A short storm blew through

Any kind of precipitation in the Southwest makes headlines.  A fast-moving storm had been forecastedt from late Tuesday into Wednesday, starting with high winds Tuesday night.  My walk Tuesday late afternoon was a brisk 2.3-mile walk around Ranchos San Pedro.  Sadie waited in the truck.

The winds began howling later that evening.  Early Wednesday, the rains came.  It was also noticeably colder.  I drove to the high school in a light drizzle at 37F.  I couldn't see the mountains because low fog shrouded them.  The classroom was cold.  Temperatures had dropped outside into the low 30s.  I thought of Ellen, who wanted to ride her mountainbike up Carr Canyon Road and then hike the peak from there.  She had asked for anyone else to join her via Facebook.  I don't know if she had any takers.

By around 10:30am the rain turned to light snow and the wind increased again.  I could see snowflakes blowing down at an angle from the small window in the classroom.  The sky briefly opened up to blue and I could see thicker fog over the peaks, but couldn't see if we had gotten any snow.  By early afternoon, the skies had cleared up again.  The peaks had gotten a dusting.

When I finally drove home, I could see a light layer of snow in the higher elevations.  Yes, we had gotten some snow, but it didn't reach 4500' as at first predicted.  It looked more like 7000.'  The foothills were barren.

I wanted to play in the snow with the dogs and finally took all four with me to Ash Canyon.  That's still my favorite snow walk as fewer people come here.  (Carr Canyon Road is the crowd favorite)  The road were dry; not much snow there, either.  I kept driving, watching the road carefully to avoid any head-on collisions with larger pick-ups coming from the opposite direction.  Before I even realized, I had gone up the path, past the "Locked Gate Ahead" sign.  How did I miss the trailhead?!?  I noticed the heavy ruts and simply thought seasonal erosion had taken care of the crevices, as flash floods tend to do across dirt roads.   The only vehicles I see go this far up the road are USBP vehicles and ATVs. I parked the truck just below the higher gate, the one the Border Patrol keeps locked, and walked uphill from there.  I was high enough to look back down into the canyon.  I could see another car parked where I should have parked.

There was still no snow, although it was visible higher up.  Small patches were on the north side which the dogs ate from.  They seemed to enjoy the romp.  Even Sadie was out finally on a hike after a two-day break.

The hike up Thompson Ridge was just 2.2-miles.  I had cut off a half-mile each way driving past the trailhead.  I didn't mind, as it was already 4:15pm when I started and the sun was already behind the western slopes, casting its shadows over the canyon.  It would only get darker and colder now. I hiked as fast as I could.  When I got to the top, I was panting.

The snow was two inches deep in some drifts, but nowhere near as much as I had hoped.  My two layers of dryweave pants were dry.  My socks and shoes were dry. No snowballs formed on Zeke's fur.  The ridge itself had very little snow.  There was no snow looking south into Mexico.  Even San Juan peak looked barren.

I took a few photos and a short video and quickly went back down.  I was back at the truck in just under an hour, still amazed I had not noticed the official trailhead parking area.  This isn't the first time I had temporary amnesia.  Hope that's not a sign of more of this to come.

The near full moon was already in the sky as I drove back home. (The full moon is tomorrow at 6:15pm and I'll be out for that one.)  A few hours later Ellen posted her snow pictures on Facebook.  She was right in that windy storm at 9:30am and turned around before she hit the higher reef at 7000'.  Snow was around four inches there.  The wind is what made her turn around.  She had made the right decision.

The exercise did Sadie good.  She had a restful night with no barking.

Peter Jenkins, A Walk Across America

It was a lazy weekend.  Cold weather kept me indoors reading.  I'm trying hard to get my Amazon reviews done.  My Alaska road trip created a backlog from which I've yet to recover.  I have 100 reviews of items to review, and 50 of them are books.

