Congratulations Joel!

Last week the entire family was back in Arizona, not for some hiking or back to school but for a real momentous event.

It was not quite four years ago we moved Joel out to Arizona to start his studies at U of A.

Last Friday was the culmination of all his hard work.

It was a beautiful and sunny day. The school ceremony was at 7:30 but Joel had a School of Civil Engineering 'personal' commencement for the 30 BS degrees, 5 master degrees and 1 doctorate degree in Civil Engineering.  

We got to hear of all the things people did and the extra awards they earned and it was very cool. Joel picked up a few accolades for his extra work involved over the last 3 years. I couldn't be more proud.

When that was over we took a few pictures. A few hundred it felt like.

Then it was on to Chipotle for a celebratory lunch time burrito!

After that we headed back to school and started getting ready for the entire school ceremony. Which is huge and takes place in the football stadium....

We watched and watched to see if we could see Joel coming in.  I had my doubts that we would...Nah!

Son of a gun had first row seats! I think it was completely random but he is lucky that way.

I was going to go on and show a few more pictures and explain it but this is a video that shows the entire night better than I can explain it

It made for a great night! 

We are so very proud of you Joel! 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times

The Arizona Trail Backpacking Trip.

Sometime it’s the simple unscripted plan that seems to go the best. Or is it the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

Either way, the adventure I had spent countless hours working on was about to begin.

And what an inauspicious beginning it was. On Friday I had already begun to get emails telling me that my flights for the next day are being cancelled. Apparently Denver was under a winter storm warning with snow totals upwards of 20”.  Our flight from Milwaukee had a connection to Tucson in Denver. Not a good sign.

I called the airline and am able to work out a direct to Phoenix flight and not get stuck in Denver. I call my hiking companion, Mike who lives outside of Dallas, and tell him of the plan change and hopefully he can also get a flight change. He lets me know about 20 minutes later that we are good to go.  Now to alter my rental car from a Tucson in and out to a Phoenix to Tucson one way. So now we get in later, have to drive the near 2 hours from Phoenix to Tucson and get dinged an extra $150.00 for the privilege, basically doubling that expense.

Saturday comes and the travel goes off without a hitch, for once.  We meet up with Mike at the airport and head down to Tucson. We have lost four hours over our original plan. We lost time to get groceries, gas for stoves (not allowed on flights) wood for our resupply campfire and any other pre hike shakedown things we have to do.

The whole day was a blur and before I knew it was 10:00 PM, and with my body two hours ahead it felt like midnight.

The next day (Sunday) Tracy, Mackenzie, Mike and I, load up the car, go to Ihop for breakfast and on to the Alta Loma trail head (Hope Camp Trail) to start our trip. From this trailhead we would hike into Saguaro National Park and north on the Arizona National Scenic Trail.

Today started out easy enough. About five miles in it was noon and we stopped for lunch. Jimmy John’s subs purchased the night before. A little heavy for one meal, and 14 hours old (they were refrigerated overnight) but wilted lettuce and cold cuts never tasted so good.  That seems to become a theme for the trip. After so much activity everything tastes good.

It was about 1 hour before lunch we ran into two other hikers, coming from where were are headed. Two of only four people we would see all week.

We get back on the trail after lunch and the threads of my planning are already starting to show themselves, like a well-worn sweater. At this point we expected, or thought anyway, that we would be get the campsite (another 5 miles) by 2 or 2:30. 

At this point it didn’t matter. The trip was everything I was hoping for, great weather, incredible scenery; 20-30 foot high Saguaro Cacti, Indian paint brush and prickly pear cactus all in bloom. Say nothing of the incredible vistas as we slowly climb in altitude.

Those looks outs got better the higher we got. We did get high. We gained over 2200’ today alone.

Around 4:15 (2 hrs. behind schedule) we finally stumble into camp seemingly out of nowhere. We crossed a creek and look up to realize we walked right into the middle of Grass Shack Campground. And what a campsite it was. Shade trees, clear flat ground a bear box/picnic table and that creek. Fresh, cold and running right along the edge of the campground, making those babbling brook sounds.

We happily dropped our packs and wandered around for a bit. Happy to have the day completed and awed at this great little site. 

Mike sets up his tent and I string up the hammock. The sky is clear and there is not rain forecast as far as we know so I hang the tarp but leave it in the ‘snake skins’ just in case.

With that out of the way, I get out of my hiking boots and into some camp shoes.  My boots are nice with grip and support but don’t seem to breathe enough so my feet get pretty warm.

