Buck30 - Other Trail Journal - 2026

MST Summary/Planning notes

Overall:

The MST is an incredibly beautiful and difficult route. It was one of the highlights of all the trails I've ever hiked. It was also one of the most difficult routes I've ever done, only tempered by its short 550 miles and frequent towns to take a zero day and regroup.

If you don't have a lot of thru-hiking, desert and off trail experience then I'd highly recommend cutting your teeth on one of the other much easier and beautiful winter hikes such as:

Desert Winter Thru-Hike:

https://www.postholer.com/journal/Other-Trail/2022/buck30/2022-12-13/WTH-Summary-and-Planning-Notes/67352

Arizona Winter Traverse:

https://www.postholer.com/user/buck30/3548

Difficulty:

The MST is an extremely difficult hike, I don't want to understate this. But there's some nuance to it. I felt like the first 340 or so miles from Valley of Fire to Lake Havasu City and then through the Whipple mountains were much harder than the last 160 miles to Kofa (which seems to have more jeep roads mixed in).

Here's why I think the MST is hard:

1) The pouroffs: You'll see me talk about them below but there are some serious pouroffs on this route, like a couple hundred small ones probably! But the problem are the bigger ones. See my "Danger" section below for more on this.

2) The Canyons: The MST goes up some seriously scenic canyons but these are mostly very rocky, bouldery, occasional thick vegetation and just plain rugged and tough.

3) The Ridges: The MST walks some seriously scenic Ridgelines, but these are almost always incredibly rocky and slow.

4) The Rocks: The MST is very rocky. The canyons are full of rocks, the ridgelines are full of rocks, the mesas are full of rocks, the descents off ridgelines are usually boulder fields, most of the easier valley XC is rocky too. So much lava rock.

5) The Flow: This is a weird one, but generally speaking I'd say that the most beautiful parts of the MST (the ridgelines and canyons) just really aren't meant to be hiked. The MST proves you can walk this way, but there's just no logical "flow" to it. I think when Eric mapped a lot of this at home he assumed that sometimes it would be easier in the hardest parts, but I swear in the YouTube videos every time he crests onto a ridge he's like, damn it's super rocky up here! Like you just never get into a canyon or on a ridgeline and think, oh they should definitely put this on AllTrails! That's not to say it's not worth hiking, it's just saying how hard it can be. In fact one of the best things about the MST is that you hike in these places you'd probably never go.

And then interspersed with this brutality are easier remote jeep roads that are usually a pleasure to walk and even things out a bit. Is this maybe 40% of the trail? Could be and that is a lot to help offset the brutality. [I actually just did a quick calculation and came up with about 216 miles of road (mostly jeep road, occasional better gravel road, very occasional pavement) out of about 550 miles which is 39%].

Eric's Media:

Eric has a blog and a 9 part YouTube series. His blog is incredibly detailed and fantastic. Tons of pictures and words, it's basically like a guidebook. This really helped me plan for the hike. His YouTube series is also really good, he's excellent with a camera and spends a lot of time daily filming. I think the blog though is a better representation of the MST. To me the YouTube videos tend to overstate things that are less of a problem, for example when on steep slopes it looks and sounds crazy slipping and sliding but the reality is this was never a real problem for me. On the flip side the pouroffs end up understated since he's never filming during the truly difficult pouroffs. It's a great to watch and at a minimum will show you how beautiful and amazing the MST truly is.

Other Winter Desert Hikes:

There's 2 other winter thru hikes, I've done both. Both are excellent hikes and far, far easier than the MST. The Desert Winter Thru-Hike by Blisterfree, although in order to get his materials you'll need to have previously hiked one of his other routes. And the Arizona Winter Traverse by Colter. I have journals for both of these on this site if interested. I can highly recommend both of these hikes and would say that unless your experience and/or confidence level is very high, I'd probably choose one of these over the MST first. You can always do the MST after.

My best joke and what I think is really true is that the Desert WTH finesses you through the beautiful winter desert and the MST brute forces you through it! But that's also what makes the MST so beautiful, the very difficult canyons and ridgelines that these other trails just don't do because frankly they are just too hard for most people.

