Around the Next Corner With Wendy

Adventures in New Zealand Part 1 - North Island

2025-02-19T22:20:00.002-07:00

Adventures in Aotearoa

I've been dreaming of visiting the magical kingdom of New Zealand for as long as I can remember (even before the whole LOTR explosion). I am so thankful for my friend and volunteer Dennis Dooley who sponsored my trip and served as a most excellent tour guide/hiking companion.

I arrived in Auckland after a most posh flight for a couple of quick days on the North Island on my own to rest from the trip, finish up my grading chores for the semester and get myself centered for a real adventure down south...

And boy, did Aotearoa welcome me in high style!

Yeah- rainbows over the harbor and grassy sloped volcanos at sunset. But - I'm getting ahead of myself. First...

First-class, that is. What a way to travel, if you can! My free-to-me trip in Business was a sweet treat! While the copious legroom was somewhat wasted on my stubby gams, I did love laying flat while (still not) sleeping.

My stay at Auckland's Verandahs Lodge and hostel was perfect. Situated at the boundary of one of the city's gorgeous parks, it was close to everything but still felt like sleeping in a garden.

On my urban hike I happened upon the Symonds Street Cemetery. The site had amazing walking paths and fascinating historical significance. At times it was hard to imagine I was in the heart of a thriving city, but instead felt like I'd stumbled into some bizarre neglected botanical collection or abandoned metropolis. If you are interested in how cemeteries can help tell the story of social change - this one is a great place to look at with a tight lens.

Of course, it was Christmas time...and the Arizonan in me did not find the sunny skies and warm afternoons at all strange. I do feel that the "Christmas Spirit" that so takes over the US was less frenetic overall. I was to see much more impact from the summer part of the holiday than from Santa Clause and Baby Jesus...

I hike through the Central Business District (CBD) to catch a ferry across the harbor to see a historic (working) sugar factory. The pedestrian infrastructure here was mind-blowing. I worked hard to find routes-less-traveled, and there is such an incredible network of pedestrian pathways and parks to accommodate travel on foot! A ferry ride and 3 mile walk also lead me to find some of the do-not-miss food treats recommended to me by friends more familiar with New Zealand: lamingtons and meat pies. The first includes light sponge with raspberry jam and cream, all dunked in chocolate sauce and rolled in coconut. Yum! As for the second...how can you go wrong with beef stew in a piecrust?

In the end I decided that if I lived in New Zealand, all the walking paths would be necessary for balancing my calorie intake. Eating well here, it would seem, will be a recurring theme.

So, this photo hung on the wall at my hostel. Inspired by the idyllic scene, I booked a sunset paddle to Rangitoto. My urban hike ended at the pickup point at the Art Museum where our Argentinian guide, Ben, waited. As I'd been walking, though l, the weather was changing rapidly as it often does on islands. Conditions weren't quite what I saw on the brochure...

With 24-30 knot winds, we were right at the threshold of what the tour could many considered safe. (Check out those stoked kite surfers!). Ben offered us a "Plan B" of kayaking to Browns Island instead. The route would keep us in the lee of the main island longer, protected from the worst of the wind. To be honest, I'm not sure this was the case...

Our paddle was pretty challenging. As the most experienced paddler in the group, I was in the back seat of one my teams boat. Rick was a machine - I had to do little to keep us moving forward. But he also kicked up a lot of water with his paddles, most of which was blown into my face by the wind. Within minutes I was soaked in spite of the paddle jacket and spray skirt.

The couple who were on our trip struggled more. He confessed from the very start that he didn't like kayaking, and she said that she was afraid of the water so the chop was pretty intimidating. By the time we reached the island they were barely on speaking terms, and that was just the trip out.

Our trip leader, Ben, was from Patagonia and to him this was just another breezy day that reminded him of home. Despite being soaked and pretty tired after the paddle, I was feeling really amazing. After all, it's not everyday one gets to test oneself against the elements on the other side of the planet.

Once we reached the island, Ben set out a delicious barbecue dinner for us. We walked through waist high grass to reach a meadow spot where we could eat. It was hard for me to not freak out over the grass, but there are no snakes, scorpions or other dangerous critters hiding in those grasses. They kept reassuring me that I was safe in my sandals. After a nice hard rain storm lasting about 5 minutes, the skies started to clear and we headed for the peak of the volcano to catch sunset.

It was a lovely hike and the sunset was stunning. A double rainbow crossing the harbor and gorgeous skies in all directions. I had no doubt that this was going to be an epic adventure all around.

We paddled back in the growing dark. The lights of Auckland up ahead were our beacon, and our guide expertly kept us on course. That is until he got caught in a fisherman's line then things started to get a little crazy once again. I didn't make it home until almost 10:30 p.m. with after a dead truck battery on the tour vehicle and an Uber driver who didn't know how to get me back to my hotel. Day one down.

My second day in Auckland I did more urban hiking, touring parks, and checking out some of the amazing public infrastructure. I hiked up to the top of another extinct volcano for views of the city and the harbor.

My time in Auckland was very short and I'd like to return to visit sometime. There's so many things to see and do and though it is a busy bustling city, it has a relaxed feel and a friendly attitude that I absolutely adored.

I caught a plane that afternoon which took me to Christchurch on the South Island and met my hiking buddy, Dennis. Now the good times could really kick off!

I loved this tavern in Christchurch located in an old church. A live band was rocking out and it was connected to an amazing little Irish pub that also had traditional live music going.

A sign of wonderful things to come... Join me here soon for the next installment including batty birds, hanging bridges and some spectacular hiking.

The Mountains Bite Back - Bazara-Goeche La Trek Day 4-5

2015-02-03T09:51:00.004-07:00

Trek day 3: We had some miles to make (or kilometers I suppose). Our goal for the day was camp at a high lake called Joktey Pokhari. So far, over 2 days we'd traveled only about 6 km and climbed 1478 meters (5,000 feet). Making Joktey Pokhari in one day would mean hiking another 7 km and climbing to 4,0000 meters (13,100 feet) - higher than the tallest point in Arizona. We felt refreshed, ready to take on most anything, but we all knew it was a big day for low-landers. And we didn't even know about the storm yet.

Dwarfed by the massive trees

The beginning was a piece of cake. We started across the ridge line, walking through thick stands of blooming rhododendron. At this point, we were heading mostly downhill, with just enough climbing to keep us interested. The group was laughing and taking plenty of time to snap photos and make silly faces. This area is incredibly beautiful and wild: trees in the area were heavy with moss, often hanging in curtains across the trail; wildflowers were peaking out of the ground, surrounded by their own shiny, dark green leaves; views stretched out forever of green-sloped mountains and valleys lost in fog. I wanted the names of every plant I saw, and while our guides knew many, even they couldn't possibly know every one. The variety was incredible.

Some sort of Rubiaceae?

Some sort of yellow bulb...lovely little bells!

Flower clusters as big as my head!

Our guide, Binay, loved photography as much as we did. He often borrowed my dSLR to snap photos.

We loved that Nancy's outfit matched the flowers

Down hill felt SO good!

From the first day, our group had started to divide itself into 2 groups: the fast group and what I'd call the lag. Mitch and Ivanka are speed demons, and Debbie was determined to keep up with them no matter what. Nancy, Rocky and I, however, were taking a more leisurely pace - it's a pattern I see often in larger hiking groups. Luckily, we had 2 guides with us for this part of the trek, so it seemed logical to let everyone move at a pace most comfortable for them.

The first small stream we crossed

One of our yak men, Tashi. I loved his shirt and always wondered if he knew what it meant ("There's too much blood in my alcohol level"...)

The darkest of the dzo carried my bag (left side). I felt a bit sorry for him.

When we finally stopped for lunch, we were all high on adventure. The boys were playing betting games behind a huge rock and we were snapping photos of the waterfalls of Tholo Oral. Our guides told us that this little valley was about half way to camp - but they didn't tell us that it we still had 2,000' to climb. (I'm not sure they actually knew that - to them it was just a couple hours walk.)

Tholo Oral

Tea at lunch. Notice the clever sock action designed to thwart leeches.

Binay sports Rocky's hat over his own knit cap

The boys doing our dishes as we get hiking. They'd always catch up fast.

Climbing again out of Tholo Oral

So here's where it started to get more interesting (scary, dangerous?). The usual afternoon fog began to flow up the hillsides - but we could see behind it larger clouds that were actually forming in the opposite direction. They had a black center that made us think perhaps we might get a little more than a mist. When the rain started, we stopped to put on rain gear. The guides just smiled and waited patiently for the Americans to cover themselves in brightly-colored plastic. I'm not sure they would have had anything else to put on, even if they knew that this would be more than the usual heavy mist.

Even through the early part of the storm we were still enjoying the hiking. The elevation was getting to us a bit, and we (at least the lag group) were slow. I snapped a couple last pictures before I put my cameras safely in my backpack to protect them from the rain which was getting more serious (and freezing into hail).

The yellow spot ahead of me is Nancy in her poncho. It became my beacon.

Rain is turning to small hail as we hike along the ridge

Still cheery

When we paused, I told Binay I was getting cold and tired, and asked how much further we had to go. He patted me on the back and smiled.

"Only a hundred meters more."

I had no idea that this was the Sikkim version of "not much further", which I use to motivate struggling hikers on trips I'm leading. You know, it's usually said with a big smile and typically means that there are miles yet to go...

Binay took the fast group on ahead, and the lags hiked on with Chung Wan. He had only a pink striped umbrella against the weather - and as the temps started to drop, it was obvious that it wasn't enough. The wind was really blowing by now - I was guessing it was gusting over 30mph - and the hail hurt if it hit your skin. We came around a corner and potted the dzo stopped on an exposed ridge a good distance ahead of us. I had a brief moment of relief thinking that we were almost to camp, but it disappeared quickly. There was no chance we could camp on a ridge like that in this weather. Camp would have to be further on.

Nancy wisely decided we should stop and eat a quick snack to help keep ourselves warm. I resisted a bit, wanting to keep moving and make camp as soon as possible, but she was right. With the distance still to go, we needed to keep our energy up. While we snacked, Chung Wan moved on ahead. His umbrella was shredded to ribbons by this time, and I'm sure he was freezing.

That left the three of us alone on a hillside at about 12,000', in a growing blizzard, thousands of miles from any familiar rescue system. The wind continued to get stronger. Then the trail disappeared into a boulder field: an ice covered boulder field that fell away into a valley hundreds of feet below. It was getting dark.

I won't lie. I was freaked out.

I've crossed boulder fields like this one many times in places like the Grand Canyon, with the treacherous slopes and loose footing. I've even done it in some nasty weather. However, something about doing it in the Himalaya just added a touch of intensity to the experience (just a touch, ha!). Several times, I had to close my eyes and fight back panic so my confidence could surface enough to navigate. Nancy and I got separated from Rocky in the boulders. My hands were getting numb (I'd left my warm gloves in my bag on the dzo) and I was starting to recognize the early signs of hypothermia, including sluggish thinking and shaking.

Yup. If there is a time to freak out, this felt like a good one.

We met Rocky again - he had stopped in the shelter of a large boulder to wait for us, and we called out until we found him. Together we managed to get out of the boulder field and back onto a steep, but walkable slope. Finally, after what felt like hours, we made it out onto the exposed ridge we'd seen from afar. Instantly, we were slammed by real gusts - the kind of wind that only inhabits lonely mountain passes. It was almost impossible to talk over the sound and walking against it took serious effort. It's the sort of place that is so beautifully terrifying that in retrospect I wish I had at least one rain-blurred photo to illustrate. All I have, though, is a memory framed by the hood of my raincoat.

We stopped once more in the lee of a large stone to put on more layers. It was something we should have done much earlier, but as often happens we kept convincing ourselves that it was smarter to keep moving. For me, it was rain pants. Somehow, I always wait too long to put those on, and they usually end up over soaking wet hiking pants. Rocky didn't have much more to put on, so I gave him my wool buff for his head- he said later that the small piece of cloth made such a difference that he decided to never hike without one again. Warmed slightly, we started moving again, but with very little light left and no idea where we needed to go beyond the pass, we were beginning to wonder if we didn't need to find a place to shelter for the night.

We just made the far end of the pass where a small trail lead clearly to the next ridge when Binay and the lead yak man, Galuk, found us. He'd lead the rest of the group to the camp ahead, stopped long enough to borrow rain gear, warm clothes and head lamps from the faster hikers, then come back for us. I think I might have cried with relief at seeing him - but my eyes were watering so badly from the stinging wind that it was impossible to tell. I wanted to have a full on tantrum, but there was no time. Binay lead us quickly along the rocky path over the next ridge (above 13,000') and down to the camp. His mood was positive and reassuring, and in retrospect I have a great deal of respect of how well he handled some VERY grumpy campers.

By the time we made camp, we were walking through a full-on snow storm, our feet breaking ice crusted puddles and our headlamps showing mostly just frozen lumps of ground. It was completely dark. Nancy had trouble with her night vision and Galuk was steering her, hand on her elbow, with enough strength to almost carry her over the potholes. His English may have been very basic, but somehow they managed to get through the last half-mile with nods and pulls on her arm.

Binay brought us right into the kitchen tent, which was crowded with bodies and thick with smoke. The rest of our group was there, overcome with happiness that we were safe, and we got lots of hugs and hot tea as the boys pulled at our soaking wet clothes. Even the boys seemed genuinely overjoyed to see us. We would learn later that they'd been truly frightened that we were lost in the storm.

If only I could say the adventure for the day ended there! We knew we were safe, but we were far from warm. I could barely hold my tea, I was shaking so badly. The storm still raged outside, though in the sheltered valley of camp we were protected from the worst of it. One of our 3 sleeping tents was knocked down in the storm, so we needed to pile 3 of us and all of our gear into a space that was usually pretty snug with 2. Rocky, Nancy and I crawled into a tent, leaving our muddy shoes outside, and tried to get our wet things off without soaking our sleeping gear (or each other). Modesty was not high on our priority list, but there were plenty of frantic giggles coming from both tents as we tried our best to get dry and warm.