Somewhere in all this online Googling and reminiscing, I read an old review I had written about Peter Jenkins' "A Walk Across America."  The book was published in 1977 but I didn't read it until 2009.  I first saw the book "A Walk Across America" in the PX in Kaiserslautern and wanted to read the book in 1977.  Even as a 17-year-old I was fascinated with the idea of walking long distance and didn't know many who also had such ideas.  I finally read that first Jenkins book while in New Jersey in the early 2000s.  I had borrowed a copy from the post library. 

Jenkin's book was one of several books that inspired me to hike and travel once I retired from the army.  John Steinbeck's "Travels with Charlie" got me interested in wanting to see Montana and William Least Heat-Moon's "Blue Highways" inspired me to explore more of our backroads and experience the Lewis-and-Clark trail.  It's been ten years since I took off my uniform (no regrets there!) and I'm still traveling and hiking.

Jenkins was a new college graduate in his first book, disillusioned with the country, and decided to walk from New York City with his malamute dog Cooper.  Cooper was killed in a truck accident in Tennessee.  In New Orleans he meets Barbara Jo Pennell, a Christian woman whom he falls in love with and marries.  Together they continue their walking journey and co-write "The Walk West," their adventure walking from Louisiana to Oregon.

I read both books.  The first one is still the classic which shot Jenkins to fame as a travel writer, even though Barbara did most of the writing.  In the second book Jenkins is honest about his impatience with Barbara's slower pace, especially once she's pregnant and crossing the Cascades.  I didn't like how he treated her, so it was no surprise to find out that the 1976 marriage ended in a bitter divorce in 1987.

The problem with having that first big hit being the first book out of seven is that subsequent books don't quite measure up.  Jenkins since then has written about sailing around the Gulf of Mexico, walking across China and exploring Alaska, but the reviews to those books don't measure up to his Walk Across America book.  He's now married to third wife Rita Jorgensen and they live in Spring Hill, TN.  He has six kids.  His older kids with Barbara, Luke, Julianna and Jedidiah, are now adults.  Jedidiah took time off as a lawyer to ride a bicycle from Oregon to Patagoniain 2014 and is an active social media poster.  He seems close to his mom and mentions her occasionally on his Instagram account.

What is Peter doing now? Peter Jenkins has a Facebook page but most of his posts seem to talk about his earlier years, when Walk Across America made him the country's first travel writer.  Even the photos of himself go back to the 1970s when he was young and blond. He doesn't engage with his 6800+ followers.  He doesn't sound like a happy man.  He mentions his 1957 Chevy Station Wagon.  His latest book is due out this year and talks about his road trips in the Chevy reliving old memories and seeing people he met years ago who are still alive. I'm interested in reading that.

So why am I so interested in Peter Jenkins?  He was one of the first travel writers and I liked his first book.  I was disappointed to read about his second divorce.  His later books all seemed forced on him as subjects by his editor and were never the hits like his first book.  I should have read "Looking for Alaska" before heading out on my road trip last summer, but a synopsis on Amazon tells me he went up there to live in Seward with wife #3 so he can get paid to do crazy things around the state and write about it all.   There are other more engaging books about Alaska since his 2001 book about Alaska. Forced travel for the sake of getting paid never sound as honest as spontaneous walks across a vast country.  I found this to be true for Bill Bryson's books as well.

Barbara Jo Pennell is the one I admire.  She helped edit and write the first two books.  She gets no credit for the first book.  She mentions in an interview that that was Peter's journey alone.  She is credited for writing the second book.  Another joint book published in 1985 talks about their Christian life together, but that didn't sell well.  The divorce was a bitter one and she was left to raise the kids while Peter went off with wife #3 on new adventures.

I got carried away Googling the Jenkins.  Reading about his life brought me back to my own wanderlust. At 5pm I finally took the dogs out to walk a 4-mile loop around the southern portion of Ranchos San Pedro's dirt paths.  It was a bit warmer today than yesterday, but it only reached 58F.  Another two-day storm is due our way mid-week.

http://podbay.fm/show/925468077/e/1457627053?autostart=1 (Interview starts at 2:39 minutes)

Sundowning

Today was one of our colder days of our cold spell.  It was in the low 50s when I walked the dogs after school, 3.5 miles along the dirt path by the BLM/NFS maintenance barn.  Carr Creek has already dried up from the rain we got last week.  Today the sky was clear again, but another storm is due early next week.  We were the only ones out this time.

