Delirious Ramblings

Oak Soup

Oak Soup, Coconino National Forest, May 2012

 

There is something strangely liberating about finding water in the woods, something that appeals to the inner rugged individualist in us all, something far older than camelbaks and nalgene bottles. I've been actively seeking these places out for a while now, poking around the geology, looking into shady slot canyons, and places where rainwater might accumulate and persist in punchbowl tinajas for longer than a few days. I've found a few, I guess, and I guard the knowledge jealously. Most are on the topographic maps - the quality ones made in the old days anyway - and marked with blah blah spring or something something tank, but some are not, and those are by far the most precious of all.

 

Oak Soup, Coconino National Forest, May 2012

 

Despite being the high country, there isn't much of it around here, the water I mean. At least not the kind of surface water where anyone besides a tree can get to it. It's there of course, it always has been, but it's uncertain and tough to tease out, especially now that the dry season is advancing. But if you pay attention to the clues you'll sometimes be rewarded with an ephemeral seep and a few liters of black, water-strider and mosquito infested liquid pooled up in the back of a rockface or deep in some marshy hollow.

If you're lucky enough to find it it's best to simply put an X on your topo map, jot the location and date in your journal (you do have one of those, right?) or mark a waypoint in your gps for future reference. This is emergency water, bug-out water, the sort you drink only if you've run dry and have no other choice. And even then, you take only what you absolutely need. Why? Simple: the wildlife needs this water far more than you do. The deer and the birds don't have access to endlessly free-flowing taps, don't have a couple liters of water waiting under the seat of the truck back at the trailhead. For them that stinky black water is the difference between life and death. Better to leave it to them if you can.

I suppose I needn't tell you about the dangers of drinking front and back country water. Filter it with a quality water filter, boil it, or treat it with harsh, nasty tasting chemicals. Or maybe do all three depending on how paranoid you feel. I hear we've become soft, hardly fit to reside in these places, and a dose of the wee beasties that our ancestors would've shrugged off a couple centuries ago tend to have their way with us now.

 

Oak Soup, Coconino National Forest, May 2012

And the clues I spoke of?

Ah, yes. The clues.

It's simple, really: the birds will tell you the secret knowledge of water, the butterflies, the deer, the large green trees, the geology itself. Learn to listen to what they say, follow in their footsteps, and they'll lead you right to it.

Moto

Moto-Trail Damage, Coconino National Forest, May 2012

Above is a photo of an illegal moto trail that snakes its way through the woods north of the San Francisco Peaks. It goes for miles and miles making big swoopy loops and meandering S-turns through the terrain. One time I walked a mile or so of it, curious to see where it went. I gave up in frustration when it became apparent that it had no destination, no plan, that there was no rationality behind it, not even the alien logic of ungulates. Its sole purpose -- if you could call it a purpose -- seemed to be simply to maximize trail mileage for no reason other than to keep knobby tires spinning as long as possible without retracing any ground.

On Nonhuman Trails

Rees Peak, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, May 2012

I did a little more wilderness exploring up on Rees Peak on Sunday, about nine miles of tough off-trail hiking and climbing. This time I took a slightly different route and avoided most of the old Bear Jaw burn area (see my last post on Rees). Instead of trying to find my own path through the riot of aspen regeneration and wild rose I poked around the base of the mountain until I found an elk trail that led me up through the worst of it. The trail was obviously not built to human specifications and it got very hairy at the upper end, but the elk know that mountain from top to bottom and they've figured out all the best routes.

 

Rees Peak, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, May 2012

Despite the help from the indigenous quadrupeds I was turned around by residual snow drifts at about 10,900 feet. The top was still a third of a mile and some six hundred vertical feet away. I thought about pushing on through the snow but knew it would only get deeper as I climbed higher. I wasn't really expecting to make it to the top so early in the season so I wasn't too disappointed. Actually, I was surprised I made it as high as I did.

I'm fine with not making it to the top of Rees -- or any of these mountains for that matter. If I bag a summit during one of my ramblings that's great. If I don't that's okay too. At some point I realized that most of the really interesting and neat stuff to see on mountains isn't at the summit at all, but rather around the flanks, in the foothills, and in the experiences you collect in just being there. In some ways I think hiking a mountain just to get to the top should be looked upon as a form of disrespect, like rushing through an art exhibit to buy M&Ms at the gift shop.

 

Rees Peak, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, May 2012

Rees is not the highest or the steepest of the prominences making up the San Francisco Peaks, but it's rapidly becoming my favorite. The forest up there is deep and dark, filled with shadow and mystery and stillness. I have a couple more hikes on Rees before I move my explorations a little to the west to meet Aubineau Peak and ultimately north Humphreys. And then... well... let's just say that things get a little hazy after Humphreys.