Chung Wan brought by some dinner (through the storm, to our door - what SERVICE), but we were all unable to eat much other than some fried rice and soup. I felt horrible that they'd cooked the usual complicated meal and we weren't able to eat it - but my stomach was a knot that wasn't likely to untie for a while. The shaking was finally starting to abate, though.

With little choice of moving around, we all agreed to try to sleep. Our wet gear piled near the door, we lay shoulder-to-shoulder at the back of the tent and turned off our lights. My feet were propped up on the heap of my stuff to make more room. I smelled like a wet cat, and I couldn't stop squirming. .But at last I began to feel my extremities again.

I caught my watch before we dozed off...it was only about 8:30pm.

Trek Day 4:

When it was light enough to step out of the tent, we could hardly believe our eyes. The storm was gone, we were at Joktey Pokhari, and it was magic.

Morning view - Joktey Pokhari - 4,006m

It didn't take us long to recover our wits enough to take advantage of the views

Camp at Joktey Pokhari

We climbed out of the tents and started to spread our wet things out on the low shrubs of the alpine valley (called Ti plants by the guides). It was clear that we weren't the only ones who'd been caught unprepared by the storm. All of the boys were clearly worse for the wear, too, and their brightly colored clothes were spread out next to ours. As we sat to enjoy breakfast, we hoped that we'd be able to take a day to recover, dry out and regroup.

Still snowy at breakfast, but we bundled up to enjoy the view with our meal

I love this guy (Binay). He's just a great person. He saved me from freezing on the side of a mountain. Really, I love this guy!

Yup. It's COLD.

We did end up spending the whole day recuperating at the sacred lake. Our clothes dried quickly in the sunshine, which was good because it didn't last long. The mists returned in the afternoon, but they were quiet and without menace. We wandered the small, high valley we'd camped in and I walked to the shores of the lake. It's a small glacial cirque, ringed with boulders and tough shrubs. The dzo grazed out of site in a pasture more accommodating than our rocky valley, so it was almost eerily silent without their bells.

We played some dice and card games, redistributed our things to the lost tent (which luckily dried out), and ate a lot. We laughed with the boys and felt a new kind of camaraderie that comes with surviving something truly frightening. We felt like a single expedition...actually, we were a single expedition.

One of the most heart-felt Wendy's EVER!

Yardsale at 13,000'

Enjoying the day, though you can see the mists approaching

When the cold mists settled in, I enjoyed it more from inside the tent (wrapped in my down sleeping bag)

Sacred lake at Joktey Pokhari

We were heading for Goeche La, with a visit to Dzongri along the way. An epic adventure already, and look what more was to come!

Heading Off into the Jungle: Bazara-Goeche La Trek Day 1-3

2015-01-18T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just a note of background before I jump back into the diary: When I was in the planning stages of this trip, I'd contacted Lamdik Ecoventures about doing just the same Goeche La trek I'd done on my prior visit. When he heard that we were a fit group and keenly interested in seeing rhododendrons, he recommended a longer, tougher trip - one that spent more time in the forests away from the heavily impacted hills around Dzongri. It didn't take much convincing for me or for my group: an area less traveled, more pristine and more challenging? Sign us up! It meant fewer days available for sight-seeing in the cities, but we all knew what we'd really come to see and that was mountains and forests.

This trek would start out in an area much less frequently visited by tourists and would end on the popular Goeche La route, so we could get the best of both worlds. The trade off was that we really had almost no idea what we were in for: the length of the walking was described in hours rather than distance, and the difficulty was given from the point of view of a native who regularly walks steep trails for long distances at elevation. It would be tough to gauge what we were in for from day-to-day...truly the definition of adventure!

Bhangyang

Trek Day 1: In my little bed at the Family Guest House, I slept like a dead thing. I woke, still feeling a little dizzy from the ride and groggy from the drugs. Our guide had some last-minute preparations to do, so we had some time in the morning for a delicious breakfast and a leisurely walk to the holy Lake Khecheopalri. This was a good thing...a little recovery window which (in retrospect) should have been a whole day.

Lake Khecheopalri is a lovely spot, sacred to both Buddhists and Hindu. It is a "wishes fulfilling lake", and there are many small stupas, shrines and statues on the path to the lake, as well as seemingly hundreds of small stacks of wishing stones (which look to me like cairns). Signs everywhere warn people to be respectful of the sacred nature of the lake and to not pollute it or the silence that surrounds it. We certainly enjoyed the peace and quiet after the noise of Siliguri and the dust of the road.

The path through the garden at the Family Guest House

Village at Lake Khecheopalri

Stupa

Jetty which takes you to the lake edge. There were many groups praying during our visit.

See...it really was me

Prayer wheels on the jetty

Panorama of the lake. It sits in a glacial valley or névé

You can hear the quiet, right?

A small temple on the path to the lake

Prayer wheel in the temple

A small nunnery near the lake.

When we were through at the lake, we returned to the guest house and loaded up in the cars again for the short ride to our "trailhead". Though we would be leaving the vehicles behind, the beginning of our hike was actually on the "road" to the next village - but it's a road for feet. 6 hikers, 9 guides and 16 draft animals started the steep climb into the mountains. It was to be a pretty long day, with a lunch stop at a ridgetop above the small village of Lamathang

And it was spectacular from the word go.

Heading up the first hill. There was no flat warm up for this hike!

A grass hut a small way off the road.

Binay and Chung Wan lead Nancy through the jungle

Such an amazing landscape

Resting a moment at a street-side shelter

Orchids

As we approached Lamatang, we walked through fields of cardamom plants...evidently a profitable crop for the area. Cardamom is the world's third most expensive spice after vanilla and saffron.

A cistern that is a part of the town's gravity-fed water supply

We learned later that this family was related to one of our guides

Lamathang does not get as many tourist visitors as towns I visited on my first trek. The novelty of Americans walking through the village is still exciting to the kids

Young and old came out to watch the show as we passed

The lovely school at Lamathang. It was hard to imagine that our trek to that point was just the walk to school for many kids in the area.

They loved getting their photos taken - and even better when you showed them the digital image after!

Binay and I cooled our heads in the overflowing cistern

Lamathang was magical. Whereas other town's I've visited felt as though they were in the tourism business, this village felt distinctly un-touristy - a authentic place with a real sense of the life of the region. I wished I could spend a month here, just getting to know the people and rituals instead of just walking quickly by. It was a treat, though, to see the hand-woven houses and delicate bamboo fences, bountiful gardens and lush fields. Everyone had flowers planted near their door and well kept homes. Though I knew this idyllic appearance probably hid problems that exist in any agriculturally based community, it was refreshing to see a place where people live simply and still smile as strangers pass through.

I was suddenly thankful I'd like Binay talk us into this longer, more remote trek. Getting away from the more heavily traveled tourist trail was already paying off.

Beyond Lamathang, the trail continued to be incredibly well developed for a couple of miles. The local residents were evidently trying to encourage trekking in the area by creating a very engineered trail-bed, including paving the way (literally) with small stones. I didn't appreciate yet what a task this must've been, but being a trail builder myself, I could certainly see that there'd be a tremendous effort taken to make the very steep way more comfortable. (I hope, though, that in their quest for tourists, they really try to keep this place quiet and genuine.)

Then we came to the end of the developed trail and the way started to get steep for real. I mean real, real steep. We climbed behind the dzo up a forested slope, using roots and branches as steps. I started to slow down...the elevation (already over 8000') was starting to slow my breath considerably, and the residual Dramamine in my system was making me slightly ill. I was tremendously glad when we reached the ridge that Binay called Bhangyang and we stopped for lunch.

"The Boys" (as we started to affectionately call the cook, porters and yak men) fired up their kerosene-powered rocket engines and cooked us a hearty lunch to be spread out on a blue tarp over the tall ferns and grasses on the hillside. While there was evidence of use on this ridge, it wasn't beaten down and muddy like camps on the Goeche-la Trek. While we ate lunch, Binay spoke with us about the option of staying in this spot overnight, rather than continuing on to Bazara - another 2000' of climbing and several hours to go. We were slower than he'd anticipated (or at least I was), and I think he was worried that we'd be too tired to make the second camp in decent time.

I knew I could, but I was actually glad we he decided that we shouldn't. Camping here on the scenic ridge and having an afternoon to rest and regroup meant losing one of our rest days later in the trek, but none of us minded at that point. We just wanted to stop moving long enough to let our biological clocks catch up with us.

The kitchen at lunch was al fresco...

Lunch at Bhangyang (compare to Sachen)

The hillsides were covered in ripe, sweet wild strawberries...which surprisingly the dzo did not seem to want to eat!

Hanging out at the tents, talking philosophy or yoga or something

A civilized up of tea

Now, being Americans (even Americans from the arid badlands) we're used to bathing pretty regularly, and we still had the dust from Siliguri in our ears. So when the ladies discovered there was a stream near by that we could wash up in, we scampered down the hill quicker than kittens after a laser dot. We stripped down and got as clean as we could (with the help of an ingenious spout installed by our porters). Little did we know the little biting gnats (to be called bity bastards for the rest of the trip) would have picked off our flesh if we'd stayed out long enough. We all ended up with little red welts for our efforts, and none of us took off that much clothing outside of the confines of our tents again (well, at least not until we were far above bity bastard range).

Of course, being stupidly allergic to any sort of insect interaction, my little red welts stuck around for the rest of the trip to pester me endlessly. I'm just glad the other ladies recovered fairly quickly from being feasted on...

Home-made kitchen spout

The next morning, we were enjoying a leisurely breakfast when The Boys started to talk excitedly among themselves. Without much explanation, we were told to grab our things and we were whisked out of camp and straight up a hill so much steeper than the one from the day before that I thought maybe we'd taken a wrong turn.

As we climbed, we learned that a swarm of bees had somehow attacked the camp. Our guides told us they were "angry" bees, and indeed it seems that they stung a couple of the yak men (one badly on the face). Keeping the soft white people safe, the had taken us on the herder's shortcut up the hill - sometimes hacking through jungle to make passage. We were pulling ourselves up sometimes hand-over-foot, which was quite the way to wake us up. When we intersected the trail once again, the going got easier but stayed very steep. Although we hadn't seen the pack animals, they had evidently gotten ahead of us while we climbed (they took the trail).

Starting up the hill

Leaf litter made the trail slippery in places

Up into the clouds

Ringing Mountain Bells...

Wild roses

And leeches. Fun (not).

We were out of the world of villages now, moving through dense jungle and the steep foothills of the Himalaya. I decided to bring along my GPS unit to record our travels, since the guide didn't have an accurate map to share before we started (mapping in that area isn't the same as it is in the US for sure). It was fun to track our progress, though depressing to see how slow we were going. However, when I looked at the near-vertical elevation profile for the hike, it made sense. We weren't so much heading across country as we were going into the clouds themselves!

Our next camp at Bazara

Our camp at Bazara was on another ridge - though the views when we arrived were significantly shortened by heavy mist and fog. Just like my first visit to Sikkim, the mornings were relatively clear and by mid afternoon the mists came up from the valleys to sit among the trees. At 3368 meters (10,700'), Bazara was above the jungle and into the hardwood forests - thick with rhododendron and magnolia as well as massive firs. The whole area had been burned badly 30 years prior, though, and what remained was largely a ghost forest of bizarrely twisted trunks and crooked branches. Eerie doesn't even begin to describe it. Our tents were arranged along the sharp ridge in a rough line, but in the mists it was as if each was isolated from the other. Stepping out, it felt as though we were on a strange new world, surrounded only by skeletons and the soft sound of ringing yak bells.

Pink rhododendron and a burned fir trunk

The dining tent in the ghost forest

Some sort of lily that was common on the ridge

Late in the afternoon, the fog lifted somewhat and we had a brief view of the mountains - a teaser of what would appear in the morning. We all jumped out of the warm protection of our tents and took in the beauty - it was enough to drive away the weariness and fill us with excitement for the trek to come.

A peek of a peak

Mountain paparazzi

That night was Rocky's 55th birthday. I'd let our guide know, and he said they were planning a surprise for the evening. I figured there might be a special desert or perhaps a happy birthday song. What we got was a whole evening of amazing food, song, dance and fun presented by the whole crew. They even made gifts for the birthday boy: a garland of red rhododendrons, a matching bouquet and a flute carved by one of the yak men from a strand of bamboo. We were all touched and delighted by their songs and dancing, and by how much genuine fun they seemed to have celebrating the birthday of someone who was almost a stranger.

Well - not so much a stranger any more I suppose. And we would all get even closer in no time, through events it was hard to imagine on such a crystal clear morning...

Rocky with his garland and bouquet the morning after his surprise birthday party.

Mt. Kabru from Bazara in the morning...WHAT a view!

Yup...it's worth throwing a Wendy for sure

We were all in great spirits that morning as we hit the trail once again. Gone was the weary grogginess of the day before. We could see the Himalaya and we wanted to get closer... The mountains were calling, and we answered eagerly with our feet.

Hitting the trail out of Bazara

Return to the Himalaya Part II - or - The Roadways of the Indian Himalaya

2014-12-17T11:58:00.001-07:00

On my first visit to India, we traveled a good bit in share taxis. I explained the system in my blog entry "Get Me to Gangtok" - and while it can be a crowded, uncomfortable and gut-wrenching experience, it certainly gets the traveler closer to the local culture than anything else will. (Literally - 12 people to a seat in basically a 4-Runner...it's intimate.)

Because Lamdik Eco Ventures met us at the airport, however, we had a private ride into the mountains this time. The 6 of us, plus Binay and two drivers climbed with our massive pile of gear into 2 SUVs for the 8 hour ride from Siliguri to the start of our trek at Lake Khecheopalri. The route is only about 152km (95 miles) - but with the twisting mountain roads, long stretches of dusty road construction, and border check points - it's a marathon adventure for guides and travelers alike. Our private cars were certainly more comfortable than the share taxi system, and there was less overall confusion.

It's still, though, an E ticket ride, for sure!

Here's the most accurate map I could find in India of our route to Khecheopalri (on this map spelled Kechopari).

From the Sikkim Road Atlas - Red numbers indicate kilometers

Mapping in this part of the world is clearly spotty - though Google has done a pretty good job of getting the roads in a little more precisely. The "close up" shows a little better what the roads between these dots really look like.