Terrain:

I think this is best explained in the Difficult section above. I can't really offhand estimate the percent of XC, easier washes, dirt roads and pavement. Overall it's a big mix of all of the above except there is very little pavement. I also don't want to underestimate the amount of easy dirt road walking, for every brutal XC section there is just as much or more easy jeep road walking.

Water:

Water is pretty good on the MST in a decent water year. Most years there should be some late Fall/early Winter rains that replenish the guzzlers and springs, but that's not guaranteed. Eric hiked in the late Fall and it was quite hot for him and he probably had an average to below average water experience. 2 guys hiked in Winter 2025 in a very dry period, it hadn't rained for months when they started hiking. And for me I was in a good/wet year where it rained a lot around Thanksgiving and Xmas and then I started about 4 weeks after that. I'd say that my water situation was closer to Eric's and nowhere near the Winter 2025 guys. In a dry year these guys had most or all of the guzzlers completely dry, that's pretty much how you know it's really dry out there. They had almost no potholes of water and only a limited number of springs had water. I would not want to hike in the water year they did.

The difference between my year and Eric's is interesting. I had a much better water year than he did but I would say our water sources were fairly similar. It's like there is a minimum amount of rain that is needed (about what Eric had) and more rain won't really help that much. I didn't have tons more springs or potholes of water than Eric did, it was very marginally better at best. The only big difference was that my guzzlers were full and his were close to empty (but still always had water) so the water was much harder for him to get in the hard to get Nevada guzzlers. But otherwise it seems like the significant amount of rain I had 4-8 weeks before my hike (vs Eric having more limited rain before) didn't have a huge impact on providing me additional water sources.

That all being said, in a normal year there's enough water to get by ok for a typical desert hike. There are some decent carries (30 miles) but nothing crazy and personally I don't think you need to cache water if you don't want to (it's easier now with 3 different years of observations to make good water decisions about where there will be water, this was much more difficult for Eric as the first hiker). In a dry year like Winter 2025 expect much longer water carries.

This is a really good site to help see how your water year is:

https://water.noaa.gov

Go to Precipitation estimate, check Enabled and then you can check boxes on what time period you want to see how much it rained in a given area and when.

One other thing, I'd recommend doing the WTH trekking pole bottle setup to assist in reaching water in guzzler tanks. Basically get a Vitamin water bottle (it has good grooves for the straps and the 20 oz size is a good weight when pulling it out) and then a Velcro strap and a hair band. Place the water bottle at the bottom of your trekking pole up against the basket for further stability, cinch the Velcro strap around the bottle/pole near the bottom, place the hair band around the top, extend trekking pole as long as you want and now you have a nice water retriever. I've used this a lot and it's great.

Lastly, I'm going to pull together a water chart for the 3 different years the MST has been hiked and I think Eric will post it to his blog site.

Season/Weather:

This is a great trail to hike in the dead of Winter. Overall I had very good weather from mid January till end of February. My highs were in the low 80s during a heat wave, otherwise they were closer to 65-70 or so. I had some lows in the high 20s but mostly in the 40s and 50s. I had no rain until my last week when a system pushed through when I had decent rain overnight one night. I had a small number of days of very strong winds (6-7 days of 40+ mph gusts). Keep in mind that my experience was probably on the average to good side for weather. It's very easy to have multiple systems push through during a hike with significant rain and cold temperatures to the point where you might be trying to bail to a town. I don't think the direction of hike matters as much in Jan/Feb. The southern half is warmer than the northern half but the temperatures are kinda the same all Jan/Feb. If you are hiking in a shoulder season it makes more sense to hike the direction that makes sense taking the above into account (hotter down south, less hot up north).

Eric hiked in late Fall and found it to be hotter than I think he expected. There's a tendency to try and do these hikes outside of winter (I should know, I've done the WTH twice in the inappropriate late Fall season) but personally I'd recommend doing it in winter. The temps will be cooler and it's way more likely that some rain will have dropped before you start making your water life much nicer. I would not hike this trail anywhere close to summer or later spring/early Fall. Basically get as close to winter as possible for maximum enjoyment.

