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Archive | Backpacking & Hiking

AZT Training: Passage #19 Superstition Wilderness

Trailhead for Thompson trail 121 near Roosevelt Lake

On December 10th, Team Armstrong went on another team training hike. This time we hiked on Arizona Trail passage #19: The Superstition Wilderness; which is located near Roosevelt Lake.

After leaving Sensei’s house at 5:30 am we arrived at the Roosevelt Lake Marina visitors center at approximately 7:45; after some quick prep work and sharing stories with the lady at the desk about Alligators and Big Foot being spotted on the trail, we started hiking at approximately 8:30 am.

We hiked through 8 miles of some of the most beautiful scenery Arizona has to offer. We started in an cactus filled desert landscape overlooking Roosevelt Lake and hiked across several springs with beautiful oak trees, through dried rocky washes, and fought through what felt like a forest of thicket with 4 inch needles. All while carrying 35 – 40 lbs in our backpacks on terrain the Arizona Trail Organization listed as Difficult.

Training Hikes and New Sponsors

Arizona Trail Logo

As the Arizona Trail hike draws closer Team Armstrong has been stepping up our efforts to prepare for the 800 mile trek across Arizona. We created a Training Hike schedule for the rest of the year (Schedule) and just last weekend we hiked the Arizona trail in Flagstaff. It was a great hike but also […]

A blind man’s experience hiking across the Grand Canyon and back

Sensei, Greg and Cat hiking

I participated in another amazing hike on October 9th and 10th of 2010. This time it was a Rim to Rim to Rim hike across the Grand Canyon. This hike-a-thon was to benefit the Foundation for Blind Children. This forty-eight mile trek was a truly incredible experience, challenging my mind, body and will to succeed.

After our Kilimanjaro climb in 2009 everyone was asking, “What’s next?” There were several ideas suggested like; swimming to Alcatraz, climbing another of the seven summits, hiking the Arizona Trail, climbing Mount Whitney and several of us mentioned the Grand Canyon. After much deliberation it was decided that the next FBC hike-a-thon would be a rim to rim trek from the North Rim to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. This made the most sense because we have one of the world’s seven natural wonders right here in our home state. The date was set for 10/10/10.

Now are you wondering about that extra rim to rim I mentioned earlier? Well my team is in training for an eight hundred mile hike in April of 2011. The hike will run from the Mexico border to the Utah border on The Arizona Trail. We felt that hiking that extra twenty-four miles would give us a good idea of what to expect from our upcoming forty day trek across Arizona. We were not disappointed.

Training Hike: Mt. Humphreys – Update

Arizona Trail Sign

Team Armstrong started the day at about 7AM and found Mt. Humpreys to have quite a bit of snow on it, making it difficult to find the trail. We reached the summit (12,500 ft) after approximately 7 hours of hiking, and after taking a few shortcuts finished the hike at about 7pm; making it a 12 hour day. We are sore and tired but it was a great hike, the snow made it much more technical than usual.

Mike Armstrong on African drums

When we went to Africa we spent the first day visiting the Mwereni Integrated School for the Blind. As the Foundation for Blind Children was going to donate 52 braille writers to the school. To celebrate our arrival the school put on quite an extraordinary show of song, dance and even African drums.

Seeing as how Mike is a drummer he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to give the school a show as well.