Google Maps version...3h 48min, eh? Maybe in an airplane...

About 50km of road near Legship - now that's twisty!

Driving in India is more of a profession than a hobby...and those that do tend to be very good at managing their vehicles. They know EXACTLY where each of their 4 corners are, and they get within fractions of an inch of each other frequently. Whether it's 3 cars passing each other on a single-lane road, trucks passing buses passing motorbikes near a 200' drop off on a curve, or a parking lane packed so tight that even the chickens can't get between the cars - it's all a dance that is both terrifying and amazing. There are few lane markers, fewer signs and almost no lighted signals. If you don't already know exactly where you're going and which road to take, well, I imagine you'd end up driving in circles or worse. And then, there's the horn honking (again - refer to my earlier blog for more on that!). It's exhausting, even when you're only sitting in the back seat!

I'd tried to prepare my fellow travelers for the nature of the roads we were going on, but even I was surprised at how rough they were. Evidently, there had been some massive landslides the year before, causing massive damage to a number of sections of the highway. The resultant road construction areas were hot, slow and terribly dusty. We wanted to windows down to cool the car, but the dust was so bad, we wanted to roll them back up. Most of the places on the road where we saw people actually working, it would be in gangs of just 4-5, filling in holes, breaking up rock or filling steel cages with stone to prevent erosion. However, there was one spot where a massive effort was being made. Dozens of people were working - almost exclusively with hand tools and baskets. The lack of safety equipment, protective barriers and even signs would have made a risk-management officer in the US turn white.

Workers repairing the road in sandals and skirts

Waiting for the one-way traffic to pass the workers

Such a contrast to our own highway construction projects:

One more video for the day - starting with watching the workers, then the traffic driving by them SO close!

We stopped in Melli to get our passports and Inner Line permits checked, entered into the ledger and stamped. Then we drove up the road a short way to Jorethang where we stopped for lunch. The group asked me to order, since I was most familiar with the local cuisine, and we ate family style. The food was good - full of ginger, which helped to ease my stomach a bit - but the Dramamine I'd taken earlier still had me feeling like a total zombie. Note to self: while prevention of motion-sickness on these roads is important, it is also important not to drug oneself to the point where the trip becomes a blur for days at a time.

Stopped in Melli with our drivers and 1 of our 2 rides

Wall sign in Jorethang

Love their cargo carriers...

Like many buildings, this one (our restaurant) wasn't entirely finished yet - or is it?

So we get back into the car and blurrr....we're pulling into the Family Guest House Trekker's Hut at Lake Khecheopalri just after dark. The hut is small, clean and very basic and the tea they served us at the upstairs sitting area was hot and refreshing. They sent us back to our rooms for about an hour to re-pack our things into our trek bags (some of our belongings would get shuttled to Yuksom where our trek would end). The explosion of gear in these tiny rooms was somewhat overwhelming, so I was extremely happy when dinner was announced and I could escape the chaos for the quiet of the dining room.

Our lodgings in Lake Khechuperi

Yay! Time for tea!

Dining room at the Family Guest House...so yummy!

The food was amazing: delicious soups and momos (forever a favorite now!), vegetables and rice. Binay would have us on a strictly vegetarian diet for the next 14 days, but no one had any room to complain. Dinner at the Family Guest House was the start of a wonderful trend of filling meals and gracious hosts that Sikkim is so good at delivering! We went off to bed anxious for the next day, our first day of trekking. It was billed as a giant hike from 5000' to over 10,000' in one day. I hoped I'd be able to sleep, but with the drugs still in my system, I might have been more worried about whether or not I'd be capable of waking up in the morning.

Return to the Himalaya Part I

2014-11-20T20:35:00.000-07:00

Khangchengdzonga 2012

When I returned from my adventure in the Indian Himalaya in 2012, I had many jealous friends. Jealous of the trek, jealous of the fact that I had time to do the trek, and jealous that I had the confidence to just "head off" into a place so foreign. They ooh-ed and aah-ed over the photos and were amazed at my tales of the beauty of Sikkim and the warmth of the people I met there. They wanted to go.

Some of them even thought I should "lead" them there.

I scoffed. Too much work, too far away, too much money... No way I said. Not a chance. Only a crazy person would agree to lead a group of head strong, independent adults to such a wild and unexpected place.

And so it was that I found myself on a steep, narrow road clinging to the slopes of the Himalayan foothills, crammed into the back seat of an Indian taxi once again, jostling back and forth as the driver navigated potholes and insane motorcyclists. This time, instead of being shoulder to shoulder with strange Indian men who smelled of curry and Paan, the car was full of 6 Arizona hikers, all of whom were looking to me to tell them what was going on and how to best negotiate their way through this very strange country. You think trekking in a foreign country over dangerous terrain is scary, try being in charge of other people doing just that. Gulp. Then it starts to hail at 14,000' and...

I'm getting ahead of my story just a little.

First, we've got to get to Sikkim. In my last posts, I never really explained where Sikkim is. If you're anything like I was prior to planning the first trip, you might well think I'm talking about a spot just to the left of the moon. Well...luckily I tried to explain it to the traffic engineers I was working with just after the trip.

You start with a big map map showing where to find India (I'll give that most of you got this far)...

Drill down a ways in the vast sub-continent to find the tiny but critical state of Sikkim.

And then, looking at Sikkim, you can see how it is bordered by Nepal, Bhutan and China. The border with the Chinese is what makes the whole state of Sikkim a secure area.

So we're heading for Yuksom - the once capitol of a mountainous state which was it's own sovereign nation from the establishment of their royal dynasty in 1642 until they became an Indian state in 1975. The culture is highly unique from that found in the rest of India and more closely resembles that of Nepal and Tibet - in fact, many of the same tribes are found still thriving within its borders.

Sikkim's claim to fame for tourists are it's amazing mountains and it's vast rhododendron forests - both of which we intended to visit.

We being...

From left to right: Mitch, Ivanka, Rocky, Binay (our guide), Nancy, myself and Debbie

...just the most intrepid bunch of Arizona backpackers you'll ever meet! I had 5 others sign up for the trip, and through nearly 30 hours of travel and a brief hotel stop in Delhi, we made it to the airport in Bagdogra, West Bengal, India where we were to meet up with our guide operator, Binay.

There's a whole story to why I picked Binay Limboo and his excellent outfit Lambdik EcoVentures...but I'm going to save that for another post (maybe one that's not already so crammed with boring text).

Binay met us at the airport, performed a traditional welcome ceremony which included colorful scarves and intervention with the government official for our Inner Line permits. He pretended not to be amazed at the sheer quantity of stuff we brought (but we knew he was) as he loaded it onto the jeeps and took us to a hotel in nearby Siliguri.

Finally free from the confines of an airline seat or the back of a taxi, we decided to hit the streets and take in some of the sights and smells of India. For everyone else, this was their first visit to India - and for some, it was really the first time they'd ventured into such a completely foreign environment. Siliguri is not for the faint-hearted tourist...where we were, there were no self-guided tours or gift shops. We were seeing real life in this bustling city, and it was a real eye opener!

View from our hotel window of a light industrial area of Siliguri

Big Tatas...

I always wish I could start cooking dinner when I see the produce here

Think of it as a local convenience store without the glass windows

Cow keeping median grass down

Bicycle cargo

These gentlemen were excited for their photo op

Says it all, doesn't it.

Follow the walking billboards.

After our tour on foot, we returned to the hotel for dinner and some instruction from Binay. I was pretty sure my body had no clue what time it was, but I fell asleep quickly anyway - probably from sheer exhaustion. Tomorrow, we would leave the flat lands behind and head into the mountains. This time, instead of a random taxi, we'd be in Binay's vehicles - on our own schedule and with a little more room to enjoy the ride.

Little did my fellow travelers know that we were about to embark on the most terrifying portion of the whole trip: the roadways of the Indian Himalaya!

--to be continued--

(teaser)

What would Stallone do?

2013-09-29T16:09:00.000-07:00

Whether its purpose is to convey a personal journey in the shortest time possible, to skirt the tedium that true character building activities can embody or to make it look like your protagonist has done MUCH more work than the actor himself, the movie montage has become a staple of modern American cinema. (Evidently it is also a staple of cinema in places like Asia, but I don't watch those films, so they might as well not really exist.)

A favorite of mine was from Robin Hood; Prince of Thieves which featured the now-infamous arrow shaft Go-Pro style shot. Another was the way Museums got cool in Ferris Bueller's Day off. However, it's really Rocky's many montages (Rocky I, Rocky II, Rocky III, Rocky IV, Rocky Balboa, and Family Guy) that made the practice a standard for movie makers. I think it also calls to our widespread desire for instant-gratification and immediate results: don't have the time to spend 2 months training for a big boxing match? Put together the right montage and you've gone from flabby to rock solid in about 3 minutes.

So, what does this have to do with me? Or my blog? Or exploring the human capacity for the absurd?

Ah my friends, it is central to all of the above. For, while I spent months this summer burying my head in one epic adventure after another, I don't know that I have the patience to tell each story as a separate blog post. I'm not sure you have the patience (as my loving audience) to listen.

So, instead, we have "Wendy Training for Nothing in Particular: A Montage". I like to think Sly would approve.

April 20-21 - Barnhardt Trail, Mazatzal Wilderness, Arizona (here is a full report by my companion, Angela, aka "Tibber", aka "The Tibbernator", aka "Trail sister)

The Mazatzal Wilderness was among the most rugged parts of the state until a massive fire in 2004 laid waste to more than 180 square miles of the range. Now it's one of the most rugged parts of the country.

There are many beautiful things to see besides ruined forests and pokey plants, though...

Views to the east from the trail (see Lilo in the left corner?)

Throwing a Wendy by a waterfall. Classic.

May 11-12 - Sycamore Reservoir - Beginning Backpacker's Trip with Arizona Backpacking Club

Hiking in with the newbies

Always one of my favorite places for a camp

May 18-28 Bahia de Kino, Sonora, Mexico - Happy 40th birthday to ME! (I have more captioned photos with associated story line here.)

View from the bluff above the beach where we camped the first few nights. Impossible to capture how beautifully rugged this Sonoran seaside is.

Then a week at the house in Kino Nuevo. Living the dream!

My passengers had a great time, too

June 12-19 Rafting in the Grand Canyon, Take 1 (more photos? click link)

Floating in June means blue skies, clear water and temperatures that exceed 120deg. It's pretty much a good time guarantee.

Throwin' it Redwall Cavern style!
And then, Sirena gets her first chance to run the big rapid at Granite...

July 5-9 Pinetop, White Mountains - Introducing Sir Percy to his new family.

Percy gets a new home, and Aunt Glenna gets a new friend

Something told me right away that they'd get along famously!

Gary floating in the clouds on a high-country lake at the start of monsoon season

Wait a minute...didn't I just take this photo in Mexico?

One of these days I'll stop being shocked at Monty just jumping in the water and swimming 30-40 yards to get to someone...but it's going to take a while.

July 14-20 The John Muir Trail, Sierra Nevada Mountains, California. When Tiffani invited me to hike a part of the JMT with her, I was certain I'd have to back out because I found a job and didn't have the time off. So, when I was still free to go, I was super excited! Of course, I was also infinitely unemployed, but whatever. See the whole set here.

Fresh smelling and full of excitement, we start from the Yosemite Valley...

I'm pretty sure that you'd never really get tired of the sight of Nevada falls, but I'd be willing to hike up there over and over to find out...

Hiking into the Sunrise High Sierra Camp's alpine meadow setting was like something out of a backpacking magazine

Throwing a Wendy on Donahue Pass - my highest point for the hike, but just the beginning of the climb for Tiffani - who would hike all the way to Mt. Whitney almost 190 miles away.

Thousand Island Lake

Banner Peak reflected in the morning quiet at Garnet Lake...my last morning on the trail.

July 20-25 Hanging in California with Phosie and Gary. Nothing like ending a long hike with some quiet time in the mountains with the family... More photos and story here.

Gary and his mom picked me up at the Devil's Postpile National Monument, and Tiffani kept on hiking without me. It was hard to watch her go, but the ache in my feet made it a bit easier to bear.

I'd hoped to get Gary into one of the lakes or streams for some of the world class trout fishing they brag of there...but some horses won't drink even if they're knee deep in that water.

Gary did, however, enjoy the visit to the abandoned Consolidated Mine near Mammoth Lakes. Rusty equipment and ruined buildings...right up his alley

We spent a couple of evenings watching the sunset from the docks at June Lake.

Of course, one of the major attractions of the Eastern Sierra is Mono Lake - and Gary and I made darned sure we worked our butts off to see some of it ;)

August 2-6 Back up in Pinetop to spend time with mom and see some White Mountains Monsoon green!

We took a long drive through the White Mountains, stopping for sweeping views, wildflower-dotted meadows and pie shops. And we had to wash calf poop off my little dog. Sigh.

We also worked on remodeling the bird house to make it more attractive real estate. I'm not sure the avian community appreciated our efforts.

August 25-September 4 Back on the River through the Grand Canyon with Sirena. This time, rather than oppressive heat and clear water we had endless rain and chocolate milk to float through. Here's the whole set of photos - with lots more WATERFALLS!

My first trip to Stanton's Cave...the place felt very sacred

Days of rain beyond what is normal for monsoon season meant spontaneous waterfalls on the canyon walls - often red, muddy and violent

Also my first hike up to the Nankoweap Granaries - with mists clogging the view downstream

I was left with plenty of time to enjoy the base of Deer Creek falls, though my fever and oncoming cold symptoms made it a little less fun

Floating down a chocolate river into another storm system. That's life in the Grand Canyon!

I considered this to be the close of my summer season, though anyone who lives in Arizona knows that there are still at least 2 months of hot weather after August leaves. Maybe being caught up like this, I might be able to get a blog entry or two on my "early-fall" activities out before things get out of hand once again!

Bagging the Peak, or Ending the Battle of Rincon (Part 2)

2013-09-14T12:39:00.001-07:00

The very long awaited second installment of the Rincon Peak hike. Why so long? Well - it can be hard to update your blog when you're constantly on one crazy adventure or another.