Each dog got a slab of steak after the hike.  All rested soundly into the night except for Sadie, who started barking around 10:30pm.   She acted like she was having nightmares. This is known as "sundowning," as dogs with CDS will start barking after sunset for no apparent reason and pace around frantically. None of the other dogs joined her in a choir as she walked up and down our hallway. I got up to feed her a can with both a Newtricks chew and 3mg of melatonin, which seems to have calmed her down quickly.  Tonight was perhaps her worst night yet.

West Cochise Stronghold

I wanted to check out the fire damage from the Knob Hill fire that ravaged the western Stronghold on the 10th.  Just under 3000 acres were burned.  Were the old-growth trees along the creek affected?  I putzed around in the morning, as usual, before packing in the hiking dogs into my truck and taking off at 12:30pm for the Dragoons.  I was still not feeling too well for a strenuous hike as I'm still getting stomach cramps, but a short exploratory walk I could do.  The overcast sky and cool weather were ideal for a hike.  I kept Sweetie at home.

I was just outside the city limits of Tombstone at 1:13pm when Sadie was getting restless.  Did she have to pee, to poop, get water?  Her loud whining sounded desperate fast so I pulled over at the first turnoff, which happened to be an old mining trail meandering around the hillside.  What was meant to be a quick potty break turned out to be a 1.7-mile walk on a wide mining trail flanked on either side by much prickly shrubs.  The road led past a red cross memorializing a deceased border crosser, past some mining equipment, an abandoned shack, and finally some old trucks at the intersection with South Victory Trail.  I was on a high point here, with views back toward Sierra Vista and Tombstone.

I had never been on any of these paths here.  Was I on private property, state trust land, or city land?  There were several homes nearby off S Victory Trail, a dirt road that connects with many other abandoned mining trails.  I want to come back here on another overcast day and explore some more.  Today was meant to be for the Dragoons and that was still 90 minutes away. 

Middle March Road still showed some muddy sections from our rains but the washes were dry and whatever mud had been there was already drying up.  Forest Road 687 was wetter in comparison, and Slavin Gulch was flowing.   The trailhead is seven miles to the end of the road and I didn't see major damage while on FR687.  I didn't look close enough.  When I turned east on FR 688, I could see the burned hillsides to my north.  It looks like the fire started on the last ranch before the trailhead parking area, because the burn area got right up to the first pull-off on the left side.  The sycamores and pines here, however, were untouched.  What relief!

It was 3pm when I pulled into a spot to park and hike.  To my surprise, all the other spots were taken.  Perhaps so many were out here to see the damage as well.  Several RVs were off the road camping by Council Rocks.

I knew I couldn't hike for long with such a late start, but I figured I'd make it to the pass two miles up the road.  I wore my yellow rain coat over my red sweater in case it drizzled.  We were barely on the trail when a young family came toward us, also with two unleashed dogs and a little girl.  The dogs all behaved except for the other party's smaller black dog, which got Minnie excited.  I stopped briefly to talk to the parents, whose little girl seemed so thrilled to be out camping.  I wanted to chat with her longer, but Minnie started barking at her as well and getting closer to her, which put me on alert.

I only hiked as far as the seasonal waterfall.  It was flowing nicely today, so I went off trail down to the water, down a short, steep, rocky grade.  This is what the dogs really enjoy, and I know Minnie wants nothing more than to fetch sticks and splash around in water.   I had been down here by the falls before, about five years ago, with a group from Tucson.  I remember the falls came out by a wide bottom, but this one was narrow and rocky.  Was there perhaps another falls further up the trail?  This one was only a half-mile from the start.
.

I decided to walk back via the creek.  This way Minnie had her water and the dogs weren't bothering anyone, but this rock scramble back to the parking area took me an hour.  It was slo-mo up and around snags and boulders.  I poked myself on my right outer ear with the end of a branch.  Luckily I only tore soft tissue, but that hurt and I got a good blood stain from that poke.  Turns out another man back at the parking area also injured himself this way.  I was impressed with all the people out here today.

