At 8:30pm he called me to ask me if I was working today. I said no, and that I would be ready to meet him at 9:30am at the Carr Canyon Road lower parking area. He was prompt, the dogs were ready to go, and up the mountain road we drove in my Ford Escape, dodging new and expanded ruts from the summer's heavy rains. Trace sat up front with Steve while Zeke and Sadie took up the backseat. I left Minnie at home since she was a bit too playful with Trace on our last hike. Today was forecasted to be in the upper 70s with wind gusts up to 24mph. Winterstorm Decima is due this weekend, bringing in a cold front and daytime temperatures dropping 20 degrees. If I didn't hike up Carr today, I may not have a chance later this month with the road closed by the Forest Service whenever snow or ice make the drive more dangerous.
We parked at the Sawmill trail head. Steve wasn't expecting the steep start, but I told him I prefer this access trail to the peak over the Ramsey Vista trail head because the Sawmill trail has the Sawmill springs a half-mile up the trail, a nice refreshment for the dogs at the start and finish of the hike. Little Trace drank his share of the cool water and even went into the tub to get himself completely wet. I really took a liking to this dog on today's hike, and he apparently liked me, too.
Steve has been back in Arizona only two weeks and warned me that he would be slow. I knew that. He's also 69 years old, something I also take into consideration. His five months in the Midwest this past summer and fall have gotten him out of shape but he was determined to bag Carr Peak and I was willing to guide him the entire time. This was a different way of looking at Carr Peak, allowing me more time to enjoy the views. I should have brought a decent camera along.
We did stop a lot, though. Whenever Steve needed to rest, I stopped, too. We sat on rocks and drank water. Steve stopped twice to eat. The dogs were probably wondering why I was stopping so much. They are used to me charging up the hill for the most part. By the first mile Steve sat down and seemed upset with himself: the hike up the mountain was harder than he expected. Was he going to make it to the peak? I stayed with him, never losing him out of my sight. I watched for delirium, elevation sickness (shortness of breath, headache), heavy breathing. I didn't see any of those. So we took it very slowly. The only thing that would force us to turn around was losing daylight, or a sudden freak storm. Skies were mostly clear with a breeze. All I wore was a red dry-weave shirt with an oversized white nylon men's shirt as a jacket, and black cotton pants that made my legs bulge out.
I kept losing my GPS tracking and at the two-mile mark accidentally shut it off and had to restart a route. The aspen grove was naked, but here is where the snow packed into ice along the north slope of the trail, making walking treacherous both coming and going. There was no water in the intermittent waterfall, but the dogs had snow to bite and Steve and I had plenty of water between us.
This hike quickly became both therapy and encouragement for Steve, who would repeatedly talk about his late wife Gail and the fun things she'd do, or the hikes and van camps they'd both do before she developed inflammatory breast cancer that killed her at age 64 when he was 63 years old. He had lost his job the year before, so this was an especially bad time for him from which he has not fully recovered. (Does one ever fully recover from such a loss, or does one instead just learn to cope?) He's now 69 years old and seeing his own body slow down and age. Like me, he's scared of what is to come. I was there to listen and to prompt him up the trail as long as he was willing and showing no health issues.
The wind picked up in the last half mile, as the trail crests the ridge and begins the final .3 -mile ascent to the peak. We had to hold our hats in our hands, as the wind blew across the grassy slope. It didn't seem to bother the dogs. Trace never lost his urge to hunt for birds, for which he was trained, and Sadie and Zeke looked on in amazement but then opted to stay close to me on the trail. Trace is still a puppy; my dogs are adults.
As little as Trace is, he's a fast dog. I learned that one whistle blow makes him stop and two short whistle blows tells him to return to his owner. He bolted out of a treeline back to me to show off his training. He flushed out a covey of quail that flew off in a huff. I had never hiked with a hunting dog before. For hikers unfamiliar with hunting dogs, they seldom stick to the trail and instead pick up scents and go after those scents. Some may think the dog is not trained to obey trail etiquette. Instead, the dog is doing what it was trained to do.
It took us four hours to reach the peak. This is perhaps my slowest time ever! But time here was not the goal. The goal was simply to get to the peak and down before sunset. A noticeable smile of achievement crossed Steve's face at the peak. The first thing Trace did was pee on the summit. We hunkered down near the manzanitas to get out of the wind, eat our snacks and water the dogs. We resumed our descent at 1:50pm. I brought two cans of dog food for Zeke and Sadie, and Trace was determined to have some, too. He attacked the can with a vengeance, as if starved. Next time I hike with Trace, I'm bringing an extra can for him.
We had no one else on the trail. I saw a few hawks fly overhead and heard a few chirps in the trees. Flowers are gone and so are the leaves.
The descent was a tad faster, but now we had to watch our footing. My old Raichles were pinching my toes. I fell once from a rock crevice and bruised my side. Hiking at a slower pace seemed to have tired me out more than hiking at a normal pace! We got back to the truck at 4:10pm as the waning sun was disappearing behind us, cooling the shade. This was a six-hour hike but I'm glad I got it done for both Steve and me.
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