Last time on Around the Next Corner...
"There's this peak in Southern Arizona..." and this year, I swore it would be mine. The final photo - an eerie campfire shot of Sirena and I celebrating after conquering the peak and returning to our camp at Happy Valley Saddle. We had only to get back to civilization in order to call the trip a total success.

Less awesome hiker chicks might have gone back down the way we came up, on the short and very sweet Miller Creek trail - only 4 miles to the trailhead.

Somewhat more awesome, but still pretty routine, would have been to hike out the well traveled Arizona Trail route through Manning Camp and Italian Trap - around 9.5 miles of good trail and relative civilization.

And, heck, a big adventure would have been to take one of the west-bound trails out to the foothills nearest Tucson, such as Tanque Verde Ridge or Douglas Spring. Both of these options would have topped 13 miles of hiking for the day.

But Sirena and I had a plan so audacious that we could only call it pure pro style. Hike down the Rincon Creek trail - a route forgotten by time and the hiking community for the last 40 years. From there, connect with the new piece of the Arizona Trail, then finally the Hope Camp system, to reach our ending trailhead over 17 miles away. With packs on. Without real beta on the 7.4 miles of the Rincon Creek Trail.

Oh yeah!

Rincon Peak from the head of the trail

Yes - small cacti are cute. No doubt (Rainbow Cactus)

Rincon Creek falls very quickly through the tough granite of its canyon

We had no idea what to expect from the condition of the RCT, but we had run into a day hiker who was coming out Miller Creek as we were going in the day before, and he described it as "overgrown". Knowing that this definition can vary widely from individual to individual, we just made sure our pant legs were zipped on and our gear was well-secured against cat-claw attack. Turns out, we needn't have been so careful. Though there is plenty of grass growing on the trail route, and places where a few cat-claw and woody bushes get in your way, overall the trail is amazingly good shape. It is a real tribute to the construction techniques of NPS trail crews that this neglected trail is still so clear.

The tread is grassy, but not a problem for the experienced eye

So why all the hubbub about this trail and it being so underused? It certainly wasn't always so. Beginning in the 1940's, the Madrona district (of which the Rincon Creek Trail is the crown jewel) was set to become the Rincons' version of the Catalinas' Sabino Canyon, complete with access to perennial water, picnic facilities, a ranger station, corrals and trails leading into the park. The road to Madrona went across land owned by the X-9 ranch, and for a number of reasons - including positive relations between the park and the ranch - an access easement was never obtained. In 1965, however, that relationship began to deteriorate, leading to repeated conflicts between ranchers and Madrona visitors. This included, according to ranchers, difficulties with gates and corrals being left open and active hunting on X-9 land. As a result of these problems, the owners of the X-9 lands placed a locked gate on the entrance road to Madrona in May of 1967, permitting only park personnel to cross their land. By June, the monthly visitation at Madrona dropped from over 470 to only 17.

There were rumors that the park superintendent conspired with the X-9 owners to prevent public access to the Madrona area. Others argued that the corral and picnic areas had a negative affect on the natural resources in the area, and that the closures were necessary to save the saguaro population. In 1971, the park acknowledged in it's master plan the need to buy land from the ranchers to help resolve the matter, but before it could be implemented, the X-9 land was subdivided into 36 acre residential lots and sold off to private holders. The ease of dealing with a single landowner was lost. The current landholders include doctors, lawyers and authors with million dollar houses and extensive political influence, and there is little chance that negotiations to re-open Madrona will progress in the foreseeable future.

Madrona District

The Rincon Creek Trail is left floating in a nearly inaccessible wilderness. One must hike for miles just to reach either end of it - and there are many other trails now that reach the same major destinations more quickly.

What better place to get lost and have a great adventure?

The trail crossed a high saddle with amazing views opening up to the north and east, then plunged down into another arm of Rincon Creek. This area is geologically very interesting, with many different colors of granite, bands of quartz in the rock and incredible waterfalls, pools and grottoes.

Snack at the saddle

Creek area far below

Banded Granite and Gneiss in amazing patterns

Rounding a bluff before descending to the creek bottom

A wonderland of pools and falls below

Sirena and I enjoyed every step of the descent, then stopped for a quick break at the granite slabs and pools near the X-9 road access. The quick break turned into over an hour - but to have rushed it would have short changed one of the best lunch spots I've seen in a very long time.

My own private island paradise

We wet ourselves down well and put the umbrellas up for the last 2 miles of the RCP trail, which was on the desert floor and quite hot. It was the only portion of our entire trip where the weather was even close to uncomfortable, and we were so well prepared that it was really just a nice blast of hot to make us feel at home!

We made it to the Madrona Ranger Station at about 3pm and the clouds started rolling in again. We took another break in the shade, and though there was water running here, the pools were actually quite a bit lower than we'd anticipated. The sycamores were brilliant green and the ashes were beginning to display their beautiful little seed pods. Only 10 miles left to go!

The abandoned buildings at Madrona Ranger Station (Hantavirus Danger!)

Perfect place to rest

Rincon Peak now seems very far away indeed!

From Madrona, we hiked up the Manning Camp trail to the Quiter Trail junction, a 2 mile, 1000' climb. The clouds returned around and kept us from getting too hot, and the trail is well graded enough to keep it easy. We reached the junction at about 4:30, hoping we were close to what Sirena kept calling the "low saddle". It was a surprising 40 minutes further to the saddle itself - up and down over the desert foothills. But the Quilter trail is so beautifully built and travels such amazing country that we couldn't help but enjoy ourselves. Once we made that "low saddle" we took one more sit-down-break knowing it would be mostly down hill the rest of the way.

Now, in my 20 some years of desert hiking, I've seen a lot of pretty crazy stuff. Snakes, mice, tarantulas - you name it. But the one thing I've always wanted to spot, but still hadn't managed to encounter, is a gila monster in the wild. Sirena kept saying that the Quilter Trail was thick with them, but I had my doubts. Maybe it was a curse. Maybe I was not destined to have my own wild beaded lizard encounter. I didn't let my hopes get up.

So when I came around the corner and was face to face with a big ol' fat Gila Monster, I let out a little yelp of surprise. The curse is lifted! This fellow was quite the exhibitionist, and we followed him through the brush for a good 10 minutes. He strutted and shook his tail and hissed at us a-plenty. Totally awesome and the perfect way to put a lift back in our step.

Light was low, and I was slow with my camera - so I only got a couple of blurry shots. But, he was an awesome sight!

Sirena was on the crew that built much of this new trail - and such an amazing piece of trailbuilding it is!

One weird saguaro off the side of the trail

Mind-blowing sunset views

We had counted on finishing in the dark, and indeed, the entire Hope Camp trail was done with headlamps. I was holding out for getting mine on when I came within millimeters of stepping on a poor little snake. Not a rattler, but any snake on the trail gets your heart thumping pretty good! I put my headlamp on and was thrilled not to see any more unexpected slitherings for the rest of our trip. The wide road bed of Hope Camp was very easy to follow in the dark, and our sore feet and tired backs were glad of the smooth walking for the last couple of miles.

We took one more break in the dark, and made it back to the car at almost 9pm. No speed records set here, but a wonderful 13 hours of hiking!

Sorry little dude!

Oh yeah, we made it!

We covered most of the map!

To read more about the Rincon Peak Trail or our hike, visit the description I wrote for hikearizona.com or my subsequent trip report.

Bagging the Peak, or Ending the Battle of Rincon (Part 1)

2013-05-30T16:01:00.000-07:00

There's this peak in Southern Arizona...one known for beauty, epic vistas and a challenging approach. It's near the top (pardon the pun) of the "prominent" peaks list, along with Mica, Lemmon, Baldy, Wasson and Carr. You can see it from nearly anywhere in Tucson, and if you're a real Tucson hiker, it will call to you.

If you're like me, a hiker who has attempted but never conquered the summit, it will mock you. 'You call yourself a hiker, woman?', it teases, 'Ha! You still haven't been up here!'

This year was the year it was going to happen, I told myself. Never mind that you said the same thing in 2010 and 2012. Forget that you've tried twice and both times barely made it past the saddle. That peak is going to be mine, and I will NEVER again be mocked by it's prominence!

'Oh, yes', I swore. 'It will be mine.'

Sirena (who was in a similar state of not-bagged-Rincon-ness) and I watched the conditions, weighed our heavy calendars and debated routes and options. Most folks hit Rincon on a very long and strenuous day-hike, 16.2 miles round trip and 4,000' of elevation gain long and strenuous. Sirena and I knew that at this pace, we would make it, but we'd feel rushed the whole way and robbed of the magic that is an overnight in this most beautiful of Sky Islands. We wanted to make it a backpack, and I really wanted to try to make it a through-hike of the range - using a trail that we had almost no information on (in terms of condition) because it's rarely (if ever) used by members of our hiking societies. In other words, we made it harder on ourselves because that's pretty much what we do. We call it 'doing it with style'. Other people just call it 'crazy'.

Finally, the conditions seemed perfect (before the heat, after the snow, no big wind storms expected), and we set the plan into motion. It began with a long car shuttle, provided by a good friend of Sirena's, which left us standing at the Miller Creek Trailhead around 2pm with our car at the far side of the mountain range. There was nothing to do at this point but walk. And walk. And walk.

About 2 miles into the hike, you come across the boundary for the park and the trail register. I suppose they don't want you to stumble into the park without being thankful to your friendly-neighborhood managing agency...

In the past, I've hiked up the Miller Creek trail early in the morning in an effort to avoid the relatively steep climb in the heat. What I learned over the years is that it's impossible to hit that trail early enough to stay cool - it gets direct morning sun thanks to its unprotected eastern exposure. This time, we deliberately attempted the trail later in the afternoon, when the sun would be headed behind the massive mountain we were climbing. I think the strategy is a strong one - we didn't get too hot on our climb and we had amazing photo ops looking east, where the best views are. We were planning to camp at the saddle campground, so this meant a relatively short 4 mile hike up with plenty of time remaining for dinner and water-hunting (always a challenge in these hills).

Across Happy Valley to Eagle Peak

The trail ducks into a high drainage before reaching the saddle

Saguaro National Park is known for its prolific if confusing trail signage. This one at Happy Valley Saddle still indicates that the Miller Creek Trail is a part of the AZT, which it is not.

The new Happy Valley Saddle Campground I found to be nice - spacious, shady, and hosting lots of beautiful pondorosa and old junipers. It's further from the more dependable water sources on the saddle (not that any of these sources are truly 'dependable' in the strictest sense). Most of the pools were nearer to the old campground, and they were already getting a bit stale and cloudy (in April!). Thankfully, there were enough that we weren't worried about water - though the quality was questionable so we filtered it carefully (love the gravity filter). Wandering about looking for fresher water pockets, I chanced upon the outhouse which is VERY well camouflaged and tucked far north of the campground. It's so well hidden, that previous visitors ended up leaving toilet paper (and presumably more) all over the campground rather than using the facility. A sign would likely solve that problem, but for once the park lacked the sign it needed.

At Happy Valley Saddle she greets us...Rincon Peak!

Playing the game of "find the outhouse"...Not one I recommend.

Ah - there it is!

Since the campground is new, there was still plenty of readily available firewood, and we had a small fire that was just about for our needs. I had my hammock, and I was a little worried about the temps getting a little lower than I'd planned on, so I placed some hot rocks from the fire underneath it to get a little boost. Yeah.

Well, here is an important note for those of you who use hot rocks to warm your campsite: keep the synthetic fabric of your sleeping bag off of the hot rocks. It can melt. When it melts, it lets feathers out. Lots of feathers. All over the place. In the dark, this can be quite confusing and troubling. Then, it takes a lot of duct tape to seal a hole of that size in your very nice, rather expensive sleeping bag. Trust me. Not fun. Hand stitching ensues upon your return to town - exactly my favorite activity...

The next morning, with my sleeping bag well taped and my breakfast in my belly, we began our ascent to Rincon Peak. Happy Valley Saddle Campground is at approx. 6130', and Rincon Peak is a lofty 8500' - so we had a bit of climbing to do in the 4.25 miles to the top. As is our general method of attack, Sirena and I enjoyed the climb, stopping often for photos, water and snacks. The water from the pools we'd found the night before turned out to be pleasant tasting, which was an unexpected surprise, and the day was bright, sunny and dotted with puffy white clouds. There was a slight breeze that kept us from getting too hot. Really, it was the perfect day for a climb!

Looking back at the Happy Valley Saddle and the Lookout peak as we begin climbing...

Getting higher and Mica Mountain appears from behind the Happy Valley Lookout...

Tanque Verde Peak becomes prominent to the southwest, and the Catalinas begin to appear behind it (Cathedral Peak)

Sirena contemplates the view as the last of the snow melts and runs off the mountain

The theory is that we're getting closer...so why does it still feel so far away?!

The descriptions we'd read of the hike to the peak talked about the final push up being extremely steep - so we kept steeling ourselves for it. Even as we passed the sign that told us that the remainder of the trail was not suited for livestock, we kept waiting. As we're climbing this set of forested switchbacks (which, mind you weren't even close to being flat) - we even said to one another "when is it going to get steep?". I suppose it's a clear indication that your off-trail adventures have become habit when you don't recognize the steep part of a trail when you're standing right on it!

Sirena on the steep switchbacks near the summit - where it was still just a bit snowy. Snow/ice on steep slopes can be dangerous - but because we were still waiting for the worst, we just flew past it.

Even when we got to the steps right at the summit, we kept fearing that there would be a scramble or steeper climb around the corner. Thank goodness we were wrong!

So, we made the peak after all. Years of longing and planning, of feeling inadequate and small all were erased by the magnificent views from this majestic mountain. We spent more than an hour and a half enjoying perfect weather at the summit before clouds and wind blew in to cool us down and drive us off. Anyone who tells you that Rincon Peak isn't worth every effort is just plain lying. This place is AWESOME!

Sirena and I celebrate making the top...each with our own flair. The massive cairn is a legendary piece of Tucson 'architecture'...

Can you believe my camera took this panorama? I was impressed!