My feet are grateful and we move on to getting dinner. I have these unimaginative green belly bars. I bought them on Kickstarter. A full 1/3^rd of your nutritional needs in these chocolate peanut type bars. A bit dry but they do the trick.  Mike busts out some dehydrated spaghetti and meat sauce. I am now jealous. Except the fact he added an extra cup of water and ended up with spaghetti soup. It smells good and he also made some instant spuds. 

A quick note about Mike. He’s what you would call a slightly picky eater. In fact Tracy and he just had a blast at the dinner the night before talking about all the little idiosyncrasies on what they eat and what they won’t. Mike took great pains to get food he would like and could take along. I was really impressed with what he opened up to on this trip.

After dinner I broke out my little flask I got for Christmas and a tube of powdered margarita mix. Trail margaritas with some Hornitos tequila! 

The sun starts to set on and since we are in this little valley it gets a little chilly.  I try to see how far back this creek goes. I have no idea of its origin I just know it’s incredible.

At 7:00 Mike and I are like now what? Seriously we are tired and going to bed just seems right.

I lay in the hammock just the bug net over me, probably did not even need that. The sky is clear and the moon is almost full. I doze off pretty quick and then wake up around 10. The moon is so bright, it makes a flashlight unneeded for this bathroom break.  Nothing but the sounds of running water.

As when sleeping in hotel beds or outside the first few nights, sleep comes in smaller sets. A few hours, wake up, another few hours. The next time I wake up it is 3:00 am. My watch says its 43° and the moon has set to the west. Now the stars are in full glory. I grab my glasses and let my eyes adjust for a while. There is no light pollution around here. It’s amazing how many stars you can see as opposed to even my house.

I take my glasses off and get another 2 hours of sleep.

I get up and out of the hammock around 6 am its still only 46°. I make some coffee. It’s only Starbucks instant but it does the trick. Then I remember the almond Snickers bar I had from last night that was way too melted to eat. I dig into the bear box and pull it out.  Perfect, albeit quite misshapen but after peeling the wrapper out of the new creases it goes great with the coffee. Next up is some apples n’ cinnamon oatmeal. I decide to hold off on the pop tart as the oatmeal is two serving size.

Mike gets up and basically does the same, cocoa instead of coffee and a bagel instead of oatmeal, but he too has the melted and re-forged candy bar from yesterday.

I make another coffee and convert the hammock into a swing. We are lollygagging this morning because it feels right.

We break down camp and filter a bunch of water. On the Arizona trail, water is the biggest concern. It can be far between opportunities to fill up, so when you can you do. It was not unreasonable for us to each be carrying over a gallon of water.  A gallon of water mind you, weighs over 8 pounds.

It’s after 9 when we leave camp. Goodbye Grass Shack.

Today is a huge day, at least 2 more miles than yesterday and did I mention 3300 feet of elevation gain? This means over 2 days we will have climbed over a mile up. We feel refreshed and ready to go.

Our next stop is Manning camp at 8000’ and about 5 miles. The trail as you can imagine is pretty much up the entire time. Again the trail is just beautiful. The first 2 hours are not bad, but I have a ‘bonk’ moment where I dig out that pop-tart I didn’t eat this morning and devour it. I feel my blood sugar get boosted.  I also notice that the temperature is warmer than yesterday.

It’s still slow going and we don’t get to Manning camp until 1:00. A bit behind schedule, but not too bad I guess.  We drop our packs in the shade of the building. The camp is actually an old homestead built in 1905 and now used by the park service for base camp when the park service does prescribed burns and other activities.

I make lunch, pasta puttanesca with meat sauce. Probably a poor choice to have a warm lunch like that, but it hit the spot for sure.  We putter around the camp, reading the signs, lifting weights. Yea, someone dragged a weight bench, weights and an Olympic bar up here. 

Another great feature of this camp is the spring that fills up a retention pond and then that drains down the mountain. More clear, cold mountain water. Mike takes the filter and goes to fill up. After a while I realize it should not take that long to filter and go look for him. He barely has one water bottle full. Filter must need cleaning, I clean it, or so I thought I did and I try again. It’s still too slow. At this point I am ready to use the backup purification tablets we have. One more cleaning and this time I really clean it. Boom it starts working like it should. Unfortunately we wasted way too much time on this.

Loaded up with the most water we have had so far (as there may not be another water source until tomorrow) we head out. It’s after 3 and we are 90 percent sure we will not make the intended campsite before night fall. We still have another 600 feet of accent to get to the top of Mica Mountain.

