
That's right. A traditional
long-distance trail like the Appalachian or Pacific Crest is established
and developed as a singular entity and is "branded"
all along its length with signs, blazes, carsonite posts, etc.
advertising its official existence. Roads that cross the trail
often have signs of their own heralding the trail. Maintainers
often adopt portions of the route, and along with volunteer trail
crews, insure that the trail's standards of appearance and ease
(or difficulty) of use are upheld for the benefit of the large
numbers of hikers who naturally gravitate to such accommodations.
The GET has virtually none of these aspects, and not so surprisingly
sees none of the crowds either. None of the resource pressure.
None of the paternalistic rules and regulations. And none of the
political affiliation and conciliation that are the hallmarks
of a federally-appropriated national scenic trail.
Yet the GET
is not anonymous either. In the field, the GET goes by the name
of the smaller trails that comprise it, and features such small-time
signs, local blazing conventions, and cairns. It also now features
GET-monogrammed flagging tape at many of the junctions and areas
of confusion along the way. And with the help of the GET guidebook
(in development), experienced hikers should discover that routefinding
along the GET is generally straightforward, and that the trails
and primitive roads that comprise the route simply don't need
to feature official GET signposts and blazes pointing the way
at every turn. The guide will explain where to hang a left, fork
to the right, and precisely when to "climb away from the
creek on the better of two paths toward a viewful saddle."
And the 7.5" USGS topo map set
should do the rest.
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| Q:
How much of the GET is
actually hiking trail, as opposed to roadwalking? |
A:
Perhaps more than one might
expect, considering that the route doesn't use a single mile of
trail built specifically for its purposes. Perhaps 285 miles or
so of the route utilizes local trails maintained by the US Forest
Service or Bureau of Land Management and associated volunteer
groups. Another 70 miles of the GET is concurrent with the Arizona
Trail, a long distance trail which runs from the Mexican border
to the Utah border a total distance of 750 miles. While not every
mile where the Arizona Trail and GET coincide is foot trail at
this time, the organization which oversees the AZ Trail is making
steady progress toward that goal with each passing season. Still
another 45 miles of the GET follows the Continental Divide Trail's
official route through the Black Range in southwestern New Mexico,
most of which is foot trail at this time. So all told, as of early
2007 the Grand Enchantment Trail for roughly 400 miles follows
a route that consists of hiking trail or soon-to-be hiking trail.
The entire route is about 730 miles in length, so that means about
57% of the GET is foot trail. By way of reference, the entire
Continental Divide Trail in New Mexico uses considerably less
trail overall, and involves far more paved roadwalking.
As for the
nature of roadwalking on the Grand Enchantment Trail, the overwhelming
majority of it is along dirt roads that seldom see vehicle traffic.
Many of these roads are of the "2-track" variety: little
more than two earthen grooves, with a raised brushy center. These
roads, if open to the motoring public at all, are generally accessible
only to high-clearance 4 wheel drive vehicles. I cannot recall
a single instance when following such roads on my spring 2005
thru-hike that a vehicle came along. Chalk it up, as well, to
the remoteness of the GET, and to the very low population densities
in these areas, especially in New Mexico. Walking along 2-track
roads is truly the next best thing to trail hiking. Nature is
close at hand and unfettered, and yet the walking is usually not
difficult. Even where the GET follows improved surfaces, the way
ahead is typically on graded dirt roads rather than asphalt, and
traffic is wonderfully sparse.
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| Q:
What about cross-country
travel? Is there much of it? How challenging are these segments? |
A:
First of all, let's make a
distinction between "bushwhacking" and "cross-country
travel." By common definition, bushwhacking implies that
the hiker is traveling off-trail through heavy brush, with tree
branches and dense foliage impeding progress and often obscuring
the way ahead. Bushwhacking, as such, can be a real ordeal - slow,
disorienting, and often painful - and it usually requires a great
deal of care and a high level of navigational skill to produce
favorable results. By contrast, cross-country travel is just as
the name implies - a journey across the open countryside, in which
the hiker can often see a fair distance ahead to the next objective,
and where the vegetation is likewise open and not so impeding
to travel. Compared to bushwhacking, cross-country travel can
be like a walk in the park - straightforward, and often enjoyable,
even rewarding.