Labeled Pano 1

Labeled Pano 2

Labeled Pano 3

As we hiked down (now laughing at our own need for steeper routes and scrambling), we felt euphoric and well worn. We made it back to camp in time to enjoy a beautiful sunset and a delicious (and well deserved) dinner by the campfire. We knew that the biggest day of the trip would be tomorrow - on the Rincon Creek Trail back down the mountain toward Tucson. But for now, we could languish in our feelings of success and take in all the glory of the Rincon Mountains.

Heading back to Happy Valley Saddle in the warm afternoon light

Don't go on...ooooohhhh...don't go....

Sunset through the trees

Scary campfire photo with my hiking bestie!

Take Me to the River...

2013-05-10T13:02:00.001-07:00

It's well past time for me to play catch-up and get some of my spring adventures written up. At first I planned to cover them all in one shot: a sort of blog equivalent of the training montage from boxing films. But it just wouldn't do justice to the amazing things I've seen and done this spring, so I'll just have to concentrate on hammering them out one at a time. It's a great way to avoid grading the papers that always come in this time of the semester.

Earlier this year, I decided to re-create a trip I'd done back in 2009 taking canoes down the Colorado river below Hoover Dam. It's a pretty amazing trip, and because it involves boats I was able to convince my Dear Husband (the DH) to come along. I selected dates that were a little later in the season than my first trip (which was in February), because it was so frigid during that first adventure that I was too cold to take my layers off and get in the hot springs, which is sort of what the whole trip is about. Unfortunately, it was also spring break and...

Wait a minute, go back - you say - did you mention hot springs?

Ah yes, my good friends, there are hot springs in the side canyons below the dam. Many hot, beautiful pools in narrow, twisting canyons just waiting for a little explore-and-soak action!

Boy Scout Canyon Hot Springs in 2009

Maybe I must go back just a little further to really give this entry a proper start. Way, way back...around 1920. It was about this time that the Bureau of Reclamation decided to begin attacking the 'problem' of the annual floods along the Colorado River by building the tallest dam the world had ever seen. The need was dictated by new farming communities that were popping up in the desert like poppies after a rainstorm. Though they depended almost entirely upon the river for water for their crops, they also lived in fear of it's tremendous floods, which carried so much silt from the mountains and canyons to the north that it was famously called "too thin to farm, too thick to drink". To make the lowlands of the Imperial Valley in California and Yuma, Arizona productive for agriculture, the floods had to be controlled. Further, all the power of those massive floods could be harnessed to provide electricity for the growing cities of the West. And certainly not least, the water impounded by a dam could be sent into planned canals and aqueducts to become irrigation and drinking water to supply a hungry population. After much deliberation, Black Canyon was an ideal location - far enough down river to control all of the flood volume before it reached the farmlands, and with ideal geological conditions.

The massive Colorado River watershed

Construction of Hoover Dam began in 1931 and was completed ahead of schedule and under budget in February of 1935. (For more of the fascinating story of the building of the dam, visit the NPS history here.) The waters of the wild and muddy Colorado began to back up behind the dam quickly, dropping their silt and turning to the deep blue-green that we see in Lake Mead today. As anticipated by politicians and engineers, it meant an end to the drought-and-flood pattern of life for Imperial Valley farmers, a boon for recreation in an arid desert and a (by some standards) cheap source of energy for the new cities of the West. I will save a diatribe on the harmful effects of the damming of the Colorado for another time (though if you're a glutton, you can visit my post on the Tamarisk invasion here).

Found on the internet as an iphone wallpaper. Not a bad example of the new color of the Colorado River.

There were, however, smaller and un-anticipated consequences, and it was one these miniature miracles that we were enjoying along out trip: hot springs. The millions of tons of pressure created by the impounded lake water forces water through even the most minute cracks in the rocks lining the lake. Pushed through these fissures, the water wanders through the unseen world of the rocks, coming into contact with some of the geologic hot-spots that still exist deep in the volcanic layers. Eventually it makes its way out to the surface - often in small canyons or caves. These steaming pools can be anywhere from 130deg f to a more managable 100 depending on how close the water is to the hot spot and how much cooler water is mixed with it below and above the surface.

It makes for a human playground like no other, and because of the relative difficulty of reaching the spot, it's one you can usually enjoy with little distraction. Usually.

Soaking in the warmer eddies where a hot waterfall enters the cold river water

But I get ahead of myself yet again. First, we had to get on the river. In order to put in below the dam, you need a special permit. This is due to the fact that you are, indeed, right below one of the most iconic structures in the United States. On the list of facilities that have been identified as potential terror targets, Hoover is near the top, and though most experts agree that compromising the structure of the dam would be nearly impossible for a conventional attack, every precaution is taken to avoid the risk. This includes only letting a relatively small number of screened individuals down to the launch site at a time and only with the help of specially licenced concessioners. What that means for us: we hired a company (in this case Desert Adventures) to not only rent us canoes and gear, but also to get us into the river just below the dam. Key to this: no paddling upstream necessary (unless we really, really wanted to). The perfect lazy-mans vacation! Too bad my lazy-man (the DH) ended up having to work and missed the whole trip. Always sad, but such is the life of a theater widow.

Day 1:
We started over an hour and a half behind schedule because of a mixup with the group ahead of us, and an overlap with the day-trip-tours that launch from the same spot. It was chaos, but who doesn't love a little chaos on their isolated wilderness adventure? (um, this girl here <----->

Waiting for the guide service in the parking lot. Accommodations could have been better here...

Putting in just below the dam and it's spillways.

When we visited in 2009, the bridge was still in construction, so it was pretty darned cool to see it finished from below. If you haven't been on the bridge yet, don't worry - you really aren't missing much. It's such a safe bridge that you never even feel that you're on one. Concrete barriers prevent most passenger vehicles from seeing more than the roadway right in front of you, and there is no arching slope like you find on longer bridges such as the Golden Gate in San Francisco to give you a sense of your height. Don't worry, though, there's also a pull-out with an over designed visitor center which leads you to a pedestrian walkway along the lake side of the bridge (from which, if you're less than 6' tall, you can still pretty much see only concrete barriers).

The best view is DEFINITELY from down here!

2009 view of bridge in progress...my hubby was on this first trip

2013 View of the bridge complete with my new boating partner Lil

Bridge walkway from my trip in 2011 - an excellent view of concrete if you ask me.

Our boats finally loaded to bear and in the water (who wants to be frugal when you've got a vessel that will carry 3000lbs?), we started downstream. The heat of the day must've meant a higher electricity demand, because water was just tearing out of the dam. Maneuvers that I'd made easily on our first trip were unthinkable on this flow. We rocketed past a couple of the places I'd wanted to stop. Luckily, we all managed to pull into Sauna Cave - where the hottest water of the trip, often close to 132deg f! That's hot enough to burn yourself if you're not careful...

Lil in steamy Sauna Cave (photo by Angela Romain)

The next stop was Gold Strike Canyon Hot Springs, which I really enjoyed the previous visit. It's a narrow canyon, twisting and turning through the volcanic rock, with hot water flowing just inches deep along the sandy bottom. Unfortunately, Lil and I blew past it, and the current was far to fast for us to paddle back up it. I'm sure we made quite an amusing site, paddling with all we had in the eddy only to stay in exactly the same place for several minutes. It felt like a treadmill in the water! We gave up and crossed the river to Lone Palm Canyon along with the other boats that missed Gold Strike. At Lone Palm, there's a warm waterfall straight into the river, it's in the shade that time of day, and there are excellent views of the bridge. It was an ideal spot to sit, wait and enjoy the day.

The bridge from Lone Palm Canyon

A loaded canoe and a waterfall - ingredients for a good day!

The rest of the crew managed to skillfully paddle across the current to meet up with us, but as there wasn't a dry anchorage, we decided to head down canyon just a bit further to Boy Scout Canyon to enjoy our lunches. Another fun slot canyon with scrambling, warm water and great fun to be had.

Navigating slick waterfalls in Boyscout Canyon (photo by Angela Romain)

Left behind below the falls - for now (photo by Angela Romain)

From the put-in to Boy Scout Canyon is only about 2-3 miles of the 6 mile we planned to paddle that day, and it was already well past 2pm when we were pulling out. I knew, though, that the big drama of day 1 was over - from here it was a good paddle through some beautiful wide canyon scenery to our prospective campsite at Arizona Hot Springs Beach. Though I figured it would be the most crowded spot on the River (since it has hot springs, a trail to the road and a toilet), I hoped that the amenities would be worth the competition.

But I suppose I forgot. It was, afterall, Spring Break. (shakes head slowly and the rocks rattle...)

Nothing like a little Colorado River action to put things in perspective

After we arrived at the beach, we made room for our own boats among the crowd and set to some serious snacking, drinking and sheep-watching (they were on the far canyon wall)

Big Horn Sheep families (zoom photo by Angela Romain)

A few of us decided to go up and check out these famous hot springs that everyone raves about. I'd missed them on my first trip due to the cold (as I mentioned) and because I was with the DH, who is a famous killjoy on any sort of fun activities involving being IN water. I must admit, they aren't quite as magical as the springs I visit in New Mexico, but they're pretty nice. The rock walls hold in heat well, and the effect is more of a hot bath in a sauna then just your usual outside hot spring. I must admit, it helps if you bring your own iced cocktail.

Hiking back to the soaking tub is an adventure all itself...

I believe the BLM installed this impressive ladder to keep folks safe reaching the upper pool. Thank goodness, because that's a very slippery fall!

Soaking in the AZ Hot Springs slightly cooler middle pool (I'd estimate 102deg). Around the corner is the much hotter one - closer I'd say to 105 or 106. Definitely not for the faint of heart!

We settled in for the night, with a nice campfire (we'd brought our own wood) and yummy grub. We had quite a few neighbors, some of whom evidently make it a tradition to spend St. Patties' day in this particular spot. They had planned a talent show/karaoke jamboree for the evening. They even brought amplifiers and microphones (because you need those in narrow canyons in the silent desert). We waited until after 10pm to ask them to be be quiet, then just tried our best to sleep through the rest.

I'd have been more upset about it...but what was the point. When the older gentleman camped near me decided to leave the show behind and begin playing his bad 80's remake mix tape and cry about his deceased wife I gave up. Can't be mad at people for being people. Well - not the first night, anyhow.

Day 2:
The next morning was beautiful - bright sun and a glassy river. We knew the current was still strong, though, and we changed our plans from paddling upstream ('cause that went so well on day 1) to hiking up the White Rock Canyon trail to the highway. We hoped to come down the Petroglyph Canyon trail, but none of our maps were very clear as to exactly what that might look like. A few of the more hardy river-types hit the river to paddle upstream, a few stayed behind to enjoy the beach, and six of us headed up the trail.

Looking upstream in the morning - one of the sightseeing boats heading up to pick up its passengers

The water was very beautiful that morning - though still moving quick!

Hiking up in the narrow White Rock Canyon

The hike turned out to be a delight. The hot day was tempered by the fact that the narrow canyon provided constant shade, and by the easy grade. It was just so fun, we sort of forgot to get tired! It wasn't until we reached the top of White Rock Canyon that we started to think that we were working hard enough to think about water and food. So, when we couldn't easily locate the Petroglyph trail heading back down, we made the call to retrace our steps through White Rock. We hadn't brought a ton of water or food, so wandering about aimlessly in the hot desert was just not as appealing as it might have been had we been loaded down...or, maybe we were just looking for a fun easy day.

I'll let you decide which ;)

Near the top of White Rock Canyon the interesting geology continues

Close up of the cool conglomerate rocks

I think Lil and Jamie are glad this fell before they came by!

Someone had way too much time on their hands...and this time it wasn't me!

We got back into camp at about 1pm, and promptly either found some shade to hide in or sat ourselves down in the river to cool off. At about 3pm, a troop of boy scouts pulled in. And by a troop, I think I mean at least 4 dens worth - about 60 scouts of all ages, sizes and dispositions. It felt more than a little like an invasion party as they paddled up to the beach and began descending upon the already crowded camping area. One of our group, Karen, decided that not even hordes of boy scouts were going to ruin her relaxation on the shore, and she steadfastly remained in her spot - despite being nearly run over several times by boats full of boys!

Karen holds her ground amid the Boy Scout Landing Party (Photo by Ed Peregaux)

The invasion fleet - later the boats would get stacked into very tidy, tall bundles. Of course, the bundles had to be re-stacked when the "tide" came up in the evening... Sigh.

So, what was already a crowded beach became a over-crowded one. The scouts were determined to camp as a single unit, and in their efforts to do so, nearly knocked over some of our tents and pushed a few of our campers out of their sites. I'd like to say that they were at least polite about it, but I was shocked at just how inconsiderate the scouts themselves as well as their adult leaders really were. It was not a good day for my opinion of the organization.

We made another trip up to the hot springs before it got invaded by the boys (at least the troop leaders exerted some control there and only let the scouts go up in groups of 10). The we settled in for another loud evening of karaoke, scouts walking back and forth to the bathroom (noisy in deep gravel) and the bustle of people who aren't used to being outside. Sigh. This time, I was angry at people for being people - but even more powerless to do anything about it. Next time, I promised myself, I'm camping somewhere else - hot springs or no!

Cocktail hour at Hot Springs beach means hiding from the scouts in the shade...

Jamie and Sean hit the water Sunday morning

Sunday morning we hit the water later than expected in order to get well behind the scouts (who's leaders evidently talked them into a pretty early departure). It turned out to be a good choice, as we had the river to ourselves for the most part. It was also St.Patrick's day, and we did no miss the chance to celebrate by holding our boats together in what became known as the "Irish Flotilla", passing about flasks of Jamesons and Bailey's and toasting the fact that we may have had the most unusual Patties' day party afloat!

The Irish Flotilla basks in the shade of the cliff walls (Photo by Ed Peregaux)

Breaking at a nice beach for lunch. Nothing like a kick-back day!

My boat had the COOLEST name...

The last two noted sites noted on the map are the Emerald Cave and the Catwalk to the old Gauging Station. I was excited to visit these again, as last time I didn't have a camera (or lighting conditions) that could do the cave itself justice. It's been on the cover of just about every outdoors magazine there is, mostly because it's so photogenic. It's pretty in person, too, of course - but when you're just looking at a good picture of it, you can imagine being just about anywhere except in the middle of one of the most arid regions in North America!

