Hiking the Arizona Trail is no easy feat. The 800-mile route stretches from the Utah state line to the border with Mexico.
It was formally designated as a National Scenic Trail by Congress in 2009 — only one of 11 in the country. And hundreds of hikers from all over the world attempt to complete it each year.
But they don’t do it on their own. There is a legion of volunteers across the state who help out called “Trail Angels,” offering weary hikers a free meal, a place to sleep and someone to talk to on what one hiker called "maybe the most solitary long trail in the United States.”
Annette McGivney recently wrote about the trail and its angels for Arizona Highways magazine and she joined The Show to talk more.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Annette.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yes, hello.
LAUREN GILGER: Thanks for coming on. So the Arizona Trail is is quite a thing, right? This incredibly long, challenging trek across the entire state. It sounds like a lot of people — maybe more than in the past even — are hiking it, though.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right, yeah. I think about 400 people a year, the director of the Arizona Trail Association told me that about 400 people a year complete the whole thing, like from end to end, from Mexico to Utah. And, you know, many more do it in sections, so they don’t do the whole 800 miles in one go, but, you know, 400 people is quite a bit.
LAUREN GILGER: Yes, it is. It is. So let’s talk about how they do that and how these so-called Trail Angels that you wrote about help. It sounds like they kind of make this very long and and difficult and solitary journey kind of more manageable.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yes, definitely. You know, because there’s — as everyone who lives in Arizona knows, there’s these big sections of beautiful public lands with nothing — no services, you know, no stores. So the hikers go through these big swaths of national forest or BLM land and pop out in what’s called a gateway community.
You know, these are from in the south, like Patagonia ... going north, Superior, Flagstaff, Fredonia. And so these people that live in these towns are, you know, the Trail Angels are, you know, ready to support these hikers when they emerge from the wilderness, and it’s it’s an amazing relationship that they have with, you know, these people that they don’t know at all. And the hikers are in need of, you know, some rest and relaxation and food and and all that.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, I mean it’s quite a thing. I mean, let’s let’s talk about one of the the Trail Angels that you profiled here, a Minnesota retiree who moved to Superior. Tell us about her and how she got involved in this.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right, yeah. She goes by MJ, and she retired from the Midwest and moved to Superior. And, you know, had this nice little house and thought she would have this peaceful life, but she suddenly discovered not long after moving in that she was lonely. And she came from a family with a lot of siblings and and all of a sudden, you know, she was sitting on her front porch and this hiker, like really, you know, worn-out looking guy with a backpack and dirty clothes like came walking down the street.
And she asked him what he was doing, and he told her about the Arizona Trail. He had just come off the trail and was literally hiking, you know, from the trail into town. And when she learned about that, and she just became interested in, you know, the trail and the community around it, the community of volunteers.
And she found out about this group of, extraordinary group of people called Trail Angels, and she decided to get involved and started volunteering and you know, inviting strangers, stragglers off the trail into her home for spending the night and, you know, getting food, you know, just getting to visit with MJ about people from all over the the world come to her house.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, it does sound like folks from all walks of life come, right? ... And they often come kind of in dire straits, like folks who have run out of water or who are injured will stop by sometimes.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Right, yeah. Anyone who’s done a big ambitious hike knows like you think you’ve got it all dialed in in terms of your equipment and your physical fitness and things happen, and so it is very common for people to like have a sprained ankle or, you know, their backpack strap is broken, and so she’s kind of like, you know, an urgent care center for for all this for gear and bodies.
... This one woman, young woman, that I wrote about in my story named Melina, who’s from Germany, sprained her ankle, and MJ took her to an urgent care center and encouraged Melina to stay at her house for a couple days to recover.
And, you know, these angels don’t charge. This is not an Airbnb kind of a business. ... Hikers, you know, they can’t afford to be pulling out their credit card every time they need help or, you know, a place to sleep, and and so this is all volunteer. It’s not — no one’s making money off of this.
LAUREN GILGER: Right, I mean that’s kind of what I wanted to ask you about because there’s this question I’m sure comes up for a lot of these Trail Angels, like why would anyone do this? Like it’s not just, you know, you’re not making any money on it, but I mean people are a little bit wary of strangers today. Like hitchhikers are kind of, you know, people you’re going to look at with a skeptical eye. You don’t see a lot of that today. I imagine a lot of folks would be scared to invite a sort of, you know, unkempt stranger into their homes.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, and I was very skeptical of like ... what’s going on here? Why would you allow strangers into your home? But, you know, it really for me, in my own personal perspective about this, it changed me, and it made me a lot more optimistic. I thought, you know, just allowing someone who off the street into your home was something that happened maybe 100 years ago, but not today, and, you know, we live in such a polarized society.
But these people have had, you know, like 99.9% of the hundreds of people that stay with them every year have had a very positive experience. ... And I would press, I’d say, "Well, has anyone ever stolen from you or taken advantage?" ... This one couple I talked to, they have accommodated like 800 people in their home over the last five years. And the worst thing that happened was that someone stole a pair of socks or something.
The couples that I talked to that do this were adamant that, you know, trusting humanity is like don’t worry, you know, like people are generally good, and that people are grateful. ... The couples, the Angels said that they got way more out of it than the people staying with them. They do it, not just to be nice to the hikers, but like for them it was something that really was uplifting in their own lives.
LAUREN GILGER: It is an uplifting story as well. Longtime Arizona journalist Annette McGivney there. She wrote the story for Arizona Highways. Annette, thank you so much for coming on.
ANNETTE MCGIVNEY: Oh, thank you, Lauren.
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