This second hike was two miles long.  We finished off with a half mile around the eastern burn perimeter.  The charred ground was cool and damp from the rains.   There was only a faint smell of charcoal. I didn't see any burned trees besides a few small mesquites.  The agaves will recover by monsoon season.

It was on the drive out of the trailhead area and heading west that I could see the fire that swept north over the hills.  One home barely escape becoming engulfed, as the fire swallowed the east side of a smaller hill.  The charred grass contrasted nicely in the sunlight.  The homeowners here were very lucky to have escaped damage.

The dogs seemed pleased and rested on the drive home.  There were lots of cows grazing off the road, some even wore cowbells, but the barking dogs kept me from getting close for some pictures.

I didn't stop at the brewpub in Tombstone since I'm still under the weather.  I got home at 6pm and the dogs all rested for the night.

I'm still not feeling 100%, but am glad I was able to see the fire damage and take the dogs out for a walk.  What a shame that I'm under the weather when we are having our best hiking weather yet. 

Cochie Trail, Tortolita Mountains

Distance: 9.5 miles
Elevation: 2700-3280'
Elevation gain: 1600'
Significance: Hiking among the saguaros; vistas; solitude

I enjoy hiking in the Tortolitas.  There's something about walking among the saguaros, ocotillos, sage, desert palo verde and other low-elevation flora that we don't have in the Chihuahua desert.  A cold front moving in from the Pacific Northwest had been forecasted for today, making a hike today ideal.  The front came in yesterday afternoon when temperatures dipped and the wind picked up.  Last night at 8pm we had 25mph winds from the ESE.

The wind howled all night long  At 4am when I got up to get ready for this hike, it was 49F and the wind was still howling.  The overcast skies kept the sun from poking its first rays.  It was so dark when I drove off at 6am, that I felt in an alternate universe. Zeke was my hiking dog today.  He jumped in the back of the van and rested on my canvas cover.  My gear from my Cmas road trip was still in the van.  I hadn't driven the van in over a month.  It felt strange to be driving so high up again.

Diehards SteveS, MelG, and JimA met me at the 6:30am meetup place behind the Pizza Hut Bistro on Fry Blvd in Sierra Vista.  We chatted a bit, then drove north on SR90 to meet Rod in Benson.  The sky was turning a lighter shade of grey as we drove north on SR90.  I could see the smoke from the Knob Hill fire in the Dragoons.   The fire is near the Stronghold and started on private property last Friday.   It's now 15% contained and burned 2900 acres. I'm glad I was able to show SteveT the Council Rocks trail last month.

Rod rode with me.  Zeke didn't mind; he stayed in the back of the van for the entire time.

The sun finally made its appearance once we left Benson and got on I-10 west toward Marana. Traffic wasn't bad at all.  We got to the Ritz-Carlton trailhead parking lot at 8:25am.  The lot was not full but other people were also getting ready to hike.  There were two other dogs with their families.  We were on the trail by 8:32am, hiking the Wild Burro trail (a wash) in a NE direction.  It was still cool out, with a subtle breeze.  My van registered 55F when we started and for the first mile I regretted not packing any gloves, even though Jim offered to lend me his extra pair.  I didn't take my fleece jacket off until we were four miles into the hike. Once I took the jacket off, however, it was warm but not hot the rest of the day.

Jim and Mel had never been in these hills before.  Both seemed interested in them.
"What's your favorite trail here?" Jim asked me.
"The Wild Mustang Trail!" was my quick response.  The Wild Mustang trail travels a high ridge in a  Northeasterly direction before descending back into the Wild Burro wash.  This makes a nice 10-mile loop, but there are other trails to connect to from the Wild Burro trail.  Mining relics and other artifacts are on the northern part of this park.

Jim signed the trail registry and off we were, now heading Northwest on the Upper Javelina trail and starting our ascent.  I took Zeke off leash to prevent me from falling.  We only met one other group of four from here out. Zeke did well and stayed by my side.