We get to the crest, staring into the valley below us. A million dollar view if there ever was one. It is energizing. It adds some missing spring to our step.

We begin the long decent into that valley where our scheduled camp site is supposed to be. We know we won’t make it, it’s now just a matter of how far we can go before it gets too dark.

You think going down would be easier than up, but in my opinion it is worse. Completely different set of muscles, ankle twisting angles and loose scrabble makes it difficult.

Around 7900 ft we find a water source. Italian spring. We both have a laugh at the horrible little puddle the are calling a spring. Thank god we loaded up on water at Manning camp.

Not much farther after this we are out of the park. There is a fence we have to go through, just like when we entered.  It took us about 36 hours to trek across this wonderful national park.

As we work our way down the northeast side of the mountain, the sun starts getting lower. Mike and I start discussing when we should find a place for the night. No later than 6:30 as sunset is around 7 and because of the mountains even earlier for us.

After about 30 minutes of walking, we find the idyllic spot for both of us. Flat for tents with pine needles and plenty of trees for hammocks.  Bah, I say. We have 45 minutes of day light and we will find plenty more like this on the way down.

After about 10 minutes the terrain changes drastically. I may regret making the call on skipping that site. We keep on going and I can just feel the mistake.  I say a few things like ‘yea, I may have made the wrong call’. Mike’s not too hard on me, gives me some shit every few minutes but it’s nothing I don’t deserve.

We finally find a plateau. It’s flat-ish and has a few trees scattered about. It’s less than ideal. But we make it work.  I hang my hammock on what you would call a no-no most any other time, a dead tree. Not only dead but partially burnt from the last fire that may have come through. It is small so if it does come down, I feel fairly certain it would not hurt me too much. I hang on it, give it a few shoves and decide it’s worth the effort. I strap up and gingerly sit down. Nothing happens. I quickly get to hanging the tarp as this is a bit open, so anything to break the wind will be appreciated. Oh yea, I am also hanging across the actual trail.  Again not a great idea. As animals tend to use them as much as people.

Mike may have it worse. He is on at least a 20° angle and ends up sliding down in his tent all night.  He makes some instant lasagna. I eat next to nothing. I am pretty upset at a few things. My call on the campsite, the fact we are now even further behind to name a few. 

The consolation to this site is the incredible sunset, turning the eastern ridge orange and red. Likewise on the sun rise, we get to watch the sun fill the mountains to the west and fill the valley below with light.

I sleep less than I did the night before.  A few hours at a time. The low temperature I see is about 50°. I finally rise around 5:30 as the first light starts to break. Make breakfast of some instant polenta with Italian sausage, some honey roasted almonds and another candy bar I did not eat the night before.

At this point, my body is still feeling pretty good, my knee is a little sore from all the downhill but a few Aleve and we are good to go. I am thinking to myself we need to get out of here no later than 7:30, but I am not pushing anything. I have made a few too many bad calls as it is.

7:58 we are on the trail. Not bad. The bad part is we need to do about 16-17 miles today by 5:30 pm. Based on our last two nights that was going to be tough. Although the thought was we could make time once we got to the valley, more flat with only a few mild elevation gains and losses.

Our spirits are high as we start, thinking we can do this. I continue to be kidded about my lack of campsite judgement, deservedly so.

About 3 miles in we cross Tanque Verde Canyon. Another water source. We heard it long before we actually saw it. When we saw it we were happy. Again we drop our packs with gusto. Drink up on the water we have and go to filling up full every container we have. We take some bandanas and get wet to aid the cooling as we notice the temps seem to be quite  bit warmer than the last few days.

We spend about a half hour here and resume on the trail. About another mile we finally hit the spot where we were supposed to have made it last night. Wow I really missed on the effort needed here.

We keep on cruising through some high plains and grassland. The sun is really starting to heat up. It’s surreal scenery. Bluest of skies, the golden grass, the green dotting of small trees and scrub here and there and the ever-changing dirt path we walk upon.

“ Snake! Rattlesnake!” I hear snapping me out of my hiking trance.  I turn around to see Mike come up on me as ask if I saw the snake.  I had not.  About 10 feet off the trail under a tree, he spotted it and it rattled at him. I probably went by first and startled it, when Mike followed he was more than ready to warn us. I went back to see if I could find it, but it had taken off and that was the last we saw of him. Still it made me look everywhere after that.