Taking turns boating into the cave felt a bit like being in the Pirates of the Caribbean at Disneyland...

The shot I'd been waiting for !!! Booyah!

The sunny conditions, while perfect for the cave itself, were less ideal for catching photos of people on the catwalk...so I'll just put one in from my previous trip to give you an idea of what that looks like (just as last time, I didn't venture out onto the rickety old walkway...I'm just not that over my fear of heights).

2009 Trip - Brave souls on the catwalk. The cave at river level is Emerald Cave.

The year from the wood planks...I believe that's me in the boat below. (Photo by Angela Romain)

Finally, it was time to paddle up the now completely calm lake water to Willow Beach for our take out. This is always the tough part, as there is so much less to look at, and you're generally tired of rowing anyhow. But, we made it just fine and the outfitters were already there loading up another group. Unfortunately, this meant that they didn't have enough room for our gear on their trailers. Again, not impressed by this outfitter.

We ended up leaving 1/2 of our group behind with the gear while the drivers went back up to the casino to fetch our cars. A few of us stopped for dinner on the way home in Kingman at a fantastic joint called the "Dambar" (the play on words was played out throughout their dam menu).

When we arrived back in Phoenix late that night we were tired and a bit sun-fried, but completely in love with this part of the mighty Colorado River. And just a little bit wiser about planning trips during spring break...

Did I mention there were waterfalls?

2013-04-07T17:26:00.004-07:00

To set the scene quickly: another hiking adventure with my good friend and partner in crime Sirena (check out her blog if you haven't already - she's kinda famous). We wanted an off trail adventure close to home, and Sirena found a very intriguing write-up about a bushwhack loop in the Catalinas using 2 forks of Upper Molino Creek and hitting a rocky peak in the front range known as Airmen Peak. The write-up on Summit Hut Trail Talk Blog was brief but seemed to give us enough of an idea that we could tackle the trip without GPS data or someone familiar with the area. While sometimes this "ignorance is bliss" approach to hiking is deliberate, this time we thought we knew what we were getting into... We expected to be gone 4-5 hours and be home in time to kick our feet up and eat some good pizza.

Quick note to self: never, ever underestimate the Santa Catalina Mountains.

Second note to self: if you're going strictly on someone's written description, be sure you know that person or at least how thorough they are (or are not) in their logs. It'll save you heartache at the end of the day.

We started out in great spirits climbing the east fork of Molino creek (or the main fork, I'm not sure which to call it). We had a firm mind to enjoy every waterfall and mini-pool we encountered. We encountered quite a few. In other words, we were dawdling up the creek, big time. We figured we'd have plenty of time to do a 6 mile loop without having to hurry. Besides, who wants to rush the Catalinas in the glory of spring?

First waterfall encountered in the East Fork of the Creek - a common day-hike destination.

The bypass for the first falls is a well-worn use trail probably started by climbers

Not really thinking that Sirena's going to be able to chuck this one at me...

Boulder-strewn stream bed

Past waterfalls and beyond piles of massive boulders we climbed. We wove our way up the creek bed littered with the remnants of massive floods of the past, snapping photos and rinsing our heads off in the water. We really drew it out.

Another smallish waterfall

Climbing past yet one more waterfall

By the time we were a little more than half way up to the saddle below Airmen Peak, it was already mid-afternoon and we were really feeling the work of the climb. I for one was getting tired and though I had no doubts that I could push on to the peak, I also had no idea what awaited us on the other end of the loop (our description said that the west fork was "more rugged" than the east). The climb on the shoulders of Airmen Peak was much more time consuming than I'd anticipated, and I really did not want to do any of the hike in the dark.

Looking back at the Rincon Mountains, still draped in snow, from the saddle below Airmen Peak (the rocky face on the right in the photo)

We decided to put off bagging the peak for another day (preferably one where we hadn't wasted half our time lollygagging) and instead head straight down into the West Fork of Molino. At first, we couldn't see why this was considered the 'more rugged' canyon of the two. The top was quite lovely, sandy and well mannered - much easier than the climb up that brushy, steep slope on the other side of the pass. Then, as abrupt as mountain streams can be, the canyon revealed it's rugged side. We realized that saying that the West for was more rugged was like saying that Tucson is warmer than Gnome. Sometimes 'understatement' doesn't do justice to what you're looking at. While the author had mentioned a number of specific (and rather minor) obstacles on the way up, there were none mentioned on the way down.**

That is in my opinion a glaring error. 150' waterfalls (yes, plural) are not minor obstacles, and steep, loose slopes used to bypass said waterfalls seem much more dangerous when you're not really sure that you're on the right path. In fact, when you're already tired and daylight is disappearing in a remote mountain canyon, it all can be more than a little scary.

The slick granite narrows - no walking down this puppy!

One of the friendlier, kinder obstacles on the West Fork.

A smaller waterfall on the West Fork

After some brief trepidation, however, we found it easier than we expected to get past the without any real danger. Admittedly, many of our fears were a result of 'psyching' ourselves out...but, well, we're girls. That may not mean we're in greater danger in the wilds, but it does mean that sometimes we over-communicate and send each other into a tailspin in our wake. In the end, we did manage to make it out (with nothing more than bruised egos and sore feet) before the sun fell below the horizon. That's all that really matters. That and the fact that we still got pizza and spinach dip at Renee's.

The final big falls - nearly 200'!

As a way to spend a Friday, it really hardly sucked at all.

Next time, though, I'm going to be a little more mentally prepared, especially when I'm not familiar with the source of my beta. It was just a little more adventure than I was ready for...

**(I want to note here that the author of the write-up, Charles Miles, heard of our troubles on the mountain later and apologized to us both. He went back to the canyons to revise his write-up to be more accurate and include better photos of the obstacles faced. This sort of responsible efforts bring gladness and joy to my heart. Thanks for the original idea and the revised beta, Charles!)

Grand Tammie Whackin' Adventure - Part III - Whack n' Run

2013-03-20T22:28:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so there's this beaver that lives across the street...or in this case, across the river:

Beaver town - right across the river

One of the other consequences of the dam's regulation of the river (the first being the presence of the tamarisk) is an over-abundance of beavers. The pattern of massive floods that would have periodically destroyed their dams and dens having been eliminated by the engineering marvel that is Hoover Dam, these pesky rodents are free to proliferate.

Too bad they don't like to chew tamarisk. That might have been a problem that solved itself. Instead, they just love the tasty, irresistible flavor of those lovely natives: Gooding willows, coyote willows and cottonwoods.

So, here we are, busy as beavers removing the inedible tamarisk plants and replacing them with a virtual river-rodent smorgasbord of fresh cut poles - all right at perfect beaver-munching height. The first poles weren't in the ground 24 hours before our neighbor came over for a midnight snack.

Beaver-chewed plantings

Unfortunately, I didn't capture the bugger on camera - though other members of our crew were luckier. It wasn't hard to catch him in the act, as his chosen chew sticks happened to be located near our groover (a clever river folk word for crapper). If I had been lucky enough to take a photo of him, it would likely have looked like this:

Well, actually, he wouldn't have looked that cute...I have to be honest that up close and personal, beavers really aren't cute at all. They're kinda creepy looking, and big. Like, big dog big. Definitely not something I want to be responsible for keeping out of my newly planted garden of twigs. Which is why it is wonderful that we had this person on our team:

No beaver's gonna get her plantings!

Melissa was the project manager for NPS, and she instantly went into superhero mode when she discovered the beaver's unexpectedly keen hunger for the new plants. Although the team had planned to create "cages" around several of the larger trees, we shifted into high speed and turned that smaller project into a shield for each of the planted poles on the beach. Not only was it good for the plants, but it was good for us - we needed something new to do (tammie whacking was getting a bit old).

Andy Goldsworthy eat your heart out

Our first attempt was an idea put out by Mark, who brilliantly combined our need to dispose of large amounts of cut wood and our desire to protect the plants. He created only one of these art-installation-worthy natural anti-beaver structures, but within only hours of its erection, a group of boaters tried to tie their boats off to it. Clearly, it felt substantial and solid enough to keep a beaver out!

Too bad each one would have taken hours to construct and we needed hundreds of them...

In the end, we spent our final day on the beach constructing and installing cages and shields like these:

Small protection cages with arrow weed stakes

Large cage with mulch

Take that Mr. Beaver! While I'm sure the protection will be temporary, our hopes are that it will give the fresh plantings a chance to survive and establish roots before the voracious critter gets to all of them...

In the mean time, the sun had returned to the canyon, and the ice and snow disappeared in an instant. It was hardly warm yet, but the positive influence of the sun helped to chase away the worst of the chill. It was on a sunny day like this that the boaters had to pack up and head down the river.

Boaters preparing for launch

Before they left, I insisted on the time to capture a group shot. I was worried that I was pushing my 'welcome' by making everyone stop and pose, but now I'm glad I did it. What a fantastic group of people - to give up weeks of life in the 'real world' to do just a small bit of improving for such a magical place!

Granite Beach Stewardship Crew

When the boats were gone, Melissa put us back to work finishing up the plantings and sorting out the tools. We kept on task all afternoon, which was a great way to keep us distracted from thinking about the fact that we were leaving the next day. So sad to be going, but so ready for the hot shower, soft bed and puppy ears that waited at home!

Our kitchen that night was a little more reminiscent of the backcountry style I'm accustomed to...

Dinner for 7, coming up!

The next morning, it was up and out. I'd never hiked up the Hermit Trail before, and I was excited to see it from a different point of view. This excitement lasted until about the top of the Cathedral stairs when it was replaced by impatient irritation. The irritation was gone about an hour and a half later when weariness began to set in - and still thousands of feet to climb. What a bear!

See the hiker ahead on the Tonto??? Scale is everything in the canyon.

Melissa and Gayle ahead of me on the Coconino Sandstone paving.

As I'd expected, I was the last out of the canyon by a good bit. I can't say that I'm not proud of myself, however. I don't think anyone who walks themselves out of that hole in the ground should be unimpressed by their own fortitude. It's a small and distinguished group of folks.

As I climbed into the car for the ride back to Flagstaff, I tried to nap but found myself still jittery and excited. After all, they told me I might be able to come back and help again in April...

Tammie whackin' good time!

Grand Tammie Whackin' Adventure - Part II - A Whackin' Good Time

2013-03-08T15:51:00.004-07:00

We came, we saw, we kicked some Tammie ass...

It was an amazing week, with a great cast of characters. When your commute starts like this, you know you've got an awesome job:

Traffic up on the Tonto...at least they're all my co-workers!

After we arrived at our beach and welcomed the boats full of wonderful food, important gear, even more important beer and recently harvested 'poles' (I'll get to that in a minute), we settled in. I felt great, and I could tell these were my kinds of folks...botanists, biologists, Landscape Architects, river guides and volunteers. Just the roster I'd put on my fantasy employment team.

The boats arrive and immediately begin disgorging stuff...

My first attempt at a camp...

Most of our time that week was spent removing the last stands of thick tamarisk from the study area. Two things made this process even more strenuous than you might think: first, the nature of tammies and second the needs of the project which dictated that the trees not only be felled, but that their carcasses be completely removed from the site.

The team surveys the battlefield

First: the nature of tammies. Although many of the plants we were removing were the size of small trees (20' tall by 30-40' wide), they aren't trees at all but big, overgrown shrubs. This means that they've got active growing branches all the way down to the ground. In order to even get at the larger trunks, you have to crawl and saw and beat your way through the woody, salty and twiggy goodness. Fun.

A tamarisk in its pokey glory

Second: hauling away the carcasses. Not being a veteran of other vegetation removal projects, I was unaware that it's unusual to actually remove the debris from downing the tamarisk. However, it is very obvious, no matter what your level of experience, the reason that they usually don't. It's a HUGE job - much larger than actually cutting down the trees.

First, you cut the branch of the tree (no small feat considering we had no power tools).

Then you cut the branch into bits no larger than 3-4' in length.

Then you pile the bits into a heap and carry the heavy, misshapen heap across this rocky gravel bar...

And then finally pitch them into the rapids (without also pitching yourself, which would be bad.)

Yup. These rapids. Not a good place to go swimming (at least the guy in the video has a PFD on).

Of course, though tammie whackin' was a big part of my involvement in this trip, it is only one part of the much larger project. This meant that there were many things to do when you were tired of/frustrated by/beaten over the tamarisk.

The most fun, and simultaneously most frustrating, was planting the 'poles' that had been harvested from other drainages upstream. These were cottonwood, coyote willow and Goodings willow shoots that had been collected by the team and carried down by boat to be planted on Granite Beach.

Sorting the poles off the boat.

The theory is, with these riparian species, their natural adaptation to patterns of flood would work to our advantage. As long as the cutting is fresh, it will sprout leaves and roots when exposed correctly to soil and water, creating a whole new tree. This saves the plants when a devastating flood wipes out a population and all that's left are bits of new wood buried in the recently deposited flood debris.

Clever folks, these, and a clever way they'd planned on planting them. It's called 'the Water Auger'.

The water auger at work and the first successful cottonwood pole!

Blast a hole in the sand using nothing but a 7' long stick and high-pressure water from the river, leaving behind a nice, wet environment for the stick to establish itself in. Perfect! Of course, there were two or three small problems, and the diminutive height of several of the team members was not one of them.

They're all the things that make the Grand Canyon grand. Remoteness, rocks and weather...

Remoteness because a single broken part on the top of the water auger itself wasn't easy to fix at the bottom of the canyon. Though they'd managed a jerry-rig at Phantom Ranch the day before, it was still temperamental and at times it just wouldn't work well.

This is the type of digging the auger is made for

As this was a 'pilot' project, it wasn't clear whether or not the water auger would even dig in the rocky gravelbars at the river's edge. Lesson learned: it doesn't. Not really, anyhow. It dominates the soft sands of the beach, but if you've got any sort of gravel down there, you'll slow to a crawl or stop altogether. Frustrating when you know you've got to get the poles planted no matter what.

This is the kind of stuff we had to dig with - NOT what the water auger was made for!