The trails are rocky and exposed all throughout the park.  We were gaining elevation, with views toward Marana to the south, and views north toward Picacho Peak.  We switchbacked two miles before reaching the 3.6 mile Cochie Trail.  This trail travels predominantly in a Northeasterly direction, descending gradually along an exposed ridge into Cochie Canyon.  We could see the West Cochie Canyon trail road and several other dirt roads meander up and around these saguaro-studded hills.  A few secluded homes nestled among the desert flora.  The big landmark, however, was the dry Cochie wash.  It cut across the brown desert landscape like a wide, white snake.  We were to ourselves for the duration of this hike.

We averaged 19:26 minutes per mile.  I didn't see any crested saguaros, but we did walk past many chollas, prickly pear, ocotillos, sage.  There were a few skeletal remains of saguaros that died after the Febrarury 2011 deep freeze. but the numbers weren't as bad as I have seen on the higher Wild Mustang trail.  Some of the lower-elevation ocotillos were in bloom, and what looked like Red Cardinals also dotted the trail.

The Cochie Springs trail ends at the springs, noted by a bulletholed AEROMOTOR Chicago windmill and a retaining basin. A small corral is nearby.  An old bathtub at the corral acts as a water reservoir for livestock, but all we saw was a small lizard that had died from dehydration: the poor thing managed to get inside the tub, but couldn't get back out.

Cochie Spring trail continues northward a short distance to connect to the West Cochie Canyon dirt road that continues northeast around the Tortolita range.  Rod had quietly suggested we continue on the dirt road until we hook back up to the Wild Burro trail.  He was quickly defeated with an equally quiet, but determined "No!"  (There is actually a faint trail one can use to get up to the ridge, but I didn't want to spend time scouting for it today: https://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=15236)

We sat along the edge of the basin, shaded by two desert palo verdes.  The spring was dry and so was the retaining basin.  I fed Zeke a can of Pedigree; I had a 6" chicken breast sandwich.  Our little spot was a small mecca, but I can imagine how much energy must spring forward after a monsoonal rain, bringing the colors and aroma of the desert back to life.  The windmill occasionally caught a breeze and would churn and crank and be the only other sound around us besides our voices.

We went back the way we came.  The trail in reverse didn't seem any harder than before, although we were ascending for almost four miles.  Zeke held up nicely, too, until he hit the seven-mile mark and started looking for shaded areas to rest in.  He was a real trooper today, and the guys were supportive of Zeke's need to rest.  We took two stops along the ascent.  We rested longer at the trail junction when we met a lone mountain biker coming uphill.  He suggested we try the Dove Mountain Brewing Company on our way out and that is what we did.

While we hiked this trail as an out-and-back route, we agreed to the "Hotel Spur Trail" going back, cutting almost a mile off our total distance and adding some variety.  This is a half-mile steep trail that ends in a T in front of the hotel.  I had never been this close to the hotel.  Steve had been talking about checking out the Ritz's "High Tea" time, an English tradition where tea is served at 4pm every day.  When he had the chance to check out the hotel, he opted not to.  This would have only delayed our post-hike meal.

From the hotel we continued south (taking a right turn at the T), along a crushed granite footpath back to the parking lot.  We had to cross the paved road to get to the parking lot.  We got back to our vehicles just after 2:30pm. Twenty minutes later we were seated outside at the brewpub where we enjoyed a good meal and lively conversation.   Zeke rested under the table. Food and beer were good.  Everyone ate their meal and cleaned their plates.

We left an hour later.  This was the first time I left the Tortolitas while there was still daylight.  The clouds and wind returned once we got back to Cochise County.  The smoke from the Knob Hill fire in the Dragoons wasn't obvious when I turned south on SR 90.  Hopefully some of the moisture helped extinguish the flames.

I have a feeling there will be more hikes in the Tortolitas

http://www.dovemountaincivicgroup.org/Hikes/HIKING%20IN%20THE%20TORTOLITAS%20-%20DMCG%20Hiking%20Guide%2011%2012.pdf  (excellent guide)