When the
GET leaves the trail or road, almost always it heads cross-country,
rather than bushwhack. And it heads cross-country not as a character-building
exercise per se, but because there is simply no trail or road
in place that would connect to established portions of the route
at either end. Much care was taken in planning the route in order
to insure that cross-country portions follow a straightforward
approach that also maximizes scenery and enjoyment. Likewise for
the very brief stretches that may involve bushwhacking - a few
tenths of a mile here or there, less than a mile of the entire
route - none of which is of the "disorienting" or "painful"
variety.
All told,
the GET heads cross-country for about 80 miles of its 730 mile
length, usually for just a few miles - or less - at a time.
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| Q:
Does the GET follow a legal
route, located on public lands and/or easements? |
A:
Anyone who's hiked in the
West away from the popular trails knows how easy it can be to
stray onto private property. Not in the "eastern" sense
of that term, with homes, cars, barking dogs, and security alarms.
Rather, in the inimitable Western sense, where private property
in remote lands is synonymous with the sprawling cattle ranch,
acres if not miles wide, and largely empty of life (except, perhaps,
for the bovine form). Actually, these ranching and grazing properties
are often not much different from the surrounding public lands,
and often support healthy biotic communities of their own. And
the lone ranch house may be miles away from the farthest property
line. Nevertheless, private land is private land, and every effort
should be made to keep to the public side of the fence. Or to
seek permission to cross said lands before actually jumping fence.
Not every
strand of barbed wire demarcates a boundary with private land,
of course. Cattle grazing also occurs with great frequency on
public land in the West. And not all private property is posted
as such. Nor do government maps always show (or local Forest Service
and BLM representatives always know) precisely the status of each
and every parcel. So without the formal and drawn-out procedures
that would only arise were the GET to become an officially-recognized
National Scenic Trail, it is probably impossible to know with
absolute certainty whether the entire route is laid out in a manner
that would please all parties. Certainly every effort has been
made to send the route through public lands whenever possible,
which in fact is the case over the majority of the trail's length.
Where the GET follows roads, sometimes the roads pass through
private lands, but in just about every case the roads themselves
have been ascertained to be public, legal rights-of-way. And the
next parcel of public land is always within a day's walking distance,
meaning that hikers can expect to camp and obtain water without
trouble.
Actually,
the odds of encountering problems with property owners along or
near the GET is slim indeed, thanks again to the remote nature
of these lands, and to the outright hospitable nature of most
locals upon learning of one's pioneering (it seems) hiking plans
in the area.
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| Q:
Why does this "wilderness
hiking route" begin and end in large cities (Phoenix
and Albuquerque)? |
A:
In a word, accessibility.
Most long distance trails start and end in remote areas, such
as the Canadian or Mexican border, or atop a far-flung peak like
Mt Katahdin. Why? Because the people that invented and built these
trails had to end them somewhere, and dreamy idealism won out
over old fashioned practicality. Not that Katahdin isn't a wonderful
place to end a 2000 mile hike. But the Grand Enchantment Trail
isn't really about its endpoints. Instead, it's what happens between
those endpoints that matters most. And the termini, in this case,
have been selected to get that grand adventure into high gear
(or, when the time arrives, to end it) as quickly and as easily
as possible.
How accessible
is the GET, exactly? Again, at its end points, very much so. In
fact, a hiking party could theoretically board a flight from the
east coast of the US, and 6 hours later find themselves in the
wilderness, along the GET, already beyond sight and sound of the
city. Both Phoenix and Albuquerque have international airports,
as well as taxi and shuttle services that run directly to the
trailhead. Once beyond the trailhead only a mile or two, the wilderness
is all-encompassing.