And weather...well...it's the Grand Canyon in February. What did we expect? (Hint, not this)

Running from a cloudburst headed our way...

Yup - snow on the ground at river level!

Oh - and I almost forgot about the beaver...

Grand Tammie Whackin' Adventure - Part I - What Are You Whackin' About?

2013-02-21T15:54:00.001-07:00

Tamarix ramosissima, Tamarisk, Tamarix, Salt Cedar, Tammie... No matter which name you use, just about every botanist or naturalist in western North America will give you a cringe or a knowing nod. They'll count down the river miles lost to tamarisk invasion, the acres of riparian habitat lost, the sheer volume of species being pushed out by these resource grabbing, soil destroying, river killing monster plants.

And, like most things which are slowly destroying our natural environment, they owe their presence and their power to us, to the short-sighted, thirsty and energy hungry humans who claim to have 'conquered' the arid lands of North America.

Sound over dramatized? Do you think that once again, Wendy's standing on her ecological soap box and spouting melodramatic nonsense just to make a silly point?

Okay, maybe. But if you knew tammies like I knew tammies - you might just nod right alongside those nutty botanists.

Tamarix growing in the arid lands of it's native environment in China

So - in short, it's a bush/tree brought to the Americas from Eurasia (for ornament and to control soil erosion) that loves sandy wetland environments such as the banks of our western rivers. By doing SUCH a good job of controlling flooding along these rivers with our system of massive dams, we've given tammies the perfect breeding grounds to spread. And spread. And spread.

With a regular flood regime or in their natural, sandy and devastatingly dry habitat, disturbance would be too frequent for tamarisk to completely take over. However, without such natural controls, it develops quickly into dense, impenetrable clumps on every available patch of soil. Native species, such as the Gooding Willow, which could provide excellent shade and wildlife habitat in these areas, just can't compete. Native bird and wildlife species don't get the same habitat value from the non-native plants, including (as we learned) the beaver, which really dislikes chewing on the plentiful tammies and prefers tender young willows (more on that in part 2). The tamarisk drink unheard of quantities of water from the soil, soak up the excess salts that have been washed into the system through agriculture, and then release those salts onto their minuscule scaly leaves. Those leaves fall to the ground and cause the salinity of the soil to rise - further ruining the chances for native species to thrive.

So, they're mean, over controlling, and aggressive foreigners - everything that American's just can't stand. Yet, their dominance along the Colorado River, in particular through the Grand Canyon, has been nearly unchallenged since the floodgates closed on the Glen Canyon Dam in 1966. Ecologists and NPS scientists have made attempts to rein in their takeover of many of the tributary canyons and streams, but the sheer scale of the task on the beaches along the river was overwhelming. Then there's the generations of recreational and commercial boaters that have come to depend upon what little verdant cover they provided in that hotbox. They certainly didn't want a wholesale slaughter of the only shade left down there.

It looked like tamarisk in the Inner Gorge would be king for a long time to come. That is, until the beetle came.

The Tamarisk Beetle doin' its thing

The tamarisk beetle (Diorhabda carinulata) was introduced in Utah in the early part of the 21st century, as an experiment to control tamarisk invasion. The beetle defoliates tamarisk and only tamarisk repeatedly over several growing seasons until the exhausted plant dies, providing a natural control in it's native environment. It seemed to some biologists and land managers a natural solution to a complex man-made problem. Just import a new non-native species to eliminate the one you imported 200 years ago.

I knew an old lady who swallowed a fly...

In any case, the fight over the release of the beetle hinged in part on the assumption that the beetles would not be able to reproduce at the lower latitudes of the Grand Canyon and Arizona because of a particular quirk in their development cycle.

'Don't worry, Grand Canyon' I was told the Utah scientists claimed, 'it can't come your way'.

Well, it seems evolution trumped us again, and the beetle has continued to spread south and is not only in the canyon, but rapidly moving past it. While this has some desired effects - potentially to reduce the dominance of the tamarisk on the beaches in the canyon - it also creates some problems. What do we do with all of these once vegetated stretches of land on which tens of thousands of people vacation and explore each year? Where wildlife species such as the endangered southwestern Willow Flycatcher have taken up residence, and where - without the tamarisk to hold the soil in place, the unrelenting and unchanging flow of water from Glen Canyon dam will simply erase any trace of usable land?

Melissa McMaster and her team at the NPS worked with Fred Phillips consulting in Flagstaff and came up with an innovative and daring pilot project to explore exactly that question - and they launched it at my personal favorite campsite in the whole Grand Canyon: Monument Creek/Granite Beach.

The plan proposed in the project includes establishing riparian species to replace the tamarisk as they become defoliated or die off, improving camping facilities for boaters and backpackers and creating improved habitat for wildlife species along the river. It's all in hopes of finding effective techniques that can be used to restore other treasured beaches in the canyon.

This, as it goes, is where I come in. I learned about the project when I was on the North Rim this last fall, or at least I saw a call for volunteers then. I might have had zero concept of what was going on, but I saw 'Granite Beach' and 'restoration' and I was sold. I've been hiking down to that camping area for more than 10 years, and it's been too long since I've visited. Not only would volunteering for this group get me some primo time in a favorite spot with someone else hauling in the good eats, but I'd get to scratch that 'do good' itch that I get from time to time.

I called and signed up that week. What I never knew was that shortly after, many, many more people called to sign up as well. I got on a very long list very close to the top, and that meant I was lucky! Moa ha ha ha!

And so it was that I arrived in Flagstaff on the evening of February 6th, ready once again to dive into my favorite ditch.

Me and fellow volunteer Mark at the trailhead

You know - it doesn't seem to matter how many times I step into the Grand Canyon, I always get butterflies just before...

High Adventure on the Arizona Trail

2013-02-01T23:00:00.000-07:00

Dale's Butte on Passage 16

As many of you already are sick of hearing, I've become a Arizona Trail steward through my position as organizer of the Arizona Backpacking Club. What this means is pretty basic... I've got a 4.5 mile stretch of trail through the desert outside of Superior that I'm supposed to be an expert on. So far, I've hiked it twice from north to south and once from south to north - and I've done one 'work project' with my club where we went out and got sweet revenge on that most heinous of hiker's enemy: catsclaw bushes.

This month, it was time to hike it through again with the club, just for fun and to continue to increase my 'expertise' on the area. My hike a little over a week before to The Spine gave me practice in the cooler temps found in these deserts during the winter - this hike would show how quickly and dangerously those conditions can change.

Ten hikers set out from the Picketpost Trailhead on Friday morning. Of the ten, I'd only hiked with 2 of them before, but they were all very experienced, capable hikers. Mature, experienced, capable hikers. Confident, mature, experienced, capable hikers. Anyone who's tried to 'lead' a group like this knows what it's like to herd cats through a rainstorm. With 3 days and 37 miles ahead, I tightened my waist belt and set my resolve. We would have fun or I would die trying.

If only I'd known then what was heading my way, I might have carried an extra bottle of gumption to pass out along the trail.

Morning light on saguaros

ABCers on the AZT

I call this feature Stripey Butte...it's about half-way through our adopted passage, and is a great landmark for many miles.

Our first day of hiking went fantastically. The weather, as you can see from the pictures, was amazing. In fact, it was really quite incredible from the 'hard to believe' standpoint: a week before, the high temps had been hovering around the mid 50's with sub-freezing nights. This week, we were getting closer to 80 during the days, with balmy nights barely dropping below 45!

So many things to say about this shot... Remnants of snow at 3200' (in the shade), Cindy's infamous butterfly pants, her two-toned convertible pants worn with only one leg, her butterfly gaiters. So many classics!

The group spread out over the trail, but with such experienced hikers, we were able to gather back together several times until we reached "the end". The Southern end of passage 17, the end of our first 13 mile day and the end of the easy, drama free portion of the hike. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself ;)

Doug (LtWalker) kicks it back at the campsite for day one, with Stripey Butte in the background.

Our camp the first night was basically a wide spot in an old jeep road just off the trail junction. It wasn't very conducive to a large group - but it was homey enough to get us off our feet. We gathered a bit into smaller groups for dinner, and I felt like I'd still not really had much chance to connect with some of our hikers. We watched the stars for a while, then I fell asleep. I was so far away from some of the group, that I didn't even know that Carrie spent the night vomiting. Or that some time before dawn, Peter and Carrie decided to hike back to the starting point rather than continue on with her being so ill (an excellent if difficult choice). Or that Corwin had decided that they shouldn't go alone, and that he would also hike out.

When I learned it all in the morning, I felt terrible that I'd been unable to help more. I knew Carrie was in good hands, but I felt strange about continuing on with so much of the group dropping out. Usually, I try to keep the group together no matter what - but in this case it just didn't seem to be the right thing to do.

And so it was that day 2 began with 2 hiking groups: 3 heading back to the cars at Picketpost, and 7 more venturing further into the wilderness hoping to get to other cars at Kelvin. Our goal for the day was another 13 miles, which would get us to the 'Gila Corner', where the AZT turns east to follow the Gila River.

An excellent photo for demonstrating proper trail construction: the line contouring the hillside with proper upslope and downslope.

Trail in Passage 16 coming down from the pass

It was quite a warm day. We'd filled up our water stores on day 1, about 5 miles before our camp. That meant that we were being cautious with our consumption for the first part of the day - knowing we'd have to wait until the river until we could top off again - at least 9 miles of walking uphill and downhill in the desert. It'll make you thirsty...

...so thirsty in fact that you might take 2 gallons of water out of a stash that wasn't yours (evidently) even though that stash was within sight of water in the river. And perhaps the heat of January was so extreme that you didn't even have the strength to carry out the empty water bottles.

But at least you had the presence of mind to be thankful. And a pencil, to write your gratitude on the lid of the empty water jug.

Or, that's what I imagined happened to whoever it was who stole most of my stashed water. True, I hadn't done much to 'hide' it - but I figured it was only a few days, it was off the hiker's trail and there was water in the river right there. Sigh.

Now I not only had to filter the water I needed from the river (which wasn't the tastiest source ever), but I had to pack out empty water bottles. Sigh.

Toting our empties along the river banks

I suspect now that some of us probably pushed a little to hard on day 2, not getting quite enough water or taking quite enough of a break in the heat of the day. 76 deg may not be roasting, but when you're working hard in the sun, it'll make you sweat for sure. Eric and Cindy, who were just getting back into hiking shape from a 2 month break, seemed to have a tough afternoon of it - so I was eager to find us a nice, wet place to make camp.

After a few missed communications with the forward group, we finally managed to locate some prime beach property along the river and made a sweet little camp. I even got to soak my feet for a little while. It was Eric's 68th birthday, and Ivanka gathered together some ingredients to make him a most excellent birthday cake - if only he'd been feeling well enough to eat it.

Happy Birthday to you!

River camp just after dawn

Sunday morning was beautiful. The sky was dotted with wispy clouds and the trail through the saguaros was magical. The first half of the day, I spent learning all about the very interesting adventures of Cindy and Eric... The man who'd been shot in the foot (or shot himself in the foot, depending on who tells the story), suffered a major head injury after a motorcycle accident, been hospitalized and nearly died for a ruptured appendix - just for starters! Heck, if I'd have known all this, maybe I wouldn't have let them come along on the hike, the man is like a ticking time bomb!

But, then, if you really know me, you know I can't resist a good story ;)

Morning on the trail

The Mineral Mountains spread out ahead of us

Just a note here to explain a pattern I find to be true on nearly every hike I've done - be it 2 days or 10. The last day, there's always one or two people who just can't get to the end fast enough. It doesn't matter if it's the most beautiful hike in the world, or if the weather's perfect or if the only thing they have to rush back to is paying bills and bleaching their underwear. Something about being within sight of that finish line puts spurs to them and off they go. This trip was no exception.

Part of the group was traveling quite far ahead. We didn't catch up with them until nearly noon, and it was getting warm. I think that Eric was unconsciously pushing a little harder than he might have otherwise because he didn't want to hold the others back. Afterall, it was his car at the exit trailhead, so no one was going anywhere until he got to the end.

Cindy and I tried to slow him down, but (as I'm sure you can imagine from a highly experienced 68 year old man who's survived what he has already) his stubbornness won out over even his own better judgement. By lunchtime, he was starting to feel more tired than he wanted to, and there were still many more miles to go.

Then the trail started to head around the base of "The Spine". The terrain got rocky and the route started to move up and down, in and out of drainages. Temperatures were near 80, and there wasn't a stitch of shade in sight. In other words, the going got tougher, and as the tough, we had an obligation to get going.

Above the river, looking back on the hills we'd come through the day before.

The base of 'The Spine'...getting rocky!

Jump ahead to 4pm. Why? Just do it - the story reads better this way.

Eric and I are sitting on the trail, literally. Actually, if I'm being literal, Eric is laying on the trail. The lead group was sent on ahead more than an hour ago - they couldn't be reigned back any longer. I've just sent Cindy off to let them know that Eric was still having trouble, and that we were going to take it very, very slow for the last 2-3 miles. I also sent Cindy off so that Eric would stop fretting about her. I think he was more worried about not worrying her than he was about his own condition. Men.

We'd taken about a 40 minute break in the shade when the trail dropped back to the river at the trestle bridge. Eric, who was beginning to suffer from bouts of severe dizziness and general weakness, was lavished with wet cloths, tubes of electrolyte-rich goo, water and snacks. The attention was clearly more than he could tolerate. That's when I sent the lead group off. I'd hoped that their disappearance would let Eric take things easier, and I think it helped.

From the river, he, Cindy and I moved slowly through the remaining hills, stopping for several shorter breaks. Then, Eric's dizziness got worse and we encouraged him to lay down in a tiny spot of shade along the trail. Cindy and I agreed she should go ahead and she hiked up the hill and around the corner, reminding Eric that he couldn't die because he still needed to clean out the garage.

Eric, who I'd learned earlier, had in the last couple of years been given four arterial stents, had already popped 2 nitro tablets and was still suffering from dizziness and weakness, now accompanied by spots in front of his eyes.

Once Cindy was out of sight, he told me that he thought we should try to call for help. My relief was tremendous, particularly since I had already determined that I had good cell reception. So, while Eric tried to avoid the cholla thorns on the trail, I got on the horn to the Pinal County Sheriff's department.