After another hour or so we take a quick break. Mike says we should do more of this type of thing. Mentioning that we are getting along well and enjoying ourselves. I chuckle a bit because, I never even thought of that. I have to agree, we were having a good time, doing things and seeing things most people will never see. We make a pretty good team. Yep, if he still wants to travel with me after this one I won’t stop him.

About 11:30 we cross Reddington road. We have some cattle barriers to cross and a dirt road. This is where, if we had time we were going to cache some extra water. Since we lost so much time due to our change in travel plans we never made it.  It didn’t matter, we found some water that was left by ‘Trail Angels’ who leave water out here for hikers and users of the Arizona trail. We drank some and filled up but left plenty for others. Onward we went.

Around 1 we decide to stop for lunch. If we can find some shade. When planning for this trip the average high temperature in April is around 84. We would come to find out it was 96 that day. I could definitely feel it.  We find the smallest of scrub trees near the trail and throw ourselves and the packs underneath it. We have lunch. I made some hamburger tortilla wraps. It’s a dehydrated meal but needs only cool water. It was like having these hamburger burritos. They were so good.  Of course when this hungry and this tired almost anything is good, I think that’s how a lot of these companies that make food for backpacking survive. These dummies are so damn hungry they will eat anything. Taste is secondary. Mike and I did a lot of food testing before this trip so we would not be fooled but still I can see that happening.

As we sit under our bush we see a man on a horse coming down the trail. The first person we have seen in about two days. As he approaches, he stops and stares at us for a few extra seconds. He continues on toward us and proclaims that he thought I was a mountain lion. Tan pants, white shirt? I guess? Not much for conversation, he continues on and we pack up to head out.

We carry on another 2 hours and we approach another road crossing. As we approached the road we had discussed what we knew we needed to do. Drop some weight on these packs if we are going to make another 5-6 miles to the next campsite. At Bellota Ranch road we drop the packs and decide we need to call the support team (my wife and kids). The reasons are many.

• We will never make the campsite by 5:30.  This is when the whole resupply team would be expecting us. If we don’t show or let her know where we are, I am sure she will call the cavalry.
• Our packs need to be lightened. 3 days of hiking has made aware that we have too much stuff and if we are to continue the extra, unneeded, unused items would need to go.
• If we continue we will never make to the campsite before nightfall. We do have extra food, but it would not be safe to push on in the dark.
• Finally, the Aleve is wearing off and my knee is reminding me that it is sore.

This is about 3:30 in the afternoon. The real problem at hand, we can’t get a cell signal.  I get gps coordinates and the road name on the phones so as soon as we get a signal we can send the message.

As luck would have it Mike ended up backtracking about 3 miles to get that signal. I did about half of that going to look for him when he did not get back on our agreed up on time. 

The good news is we were able to get in contact with the extraction team. Now we just sit and wait.

It’s after 6 when they roll up in the car. At this point I am really struggling with myself. The disappointment I feel from only getting a little over half way through the trip, the time spent planning, the feeling that I wasn’t prepared enough. I don’t feel good about it right now.

We rearrange the trunk to load our packs.  We had to, they were on their way to the resupply point and had all kinds of fresh food for dinner, and beverages and resupply stuff. All for nothing.

We pile into the car and begin what I would term in itself an adventure.  The 12 mile dirt/gravel road that they came to get us on. It was a jeep trail and nothing more.  The most rutted, pot holed, narrow slice of ‘road’ I can ever recall trying to navigate. In an overloaded rental car.  Not a jeep or a lifted pickup truck.  It takes an hour to get out and the car bottomed out a few times. I was amazed Tracy drove it in, as I sit wild eyed and drive it out. Don’t get a flat, don’t get stuck because who knows when or where we would get help out here.

By the time we get back on pavement it’s well after 8 and dark. We hit Culvers for dinner and decide that the trip is over.  We could head back out tomorrow and try to finish it, but my knee is telling me that it might not be a good idea, and that I don’t want to worry my wife for the rest of the trip as she goes home in a day and wouldn’t hear from me for some time. As I write this I think we could have and maybe should have tried but at the time I think I was mentally beaten more than physically at that point.

So how did we do? About 35 miles of the 57 planned. Learned a lot about what we can do, our gear, my planning. I already have a redemption trip on my mind closer to home. Probably solo, but it might be what I need.

As Mike goes back to Texas and I to Wisconsin, you can bet we will start thinking where to go and what to do next. Next time to completion.

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