The recent SurvivalBlog article titled “Your Two Foot Bugout” raises some interesting points. The author describes a plan to bugout on foot, using a baby stroller to carry essential gear. That’s reminiscent of the Pushcart Mormons who traveled from Iowa City to Salt Lake City in the mid 19th century. More than 250 of the immigrants died along the way, and any plan to evacuate the Phoenix area by foot would risk difficulty at least as severe.
The author describes a plan to leave Phoenix by foot in order to avoid traffic gridlock. He plans to walk alongside a canal, and then train tracks to escape the city.
Having some familiarity with Arizona terrain, I would suggest that he would have to walk at least 50 miles to get out of the desert. In the desert, it’s all about water. Travel would have to be from waterhole to waterhole, and only at night if the collapse were to happen in the Summer.
The Phoenix area holds more than 4 million people, and almost all of them would have to head north. That’s a wave of humanity! The American Highway
Users Alliance studied emergency evacuation in various cities and gave Phoenix a grade of “F”. But it’s actually worse than that. In a state where adequate grazing land is considered to be 80 acres to support one cow, there is no area that has the carrying capacity to support 4 million people.
The author might make it to Lake Pleasant and up the old Phoenix to Prescott Toll Road into the Bradshaw Mountains. Or he could go up the old sheep trail along the Verde River through Bloody Basin. But either way, he’ll have to get a head start on the hordes of refugees heading north.
An alternative plan would be to travel as far as possible by car or ATV, then use the stroller as a last result. With a Tsunami of desperate people breathing down your neck, escape is all about getting a quick start, ahead of the hordes. – K.L.