Arizona Republic (Jan 25, 2026) by Shaun Mckin­non

Every night for about eight weeks last fall, my phone buzzed with a text that its sender – Repub­lic cli­mate reporter Joan Mein­ers – called her “proof of life.” Some­times the texts were from here and included updates on her day; some­times they were sent by a satel­lite ser­vice that worked where there were no cell sig­nals.

Most nights, the texts arrived around 8 p.m., but not always. And on those few nights when 8 p.m. turned into 8:30 and then 9 and, one night, 10 p.m., I wor­ried about Joan’s loc­a­tion and her safety.

Joan spent much of last year pre­par­ing for one of the more ambi­tious projects I’ve worked on here: She would ride her bike the 850-mile length of the Ari­zona Trail with an eye on how cli­mate change was affect­ing Ari­zona’s var­ied topo­graphy. She planned to file weekly dis­patches, writ­ten on her phone or an old iPad.

Friends accom­pan­ied her on some stretches of the trail, but most of the time, Joan soloed. That’s why we agreed she’d check in daily. The most har­row­ing night fol­lowed a miser­able, often pain­ful day on the trail as she approached Lost Dutch­man State Park. She was nearly out of water, her bike was dam­aged and she was more than a little worse for the wear. She texted pho­tos of the trail as the sun set and then one of the dis­tant lights of the city as dark fell.

I stared at my phone between updates, wait­ing for con­firm­a­tion that she had reached camp. At last, she did, and I tried not to sound like a par­ent as I made sure she was safe.

In today’s Repub­lic, you’ll read about the final miles of her trek and how Joan was able to reach the end even though it will soon sit bey­ond the bor­der wall. The whole series is on azcent­ral.com if you want to catch up.

 

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