A Wilderness of Cats

Wait-a-Minute Bush, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, April 2012

In the hot chaparral country below the Mogollon Rim grows an especially irascible member of the Pea family called Wait-a-Minute Bush (Mimosa biuncifera). It gets that name from its habit of grabbing on to your clothing or skin with its long claw-like spines, thus forcing you to stop and carefully extract yourself from its grip. I've always known it by its other common name, "Cat Claw", which I think is more descriptive of this plant's true nature, as its thorns resemble a house cat's claws and it will scratch the hell out of you if you mess with it.

 

Wait-a-Minute Bush, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, April 2012

Wait-a-Minute tends to grow in nearly impassible thickets, many quite large; they stake out their territory and they guard it jealously. Anyone foolish enough to muscle his or her way through their domain will not be the same person when they exit the other side, the plants having exacted their toll in flesh and blood.

Once, many years ago, a relative and I went on an off-trail trek into Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, looking for gray limestone and fossilized fish, chasing rumors of lost buried treasure, and seeking adventure. We found neither fish nor gold. Instead we found sixty thousand acres of dry red dust, shimmering heat, and a hissing fury of pissed-off cat claw that tore at our clothing and lacerated every inch of exposed skin. I came away from that experience with a healthy respect for cat claw bushes and a love of Arizona's second largest redrock canyon that I carry with me to this day.

Bear Jaw

Bear Jaw Canyon, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, April 2012

I continued my wilderness exploration project over the weekend with an eight mile bushwhack up into the northeast quadrant of the Kachina Peaks Wilderness. It was a warm day and leaving the snowshoes, heavy winter boots and most of the cold weather gear at home was a welcome change. It felt kind of strange to be traveling so light and so fast again after months of creeping along on snowshoes.

The above picture is from a ridge looking south up at Bear Jaw canyon, one of the three large canyons on the north side of the San Francisco Peaks. Rees Peak is the rounded mountain on the left and Aubineau is on the right with the snowfields. Humphreys Peak, the tallest point on San Francisco Mountain (and in Arizona) is just out of frame to right of the snag. The Bear Jaw trail - which is how most people tour this part of the mountain - descends Rees from the waterline road about mid-mountain and then drops into Bear Jaw canyon before heading west towards the trailhead a couple miles away.

 

Elk or Deer Skeleton, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, April 2012

At one point during my hike I came upon the sun-bleached partial remains of a deer or elk lying hidden in the rocks and last year's grass. I looked around the area for the rest of the skeleton but found only a few scattered leg bones and a scapula or two. The head was notably absent.

My search of the immediate vicinity also turned up:

• Two discarded water bottles like you'd purchase at a convenience store.
• A faded Tropicana orange juice container with a couple of fingers of juice lingering at the bottom.
• An empty container of Skoal chewing tobacco.

After hunters field dress (actually, I think it's called "boning out") their kill this is often all that remains. I haven't found many of these sites during my explorations into the KPW. I have my own theories and opinions on why that is, but I guess I will keep them to myself.

 

Looking North, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, April 2012

The above shot shows the view looking roughly north from just short of where I was forced to stop climbing due to the snow getting too deep for regular hiking boots. I'm pretty sure this clearing is where the 1995 Bear Jaw Fire stopped its westward advance around the mountain. I shudder to think what the north side of the Peaks would look like had it continued. Judging by the plethora of young pines, firs, and aspen coming up throughout the area it seems to be recovering nicely. If the Schultz Fire burn area comes back even half as well I think old San Francisco Mountain will do just fine.

 

Bear Jaw Fire Recovery, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, April 2012

On the way back to my truck I was working my way slowly through the thick conifer and aspen forest above the old burn when I began to get a very strong feeling that something was following me. My father, who spent many years working outdoors for the Forest Service, once told me that you should pay attention to those odd feelings when you're in the woods. I stopped several times to listen and scan the forest behind me. Once I even doubled-back to see if I could see what it was, but there was nothing. Just a very creepy feeling that something was back there. After a while the feeling went away and I moved on.

There may be a smallish city only a dozen or so miles away and zillions of forest visitors each year from the mega-city down south, but this mountain can still be very wild when she wants to be.

