The desert is an explosion of color this time of year. I don’t have names for even half the varieties, but wildflowers are everywhere. Vivid oranges and deep blues, sprays of hot pink and mounds of yellow. It feels a bit like walking through a rainbow.

After the mostly sleepless night I spent in the White Canyon Wilderness, the trail meandered on its way toward the Gila River. At one point, my maps directed me down a canyon. “Cross country” the paper proclaimed. There was no trail to follow. No two-track dirt road. Just the contours of the landscape, down a wash with occasional pools or even flowing water which hadn’t yet dried up in the heat. It was beautiful – easily one of my favorite sections of this leg.

Nearing the Gila River at the end of a long day, I ran into some unexpected wildlife. I spotted the coiled rattlesnake a half second after I’d placed my foot inches (or less) from its head. Immediately, I performed a backwards leap which was probably Olympic-qualifying, and stared in dismay. There’d been no warning rattle whatsoever. After a long few seconds, I snapped a picture… and then took a wide, wide detour around the snake.

Snakes weren’t the only creatures out there. I spied lizards frequently. A couple of rabbits with black-tipped ears nearly as long as their body. A centipede as thick as my thumb, and longer than my entire hand. At one spot near a trickle of water, hundreds of yellow butterflies congregated.

I finally reached the Gila. Back on the Continental Divide Trail, Britta and I had crossed it dozens of times as we worked our way up New Mexico. But here, further down in Arizona, it was a wide, lazy thing.

After stocking up on water, I found a place to camp for the night before heading further towards the next town, Mammoth.

As a side note, I’m just hiking one more leg on trail after Mammoth. I started dating someone before leaving, and while she’s been nothing but supportive of this hike, I’ve decided I’d rather be home and not spend a full two months (or more) off hiking this year. There will still be a few more blog posts as I finish up this hike, though! And my journey into Mammoth deserves a post of its own, so I’ll try to get that up in the next few days.