Accessibility
also implies availability. By virtue of its big city end points,
the GET is available, not to the obsessive few who would journey
to some far-flung international border, but to literally millions
of people. The trail links people with wilderness, providing an
important opportunity for recreation, free from the pressures
of urban life. The seemingly endless nature of a long trail, and
yet one which does end - if only theoretically in the minds of
most - in yet another large city, known to all, creates a striking
duality that captivates imaginations and brings the wilderness
into the realm of the commonplace and the knowable. In our age
of shrinking wild lands and growing resource pressures, the more
people who might come to know wilderness, the better. For those
who know wilderness, who have been moved by wilderness firsthand,
are among the most likely to defend wilderness.
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| Q:
Isn't the route somewhat
arbitrary? Why couldn't I just head off from Phoenix or Albuquerque
- or wherever - following my own route? |
A:
You could. And more power
to anyone who does so. But in truth, the Grand Enchantment Trail
is no more or less arbitrary than any other long distance trail.
Every trail has its premise. The trails in a city park are designed
to wander aimlessly, if pleasantly, purely for the fresh air they
impart. The trails on Mt Washington in New Hampshire, which climb
at grades of more than 1000 feet to the mile, are designed primarily
to reach the summit of this famous, windswept mountain. The trails
that thread the backcountry in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota,
running from lake to lake, are designed to facilitate portages.
Long distance trails like the Pacific Crest or Appalachian Trail
were built to provide a mountain-blessed reprieve from modern
life, and to both protect and flaunt the beauties along the way.
The Grand Enchantment Trail is a lot like other long-distance
trails in this regard. It may not have official signage, or official
recognition, but it certainly has its beauty, and its lands most
definitely are worth protecting and defending. Especially as these
lands see so little recreational use today, despite their beauty.
The GET could
have gone another way. The map and field research that preceded
it certainly yielded many alternate possibilities. Ultimately,
though, none would have offered the quality of scenery, preponderence
of solitude, diversity of flora/fauna and geography, availability
of public land, and ready access to water and resupply that the
finalized Grand Enchantment Trail provides.
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| Q:
The Southwest United States
is pretty arid country. How's the water situation along the
GET? |
A:
Pretty AND arid. Or perhaps
pretty because of it. In any case, the availability of water is
always a concern when hiking in the Southwest, which is why the
GET was designed to maximize the odds of finding it and to minimize
the distances between sources. It does this by brushing up against
seemingly every spring, creek, river, windmill, and cow tank that
occurs along the way. In the desert, this means following drainage
courses as often as possible. Aravaipa Creek and the Alamosa River,
for example, are year-round sources that the GET follows for a
fair number of miles, all the while benefiting from the cooling
shade of cottonwoods and willows that grow along the stream banks.
Where surface water is unavailable, the GET seeks out stock tanks
and windmills, many of which were producing clear, flowing water
during my spring 2005 thru-hike, albeit the stock tanks I would
chemically treat to make potable. And although these sources are
never guaranteed to be wet, the route passes a sufficient number
of them sufficiently often to tip the odds squarely in the hiker's
favor. Same with the mountain sources - most often springs and
small creeks fed by melting snowpack and monsoon rains. Of course,
not all potential sources will be flowing at a given time, but
usually, along a given stretch of trail, enough will be flowing
to prevent the need for major stockpiling between each one.
In the spring
of 2005, I found water virtually everywhere I looked for it, and
even where I didn't. Water was flowing across the trail half a
mile from the Phoenix terminus, and occurred - on more than off
it seemed - all the way to Albuquerque and the final patch of
melting snowpack en route down the very last mountain. Mine was
a wet spring, following a very wet winter. Other years, conditions
may be much drier. Always attempt to discover as much as possible
about the seasonal precipitation patterns before heading out for
an arid-land hike. And inquire about the status of specific sources
with land management agencies and others who are in-the-know.
Even in a dry year, I doubt whether long-distance hikers would
ever need to carry more than a long day's supply of water at a
time. But be safe - know as much as possible before you go. And
pay attention to the guidebook and maps, and the water-related
information they provide.