At the Bristlecone Wall

The Bristlecone Wall, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, January 2012

When I finally reached the thin green line of prostrated bristlecone pines on Agassiz Peak the trees presented me with a choice: If I blundered my way through their ranks and up the summit ridge I would be allowed to stand atop the mountain with only ravens and the blue air above. But the price of that rocky pinacle would be very high: the sound of those trees' ancient limbs cracking and snapping under my weight, of seeing my bootprints pressed carelessly into the cindery alpine tundra. Or... I could willingly abort my climb there at the base of the bristlecone wall, cede victory to the Kachinas, and descend with my wilderness ethics intact, leaving those shining Methuselahs undisturbed in their high and hostile abode.

I'd always thought I would do the right thing when faced with the choice between their well-being and the bragging rights for bagging Arizona's second highest point, but until you are actually there, staring up at those fragile and vulnerable trees after something like 3,800 vertical feet of difficult climbing with only a few hundred more to go, well... you don't really know, do you? Summit fever can afflict the best of us, make us do things we wouldn't normally do.

I looked up at the great pyramid of stone above me, imagined what the view down into the Inner Basin would look like from the top, how the thin breeze blowing along the summit ridge would feel ... and I let it all slip away. I turned back. For their sake I would not walk upon the summit that day.

I had passed the test.

Where Green Stones Flow Like Water

The River of Green Stones, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, January 2012

I'm knee deep in last year's snow, working my way slowly along the face of the mountain when I finally see light ahead through the thick spruce and bristlecone pine forest. I head for it, hoping to see the sun. When I break free of the crusty snow and gloom I find myself on the banks of a river of green lichen and gray lava.

I wade out into it, mindful of the rollers and tippy flat plates, and look upstream. The great river of rock extends upwards for a million years. Downstream is the same. It is a raging torrent frozen in time, the rumblings and stirrings of earth paused in mid flow. Around me I can feel the trembling potential energy in the ancient rocks, all that repressed gravity waiting these many millennia.

 

The River of Green Stones, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, January 2012

They say the San Francisco Peaks are extinct, that they've been asleep for a quarter million years or so and unlikely to ever reawaken. Extinct. Dormant. I guess that's technically true as far as geologists and science is concerned, but standing there in the middle of the frozen jumble of stone with the ancient lava rapids roaring in my ears, somehow it doesn't feel true.

I poke at one of the lichen covered boulders with the carbide point of one of my snowshoe poles. It moves imperceptibly, tips ever so slightly. I hear it grate softly against its mates. I can't help but think about Aron Ralston and his 127 hours.

A little unnerved I stand and work my way across the expanse of rocks quickly and carefully. I let out a little sigh of relief when I reach the other side, having safely forded the river.

No, it doesn't feel true at all. Dormant my ass, this damned mountain is alive.

On Wilson Mountain

Wilson Mountain Summit, Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, December 2011

My sometime hiking buddy and I spent one of the last days of 2011 exploring the upper reaches of Wilson Mountain in the Red Rock - Secret Mountain Wilderness area near Sedona. Wilson is a vast flat-topped mountain that juts out from the Mogollon Rim and forms part of the western wall of the infamous Oak Creek Canyon that is so popular with tourists and daytrippers. The Wilson Mountain Trail begins at the Midgely Bridge on Highway 89A just north of Sedona and climbs up a steep canyon through Pinyon-Juniper woodlands onto a high "bench" before switchbacking another thousand feet to the top of the mountain and spectacular 360-degree views.

Wilson Mountain Trail is one of the most popular trails on the Red Rock district, which is why I've been avoiding it for all these years. I think Wilson Mountain fills much the same role for Sedona as Mount Elden does in Flagstaff: It has a difficult trail on it with reasonably good parking and it's close to town, so trail runners and tourists flock to it. The day we went there weren't many other hikers due to the mud and snow above the first bench, but I suppose at more favorable times of the year the chances of having an actual wilderness experience up there are pretty slim.

 

Wilson Mountain, Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, December 2011

The human-caused Brins Mesa Fire of June, 2006 slicked off much of the Ponderosa and Douglas fir forest on top of the mountain, leaving behind a wasteland of charred trunks, parallel logs, and clusters of rampaging Gambel oak and thorn bushes. Not all of the trees are gone, but it was still a pretty serious fire. In the future I think the top of Wilson will have large grassy meadows, a lot more Alligator juniper, and patches of beautiful oak forest with all the associated wildlife and birds that go along with that. But for now the mountain is still sorting out the aftereffects of the fire, so be prepared for the shock of seeing plenty of dead trees up there.

 

Wilson Mountain, Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, December 2011

Because of the snow - quite deep in places - we had to posthole much of the way to the summit where we could look out over Oak Creek Canyon and back towards Flagstaff. We ate our lunches perched on a log, suspended mere feet from the edge and screaming weightlessness. I admired the view of the San Francisco Peaks, some thirty miles to the north, while shots of adrenaline spiked my peanut butter and jelly sandwich with blue electricity. In hindsight I probably wouldn't have chosen that spot for my lunch had I been hiking solo, which just goes to show that having a partner along with you doesn't necessarily make you safer.