Resupply:

Given how difficult the MST is, resupply is one of the best I've had! There are a number of decent sized towns with downright cheap motels and a number of smaller places in between to buy a couple days of food. Way more than I would have expected. Sure, I resupplied from Family Dollar a few times and a couple tiny stores, but that's fine for me in order to have short food carries. In particular the hotels were really cheap in Laughlin and Lake Havasu City. See my separate resupply entry for more detailed info.

Caches:

Personally I don't think there is a need to cache if you are hiking during an ok water season. Eric cached given that he was the first and didn't really know what water sources would have water and I think the Winter 2025 guys cached because it was an incredibly dry hike for them. But in a normal year I just don't think it's necessary for water.

Same for food, there's so much resupply on the MST that caching is really not needed and if you don't mind buying a couple days of food from smaller stores occasionally then you'll be just fine. The first northern section would be the longest between major resupplies but you can easily get a couple days of food each from Echo Bay and Callville Bay along the way if you aren't picky.

Maps/GPS/Navigation:

Eric provides a downloadable GPS track and waypoints on his blog site. This is his recorded GPS track from his hike. It's incredibly helpful and a must have as there is no map set (nor a need) and I'd say his blog is basically pretty close to a guidebook it's so informative and detailed. Be forewarned Eric never cleaned up his GPS track and there are many spots where the GPS bounced like crazy (towns, buildings, caves, mines, breaks seemingly) and can add miles to a spot. I spent some time cleaning this up and took out over 30 miles of bouncing errors like this. Also, there are a few spots where Eric tried something and it just didn't work out so he turned back and then continued on a different way. These out and backs are still in here too. I'm going to spend some time further cleaning it up now and see if Eric will post my revised track to his blog. It will be his exact route, just without all the bouncing errors and impassible out and backs.

Camping:

You can basically camp anywhere! Assuming it's not a boulder field of lava rocks. The wind will dictate how enjoyable it is at times and I found myself cowboy camping at times just cause it was too windy to set up a tent.

Dangers:

More than most trails I think there is a danger of getting hurt out here. It would not be hard to break an ankle or trip and fall on your head. Random but possible. Of more serious note I'd say some of the pouroffs would be considered dangerous to a lot of hikers without climbing experience (like me). I think Eric understates the overall difficulty of this (in his summary entry he says nothing is technical) just because he's really good and comfortable doing these pouroff up and down climbs. I definitely do not feel as comfortable as he does and as I've mentioned elsewhere, I mapped myself 3 alternates to walk around 3 areas I felt were over my comfort/skill level due to pouroffs. I heard one of the Winter 2025 hikers on a podcast, who has climbing experience, mention one pouroff as Class 5 (not sure which one!). Of course on the flip side there will be hikers that have some climbing experience and feel like these are very straightforward and easy. I can totally see that. I just think the pouroffs are significant enough that there will be a wide range of what individual hikers think about them. I highly recommend reading Eric's blog where he details the most significant pouroffs in words and pictures. This is more helpful that the YouTube series as usually he couldn't film while desperately hanging on mid pouroff. Here are excerpts from Eric's blog of the areas where I felt the pouroffs were sketchy, each hiker can make up their own mind:

Black mountains (section 2): [on a Ridgeline] But standing in my way was a steep rock face that I had to contend with. This was probably the crux of the day. It took me a good half-hour to work my way around it, down climbing a few ledges. (Also a picture notes this as a "treacherous rockface traverse").

[Also multiple pouroffs that sound borderline to me].

El Dorado Mountains (section 4): There have been many dry waterfalls to climb over along this route. Far too many to count. I reach one this morning, about a 15 or 20 ft climb, that got my heart rate going. The hand and foot holds were decent, but the rock was slick. Additionally, my camera that hangs off my chest was getting in the way, I needed to hug the rock a little bit closer and couldn’t. I was barely holding on, and felt like I was slipping. With one final push, somewhat a leap of faith, I crested the top of the pour off. I let out a cry of victory at the top of this one.

Grapevine Canyon (section 5): I came across a challenging pour off. It looked to be about 20 feet down, but no easy way to down climb. With little time to think about it, I lowered my pack down with a string and carabiner and began to down climb this tricky section myself. It was too wide to use my legs to span the distance of the choke point, instead I had to hug a part of the rock that stuck out farther than everything else. This required some movements on faith, and with very little to work with for handhold. Eventually I made it work and made it down safely. Whew! This one was sketchy.