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| Q:
What is the recommended
hiking season and direction of travel for a thru-hike of the
GET? |
A:
Like most long-distance trails,
the GET has limiting factors that tend to channel thru-hikers
into predictable patterns of movement. This makes their arrival
at yonder road crossing easier to anticipate, say if your intent
is to surprise them with a pizza and fresh-chilled glasses of
pink lemonade. Beyond that, it gives them at least a fighting
chance of running into each other and enjoying a bit of social
time, exclusive of the javelina and stellar jays for once.
The trail's
limiting factors are basically twofold: snowpack and cold or inclement
weather in the higher terrain, dry conditions and extreme heat
in the lower regions. To avoid both, the hiker needs to time the
hike to avoid seasonal extremes. This means summer and winter
are out. Luckily, though, the GET is only 700 miles long (compared
with 2600 for the PCT, e.g.), and spring and autumn at these latitudes
are comparatively accommodating. Beyond that, the trail's highest
terrain is located toward the eastern end nearer to Albuquerque.
This set of circumstances virtually decrees the advisability of
beginning an eastbound hike from Phoenix in the springtime, when
the weather there is still coolish, and finishing a couple of
months later in Albuquerque as the weather in that region is just
starting to warm up. Along the way, the winter snowpack will be
melting and all the while providing precious drinking water. Ideal
timing means the hiker is through the lowest terrain before it
gets too hot and dry, without arriving in the high country too
early when the snow hasn't yet sufficiently melted. This springtime
"window of opportunity" will vary from year to year,
but in my estimation will translate to a start date at Phoenix
of between March 10 and April 10, and a finish date at Albuquerque
by May 31.
The trail
can also be hiked successful in autumn. In particularly wet years,
this season of travel may in fact be preferable to a springtime
journey, due to the absence of lingering snowpack and difficult
creek crossings. (Other years, autumn can be quite dry, and water
much less available than in spring.) Fall in this climate is also
cooler overall, and the sun angle is lower and less intense than
during springtime. (Days are shorter, of course, and nights can
sometimes be quite chilly up high.) In any case, fall season hikers
would begin hiking at Albuquerque, generally in mid September
after the "monsoon" has abated, and hike westbound toward
Phoenix, arriving there by mid to late November. Storms can bring
cold rain and sometimes snow to the highest terrain of the GET
in late October and November, but following a westbound itinerary
the hiker would be clear of most of the high country before that
time. Having said that, I suspect that an eastbound hike is not
entirely out of the question during autumn. It would, however,
recommend that the hiker begin in Phoenix while the weather there
is still quite warm, and then travel with a purpose toward Albuquerque
before the hiking season comes to an end with the first significant
snowstorm.
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| Q:
The Grand Enchantment Trail
is starting to sound pretty interesting! When can I expect
to see a finished guidebook? |
A:
Just as soon as its written!
Hopefully this will be in time for anyone who might be interested
in trying a spring season thru-hike next year. In any case, this
free online guidebook will be the ultimate resource for hikers
both in planning and in the field - containing overview material
and detailed route directions for each of the GET's 39 segments.
And because of its online format, the guide will allow hikers
to print and carry only the information they need to facilitate
each portion of the journey, without being weighed down by extra
paperwork.
In advance
of a finished online guidebook, a topographic map set is now
available on CD ROM. These USGS 7.5' topographic maps are
absolutely essential to understanding the route in the context
of the guidebook's descriptions, as well as to offer that all-important
eagle's eye view of a wondrous, if unfamiliar, landscape. USGS
topo maps are available free at various websites, or at cost per
copy for the paper versions. However, none of these show the route
of the Grand Enchantment Trail, nor do they highlight the locations
of reliable water sources or agreeable campsites along the GET.
Altogether, the G.E.T. Topo Map Set contains over 100 individual
files, each a standard-format image file which can be viewed and
printed from any computer.