 

San Francisco Peaks from Wilson Mountain, Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, December 2011

Hours later and a thousand feet lower on the first bench we stopped among a stand of Alligator juniper and spiny agave. Before our eyes the glaring bright afternoon sun slowly transformed the patchy snow into sticky clay and trickling rivulets, the trail vanishing beneath a quagmire of mud and ten-pound platform shoes. While we were sitting there discussing some philosophical question - perhaps the relative impacts of primitive societies on the environment versus contemporary ones - a pair of tattooed hikers approached us to ask directions to the summit.

 

Wilson Mountain, Red Rock-Secret Mountain Wilderness, December 2011

They were wearing thin summer-weight clothing, running shoes, and had no visible cold weather gear along with them. We cautioned them about the steep, icy trail and the deep snow above, yet incredibly they continued on. Dressed like that and with only a couple hours of good daylight remaining it was dangerous for them to do so. They were so confident and so utterly clueless that I doubt we could've worded a warning strong enough to dissuade them from their late afternoon summit fever.

I guess we all have to learn our own lessons.

A Wilderness of Spheres

Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, November 2011

The trail is long and steep and it unravels slowly through a forest of soughing pinyon pine and shaggy bark juniper, skirting past red-rock buttes until it deposits us at the creek bottom. Like many of Arizona's backcountry rivers this time of year there is no water, only a wilderness of polished river stones and encroaching thickets of arizona ash and sycamore. It is still fall at this low elevation and the trees' leaves glow a brilliant yellow. They are releasing back some of the summer sun before packing it in for the winter. I think it is their way of giving thanks for a growing season well spent.

 

 Sycamore Creek, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, November 2011

 We drop our packs and eat lunch among the stones. Afterwards we split up: he up some nameless side canyon, me downstream among the ankle-busters. The sycamores beckon me south and I explore the river course, slowly resolving my way around and over boulders, stepping carefully, aware of shifting centers of gravity and balance points, feeling the soles of my boots gripping the rock. It is an interesting sensation and I revel in its  bright, shining immediacy, its ability to cut through all the left-brain crap of human consciousness and force one into the present.

 

Sycamore Creek, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, November 2011

I try to internalize the workings of the river basin, the sound of the wind in the pinyons above, the warmth of the sun, the feel of bones pivoting on ligament and of wondrous balance. I will use the memories of this place as an antidote to the deadly monotony of civilized life. When I am next trapped in traffic with a boom-car rumbling in the adjacent lane I'll hold these stones up as a talismanic shield.

Later I meet up with my hiking partner. I ask him what he saw in the side canyon and he is mysteriously reticent, offering scant clues. I should know better than to ask such things.

 

Sycamore Creek, Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, November 2011

On the way out with the light getting low in the west we meet a woman with a very large dog. She is searching for a missing hiker, gone for a month now, presumed lost in the backcountry. She shows us a photograph of a smiling man. He could be anybody, any one of the many hikers I routinely meet on trails. We haven't seen him (or anyone else for that matter) and she moves on, possessed of a grim and hopeless kind of determination.

The Serenity of Fremont Peak

Fremont Peak, Kachina Peaks Wilderness, October 2011

I got up ridiculously early Sunday morning and hiked the Inner Basin trail again, this time without the long climb from below Sugarloaf Mountain as the Forest Service had reopened the Locket Meadow access road. Catching O'Leary and Sunset Crater back-lit by the orange pre-dawn glow was sublime. I was the first one at the trailhead and made it all the way back to the base of Fremont Peak just as the sun was breaking over the Doyle ridgeline. My early wake-up call paid off in getting to watch the light slowly work its way down the face of the peak.

I sat there in the sun for perhaps twenty minutes in almost total silence, the only sounds coming from a very light breeze and some Clark's Nutcrackers high up on Doyle. As the quiet deepened my ears adapted by turning up the gain. Even the sound of the breeze sighing in the needles of the bristlecones a half mile away was clearly audible. Finally, after what seemed an eternity of slowly shifting light a jet intrusion broke the stillness. To my quiet-adapted ears it sounded like thunder.

Side note: that big snowfield in the center of the above picture is the "Telemark" avalanche chute, where backcountry skiers tend to self-trigger avalanches every spring. It is one of the most dangerous places in the San Francisco Peaks during the winter. You can see the Weatherford Trail crossing it.