Buckskin Mountains (section 7):

There was only one point where the canyon narrows to a pour off. It was a 20ft climb, and that was that.

Eventually reached a point where the terrain became very steep, which was the Crux of the climb. There were two different paths I could take, and both of them involved a vertical climb of 40 or 50 ft. The path I chose was ledgy, but still precarious. There was one move where a cactus was sticking out right where I needed to place my knee. There was no way around it. I opted for a different path. Many of the Rocks were loose, and I was pulling my hand holds off the rock wall and throwing them down below me. Eventually, I made my way to the top, feeling a rush of adrenaline from this one. I couldn’t help but let out a howl at the top.

Gear:

If you are out here then you know your gear so I won't say much.

My pants were important. The canyons especially in the Sonoran desert are thick with catclaw at times and lots of other prickly stuff. I tore like a half dozen holes in my pants, I can only imagine my legs if I wasn't wearing them.

You might want to wear gaiters. Dirty Girls will be shredded, I'd highly recommend the Leva gaiters from Blisterfree. These are very light but much more rugged.

I got 2 holes in my Neoair. Both were from cactus spines in my pants and then I got the holes on top of the pad. Mostly you shouldn't have a problem with Neoair holes, it's not like there are cactus balls everywhere. It's more likely the rocks and gravel you will sometimes be camping on will cause problems.

My silver umbrella is usually my favorite thing but I didn't bring it on the MST. It just wasn't hot enough to need it and usually if it was a storm it will also be super windy and impossible to use. I did have a decent heat wave but even then I would have barely used it as it wasn't really that hot. It was nice to not have it on the side of my pack and in the way in the thicker canyons when dodging catclaw arms and ducking under things.

The rocks really chewed up my shoe soles. By mile 400 the tread was really shot and I got multiple cactus spines through the bottom. And these are supposed to be good Vibram soles.

Possibly dress warmer than you think, it can be surprisingly cold in the desert. I think a winter hike could easily have highs in the 40s and lows in the 20s during cooler periods even if it's normally warmer. I had better weather than this though but every winter is different.

Wildlife:

Lots of bighorn sheep, lots of burros, some wild horses. Not much else for me. I was mostly looking at my feet trying not to fall! I wish I had seen a desert tortoise but only saw old dead shells. There's some good birds at times. I saw a single fox too. Eric saw more random stuff than I did.

Bugs:

Pretty minimal, I didn't bring bug spray or a headnet and wouldn't again. Occasionally there are some minor flies or gnats but it's pretty uncommon and was never a big deal for me.

Cell Service:

I had a lot of cell service which was not surprising. Certainly everyday. Not all the time, but fairly common. I have Verizon (Visible on the Verizon network) but I think ATT would be similar. At the end in the Kofa NWR for several days there was way less cell reception than the rest of the hike.

Permits:

There are 2 easy permits you should get. The first couple hundred miles are mostly in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area which is a NPS unit so an Annual National Park pass would cover this or you could buy just an annual pass to LMNRA. Although unlikely you will see anyone to ask for this it's worth having for the peace of mind, also the MST does actually exit a manned entry booth on a short highway road walk. Technically you could do some XC to avoid this, but I'd just get a pass and be legal. 2nd you'll want to get an Arizona State Trust Land permit, it's like $ 15. This allows you to walk across State Land in Arizona. Highly unlikely you would see someone to ask for this, but again, I think it's worth having and I always get it. That's it for permits.

Other Hikers:

There are none, you will definitely not find anyone else to hike with out here! Amazingly I did run into a hiker coming the other direction, Cactus, which was a ton of fun to chat and trade stories for 20 minutes. I rarely ever saw anyone, even the number of OHVs or jeeps was extremely limited for a desert hike. It was very quiet on route on the MST.

Section Summary: Here's just a brief opinionated overview of each Section.

Sections 1-3: These are grouped together since the first real town is Boulder City at the end of Section 3.

