The town came alive below me as the sun sank behind the ridge. I’d followed the Pine–Strawberry Trail out of town without much thought, just climbing until the noise softened and the air cooled. Halfway up Strawberry Mountain, I found an alligator juniper and leaned back into its bark, patterned and solid, like it had […]
Tag: Strawberry
Hitchhiking to PIEbar
I wasn’t thinking about the trail anymore. Somewhere around mile ten, walking into the Mogollon Rim Ranger Station for a dollar ice cream and three sodas, my body kept moving forward, but my mind had already left. It was fixed on something warmer. Tastier. Alive in a different way. Empanadas. PIEbar. Thirty miles off trail […]
Hitchhiking to Strawberry, Arizona
Sedona seemed determined to keep me within its grasp. The canyons I ventured into felt like relics of a forgotten era, their ancient aura casting a timeless spell that slowed my pace, and made me hesitant to leave. What was meant to be a straightforward six-mile hike to the bus stop morphed into a three-hour […]