[ sample
topo map (reduced image quality & detail) ]
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| Q:
Oh, another thing. What
about town stops along the way? Are there many places to resupply? |
A:
Absolutely. Part of the criteria
for the trail's route involved the need to allow for resupply
access at regular intervals along the way. How easy it would have
been to create a wilderness route that courts the favor of the
most jaded armchair adventurer, but which would leave even the
strongest of thru-hikers struggling beneath an elephantine load
of food between distant resupply points. In reality, champion
hikers and self-effacing mortals alike generally hate it when
the next town stop is more than, say, 100 miles away. And so the
Grand Enchantment Trail insures that such discomforts never need
be endured. In fact the longest distance between near-route resupply
stops is only about 100 miles, or 6 days out (for the average
thru-hiker type). This keeps packweight down to a dull roar, allowing
hikers to focus instead on the wonders of their surroundings and
on the honest challenge of a day's hiking in remote and scenic
lands. At the same time, many of these town stops are not located
directly along the route, but are a few miles away - reachable
by thumb or by foot. Of course, some of the GET's town stops are,
indeed, directly along the route. But it's pure bliss, when this
happens. And you'll probably be glad to see these towns, minus
the associated off-trail travel. (The towns are mostly small villages,
really. Some are pretty quirky. All have post offices. Some have
more.)
[
GET Town Guide ]
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| Q:
I've been hearing a lot
about the Hayduke Trail lately. How does the GET compare to
that? |
A:
The Hayduke Trail is a 700-plus
mile hiking route that runs through Utah and extreme northern
Arizona, connecting the National Parks in this region and in the
process offering up some of the most dramatic vistas to be found
in the lower 48. Like the Grand Enchantment Trail, the Hayduke
runs through remote public lands, open to hiking and primitive
camping. Like the G.E.T., this "trail" is in fact a
route, and was pieced together through map and field research
rather than any on-the-ground initiative to develop new foot trail.
However, here the similarities between the two routes begin to
part ways, due to both the objective of the routes' developers
and to the nature of the terrain through which these routes make
passage.
The Hayduke
Trail's intent is to connect national parks - beauty spots like
Zion, Bryce Canyon and Arches - which contain a majority of the
Colorado Plateau's standout natural treasures. In order to accomplish
this objective, the Hayduke's developers came up with a route
that is exceedingly roundabout in nature. In one instance, the
route actually doubles back on itself in an attempt to visit the
Grand Canyon's north rim, meaning that a brief short cut would
in fact cut off a hundred miles or more of the intended route.
Even apart from the national parks, reports seem to indicate that
the Hayduke Trail, as described in its official guidebook, sacrifices
a convenient and efficient routing in favor of its overarching
mission to visit all of the Parks in this region. And in doing
so, it appears to exacerbate a preexisting concern for hikers
in this plateau country, namely a paucity of reliable water sources
and a lack of on or near-trail resupply points. Towns are few
and far between on the Colorado Plateau, not surprisingly given
the lack of available natural resources (ie water) in the inhabitable
areas above the slot canyons and drainages. The upshot of these
dual concerns is that long-distance hikers on the Hayduke need
to be prepared to travel long distances between water sources,
in some cases humping several gallons across the arid mesas and
uplands, and likewise to carry large quantities of food between
distant resupply points, or to leave the official route in favor
of more accommodating options. This, or they could instead cache
their supplies in advance along the route, which is what the guidebook
authors apparently suggest. Obviously these challenges are considerable
impediments to thru-hiking this otherwise fantastic route, and
very few hikers
to date have in fact completed such a journey.
As discussed
previously, the Grand Enchantment Trail offers comparatively frequent
access to water and resupply points. Seldom if ever do long-distance
hikers need to carry water for more than a day at a time on the
G.E.T. And town stops appear conveniently at regular intervals
either on or near the route. All of this suggests the accommodating
nature of the route, and the geniune feasibility of thru-hiking
it. Too, by avoiding the national parks, the GET likewise shuns
the red tape and permitting systems so prevalent in these heavily-used
areas, and the route is not bound to so restrictive a methodology
- it is, indeed, the most efficient way to hike between Phoenix
and Albuquerque while at the same time enjoying the maximum amount
of solitude, scenery, diversity, access to wilderness, to trails,
water, and resupply points... in short, the Grand Enchantment
Trail just works for hikers.
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| Q:
Enough pontificating! Where
can I see some photos of this miraculous trail? Where can
I learn more about the route? |
A:
Photos
and more
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