Section 1: Valley of Fire state park to Echo Bay. I'd call this section one of the easier ones. There's nothing particularly crazy. I'd recommend taking my littler alternate after the VOF campground which follows an old wagon road/trail towards Blue Point spring rather than the MSTs tedious against the grain walk across the alluvial fan. I'd also recommend my alternate into Echo Bay, gets you off the paved road sooner and is nice enough.

Section 2: Echo Bay to Callville Bay: This section is probably very hard due to the miles in the Black Mountains. I walked around those very hard miles as I didn't like the sound of traversing around a "steep/treacherous rock face" for 30 minutes that Eric did around Cathedral peak as well as some pouroffs later on. I've seen/heard some commentary from 2 others that did these miles that it was a true ass kicker. I don't know how dangerous it actually is, Eric mentioned that working around the rock face is on multiple ledges that are crumbly at times.

Section 3: Callville Bay to Boulder City. I'd call this section moderately hard. Rounding Lake Mead and then Las Vegas wash is not super easy and the New River mountains are small but rugged.

Section 4: Boulder City to Searchlight. This section is very hard through Nelson Ghost Town. I walked around the initial Eldorado mountain miles as there were some very sketchy pouroffs to me. But then picked up the Eldorado mountains for a long and rocky ridgeline traverse and difficult ascent/descent of Oak Creek canyon. After Nelson Ghost town the rest of the section is easy to Searchlight.

Section 5: Searchlight to Laughlin/Bullhead City. This section is easier except for the out and back to Spirit Mountain (MST highpoint) and Grapevine canyon pouroffs (I walked around Grapevine canyon as I definitely did not like the sound of the 20' pouroff Eric did).

Section 6: Laughlin/Bullhead City to Lake Havasu City. Personally I think this is the hardest section on the entire MST. It's a relentless beating in the canyons in the Mt. Nutt Wilderness, then the ridgeline in the Mt. Nutt Wilderness and down and out to Cold Springs station where you can get a cold drink and an ice cream. No rest for the weary you then do a tough climb up to Black Mesa and follow that for 11 rocky miles and then a tough descent back down. Hopefully you then take the easy alternate to the I-40 fast food/gas stations exit for a bit of a jolt of food and caffeine and then you do a hard day in the Lake Havasu WMA and hike "The Needles" which is an amazing knifes edge traverse. This was a truly stellar section but very hard.

Section 7: Lake Havasu City to Bouse. The first part of this section is hard as you climb up high and do an awesome traverse of the Whipple Mountains ridgeline and then drop down into Whipple wash for a very scenic walk (although physically demanding this ridgeline and canyon is actually easier than most MST one's). This route coincides with Blisterfree's Desert WTH hike, if you have access to those materials I'd suggest taking his slightly different route dropping into Whipple wash. The MST climbs down a gnarly pouroff into Whipple wash whereas the WTH comes in just a bit south in a much easier and safer manner.

Exiting Whipple wash I chose to continue on the WTH south to the town of Parker and then east back to the MST at Buckskin guzzler/Hayden Aqueduct. I liked this better as the route passes through the good hiker town of Parker and avoids having to hitch across Parker Dam on the MST route (it's illegal to walk across the Dam). The WTH is a good route and I'd recommend this way if you so choose, but there's nothing necessarily wrong with the MST either (although there might be a couple of sketchy pouroffs in the Buckskin mountains notes in Eric's blog).

The rest of the section is an easy 25 mile walk along the Hayden Aqueduct where you can't actually access any water.

Section 8: Bouse to Quartzite. This was an easy section mostly following quiet mining roads through the Plamosa mountains which I also thought were very scenic. There's a 3.5 mile section of ridgeline towards the end which is pretty gnarly but beautiful.

Section 9: Quartzite to Kofa (end). This was a moderately hard section. The difficult XC miles come in shorter bursts of 3-5 miles, but when they came they were slow and difficult. I'd suggest taking my alternate into Brenda for a resupply/meal as opposed to hitching into Quartzite on the interstate. I thought the Kofa mountains were possibly the most scenic of the entire MST. The climb up Signal Peak is fantastic.

That's it, if you've made it this far and have any additional questions feel free to email me at briantanzman@gmail.com.

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