The train trestle over the Gila

Afternoon light and nothing to do...photo op!

Now, before you all get angry at me for being so flippant when this poor man was clearly very ill right before my eyes, remember that I can say these things lightly because I have the benefit of hindsight. Eric was quite upset when I told him that Pinal County Search and Rescue was sending out a helicopter. He felt it was excessive given his condition. After a lengthy discussion with the deputy, however, it was decided that he would try very slowly to walk out while the helicopter was enroute. That way, if things deteriorated further, help was already on the way.

To make a very long story as short as possible (I know, too late), the chopper picked Eric up at approximately 6:15pm, about 2 miles from the cars at the trailhead. We'd hiked about a mile from the spot where we'd initially called them into some more friendly territory. It helped tremendously that the sun was low in the sky and the trail was moving down hill once again.

The helicopter took Eric to the emergency crews in Kelvin where it was determined that he was not in fact experiencing heart failure, but was merely (?) badly dehydrated. We all agreed that he'd been drinking what we thought would have been enough fluids, but clearly it wasn't enough. They put him on IV fluids for about a half hour, then sent him on his way with a mild warning about staying hydrated and about a half-gallon of Gatorade.

Our friendly neighborhood SAR

So, what happened with everyone else? In the spirit of the summaries at the ends of movies where the director runs out of time before he runs out of ideas...

Peter, Carrie and Corwin (not pictured) hiked back to the cars safely and headed home Friday night. They were kind enough to drop my car at the finish trailhead which saved everyone a lot of hassle on the last day. You guys are heros ;)

Ivanka, Mick, Doug and Sandy hiked out by about 4pm, took my car in to Superior to retrieve Mick's car and grab some food. Ivanka reported that while she was hungrily eating her salad on the curb outside of Circle-K, a stranger came up to her (unprompted) and offered her a little money so she could buy a soda.

Nothing like a tough 3-day hike to help you pull of the homeless-beggar look!

Eric got a free chopper ride and a lot of unwanted attention from the very kind folks in Kelvin. Cindy had the misfortune to see the helicopter come and go without really knowing what was up, since my cell phone lost reception as I got closer to the car (go figure).

Through it all, both of them kept smiling and were delightful in general. If you're ever going to have a rescue situation on your hands - these are the kind of folks you want to be with!

And me? I got to hike out the last 2 miles in the dark...again (I'd hiked it in the dark with Sirena a year before).

Just as I was breaking into 'Swinging on a Star', Mick found me. He'd driven up to the trail from the parking area to see if anyone was coming. Reunited with the rest of the group, we found out where they'd taken Eric and split up for good. Those ready to go home, went home.

Me, I went for pizza ;)

Spending a Night on the Spine

2013-01-16T11:07:00.000-07:00

One of my annual New Years Resolutions is to keep up with the blog, and there's no reason for 2013 to be any exception...

"The Spine" is one of a number of unique geological formations in the Mineral Mountains south of Superior, Arizona. This group of low, volcanic hills is crisscrossed with old mine roads, deep canyons and lonely ridges which recall an old west that is forgotten in the big city mess of Phoenix and Tucson. Here, it's easy to get lost in the boulder fields and saguaro stands, and the best landmarks are rugged buttes with names like The Battleaxe, The Rincon and Ajax Peak. It's the perfect place for an off trail adventure of any size.

From our hike in 2012

Sirena (of Sirena's Wanderings fame) and I spent New Year's day last year backpacking along the newly completed Arizona Trail passage through the Minerals. It was such a fantastic time to enjoy the Sonoran desert that we decided to make it a tradition. Unfortunately, the weather was not on our side in 2013, with sub-freezing temperatures and 20 mph winds forecast for the area (after all, with so many beautiful hiking days in a year, why go out when you know you're going to be uncomfortable?). It took almost a week for the conditions to be right, a week of feeling wimpy for not backpacking and alternately thanking our good sense that we were avoiding some icky hiking conditions.

Finally, we had a window of perfect weather: sunny, temps just above freezing at night and reasonable wind speeds. Sonoran winter at it's finest! Still, with me still on antibiotics for a sinus infection and Sirena not at the top of her game, we decided against a 3-4 day adventure like we undertook last New Year, and instead narrowed our focus for a shorter trip, one with 'just the right amount of adventure'. The Spine fit the bill.

Sirena had spent the night on what she calls "The Patio" of The Spine a couple of years ago, and touted it as one of the best camp sites ever. It's only 1.6 miles from where we would park the car, but who's counting miles when the terrain is this spectacular?

We parked the car in a wide wash at the base of the mountain (and might I add that my Subaru, Bu, totally rocked the rough ranch road) just off of Battle Axe Road. Just one more night for poor Bu with no company other than cattle and starry skies...

Saguaro studded hills

After a short walk up the larger wash, we turned up a small, rocky drainage. No trails here, other than those made by enterprising cattle and deer. We were surprised to find a trickle of water at the base of the drainage, which is obviously dry most of the year. No wonder the cattle wander up this way.

Sirena climbs the slick rock near the head of the drainage

Though there were some brushy areas with mesquites and even catclaw acacias to dodge, most of our walking here was clear and beautiful, with sections of 'slick rock' (if you can call volcanic tuff slick) and short scrambles up dry waterfalls.

Near the top of the short wash, we turned again and began up the slope of the spine itself. In technical trail-talk we call this bushwhacking, though some are trying to change the name of the activity to brush-busting or brush-stomping to get away from the confusion that could arise from the proper use of bushwhack, meaning 'to ambush'. By whatever name, it can be literally a bloody nightmare in the Sonoran desert - surrounded by thorns, spines and spikes. However, this particular hill was unusually open, with a stable (if steep) walking surface and plenty of space between the pokey things for our feet and legs to move unmolested.

Sirena moving up the slope of the Spine, dodging bushwhacks from bushes and cacti.

By about half-way up the slope, we could look back at where we'd started.

We climbed fairly slowly, even for slowish hikers like us. Although we'd set for ourselves the ambitious goal of exploring the two 'arms' of the spine after dropping our packs, we'd agreed early into the hike that it was a very real possibility that we were going to fall quite short of that. There are days and conditions under which ambition is best tempered by a touch of laziness, and this was definitely feeling like one of those days - a feeling which only grew as we continued up the steep mountain.

Looking back down the side of The Spine. Isolation like this is one of the things that make the Sonoran Desert so magical!

Finally, we made it to the crest - a rocky ridge of boulders and cacti with mind-bending views in every direction. Our aim up the slope had been perfect, we came up right above The Patio, so we would only need to boulder hop a short distance along the ridge to find a good spot to descend.

Sirena on the crest overlooking the Patio.

The Patio is a hidden valley just below the crest of The Spine. From most directions, it's completely invisible, and it's really not until you're standing on the ridgeline that you can really appreciate it's unique character. Like a highly exclusive resort or that little corner cafe with great food that no one else knows about, only this one requires a little more work to get to...

Boulder hopping along the Spine, looking roughly north

Check out my mad-CAD skills (at least grad school was good for something).

Cross-section of the Spine at the Patio - not to scale

The southern edge of the patio from the ridge. Our camping spot was on that end, with sweeping views to the west.

Our original plan, as I mentioned earlier, had been to drop our packs at The Patio, then go and explore the arms of The Spine. The scramble down to the patio, however, was actually the hardest bit of the whole hike. Once we were down there, the area was so intriguing and different, so deserving of exploration we decided to stay.

Yup, we were feeling that lazy.

We did explore the "mini spine" on the far side of the patio. This would likely be the ridge visible from the north and east, rather than the higher ridge behind it.

Along the mini spine. We decided that calling it the "baby spine" was kinda morbid.

Says Realtor Wendy: "The best feature of this property is the private patio with excellent sunset views. Of course, the exclusivity of the neighborhood also adds to the home's value."

Laziness aside, there really were some cool things to be seen from The Patio and the Mini Spine - and I know that many times I get in such a hurry to 'bag the peak' as it were, that we miss some of the more subtle nuances of the desert. It's these little things which can make for hours of entertainment without going more than a few hundred yards.

This saguaro had an arm which looked like a whole new saguaro...

There were some big cacti on this slope...I assume that the protection of The Patio makes a good microclimate for them.

Looking along The Spine from the west end of the patio

Fun with black and white...and...

...posterizing...

Sign of previous visitors...survey?

So we kicked back for a little while, and waited for the sunset. Though it wasn't as spectacular as we'd anticipated, it was still definitely worth the effort!

Looking west toward sunset over North and South Buttes (the Gila River runs between them)

Sunset panorama of the Mineral Mountains: rugged Arizona at its best!

Fun with HDR...

Dinner was a special treat, one we've been making something of a tradition of on our bushwhack backpacks... Cheese fondue with apples, bread and broccoli. Uber yum. How can you go wrong with a bowl of hot cheese on a cool night?

All evening, we could see the twinkling lights of Superior and Florence, and the glow in the northwest from Phoenix. Still, it felt like we'd left the world far behind us as we snuggled into warm sleeping bags and watched the stars.

The next morning, we decided to wait until the rays of the sun hit our camp before we began moving about. However, once the sun did arrive, so did a vicious wind. Gust near 20mph were freezing cold, and were making taking our camps down even more interesting than usual. Thank goodness we'd skipped tents, or it might have been really entertaining!

View from my sleep spot - not a bad thing to wake up to!

Battleaxe Butte casts its shadow in the morning sun

Super Sirena, queen of the desert winds!

The wonderful pack mom got me for Christmas...sadly it's too tall for short girls like me. Going to have to go back to the folks at Golite.

Sirena begins the climb back to the ridge. The footing is more stable than it appears.

Panorama from the Spine.

We made even shorter work of heading down than we did heading up. Not only is it less cardio-effort to go down, but wayfinding is much easier when you're heading downslope. We took a great line and in no time, we were relaxing in the warm sun in the protection of the wash again.

Looking down the drainage with Battleaxe Butte framed in the distance.

Avoiding a pour-off by thinking like a cow.

Back in the main wash, below stark cliffs and leafless cottonwoods.

Though we were thrilled to see the car again, we were also not quite finished adventuring...we'd just do so mounted rather than on foot. Sirena wanted to show me the artesian well not far away, along the alignment of the Grand Enchantment Trail. It was a short drive, then a short walk, and seeing the water gushing out of the ground so unexpectedly was certainly a treat.

The 'backside' of Battleaxe Butte. Sirena wants to sleep on top of that, too. That might be one she does without me ;)

The Artesian well

Walking among the towering cliffs so prevalent in this area.

Then we drove out of the wilderness and back to highway 177, headed for Cocheran. This old mine site is directly across the Gila River from the Arizona Trail, where I planned to do another backpacking trip with a group in a few weeks. I wanted to check out the conditions of the river and stash some water in advance, just in case the river ended up dry. Luckily, it wasn't. Instead, we ended up having a whole mini-adventure just there!

An interesting saguaro along the Florence-Kelvin Highway.

Not a very good picture of the coke ovens at Cocheran, but the best I got... Guess it's a good excuse to go back!

Though they'd turned the flow off from the Coolidge Dam upstream, there was still enough water from recent rains to have a good flow in the river - and it was clean!

While stashing my water on the far side of the river (crossed in sandals and rolled-up pants), a 4x4 club came by. About 20 vehicles of all makes and sizes came through, about half crossing the river and the other half continuing along the far bank. The road in this spot is truly gnarly, with an unavoidable 5' hole right off the bank of the river. A couple of cars hit their undercarriage hard, and a couple others actually got stuck - high sided on a rock. While other drivers came out of their cars and watched from a safe distance, Sirena and I walked back across the river. These folks - many of them from out of state - all thought we were completely off our rocker for walking through that frigid water.

Of course, we thought they were pretty nuts for punishing their perfectly good cars by making them cross the river. But, well, to each their own. We got back into the safety and security of our car, parked in a safe spot, and drove out. We left the rest of the mad automobile adventures to them.

What a way to spend a couple days: good friends, good food and great scenery. What a lucky girl I truly am!

A River Runs Through It...and I Run the River Through

2012-09-20T09:16:00.000-07:00

On New Year's day, as Sirena and I were backpacking through the Sonoran desert outside Superior, AZ, we reflected on that old saying about 'what you do on New Year's echos throughout the year to come'. I hoped it was true, as there are few things that I love better than adventuring through magnificent environments with good friends in tow. Now that more than half of 2012 has gone by, I can say without a doubt that the prophesy has been fulfilled - and so much more!

In February, I hiked the Grand Canyon's Escalante Route.
In March, Angela and I conquered the Superstition Ridgeline.
April was spent largely in India exploring the Himalaya.
The summer saw me in Pinetop and the Blue Range Primitive Area.

Then August...well, in August I got to fulfill yet another life goal: I got to take a river raft ride through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. To make it even better (in my book anyway), I had the opportunity to go as one of the boat's crew, rather than just another tourist along for the ride. Sirena secured me a spot on one of her company's trips provided that I 'work my way' through the canyon. Me, work? Cooking great meals in the backcountry, loading and unloading gear, telling stories and explaining the views? Twist my arm, I guess I'll do it if you insist!

Beginning at Lee's Ferry and ending at Pearce Ferry on Lake Mead, the journey would take me past all of the pieces of the canyon I've hiked over the years, and to many amazing spots that my shoes simply can't get me. I knew it would be a whole different experience than anything I'd done before: 35' rafts full of fresh food and heavy gear, 28 passenger/guests to share every moment of the day with, 8 days of hard work but almost no walking. I knew (because Sirena warned me) that I would be worked to the point of exhaustion, that I would chop tomatoes until I could chop no more, and that I'd likely end up with sore muscles that I didn't even know I had. And I knew that I would have a truly amazing, wonderful and eye-opening experience.

What I didn't know was how well this trail rat would take to the water!

Loading up the boats in Flagstaff...for a backpacker who is used to counting ounces, it was hard to imagine how much stuff we were bringing along!

Our first little adventure

Another old adage that seems to be in the process of verification this year is the rule of things (bad, good or otherwise) happening in 3s. There was the Delhi Belly - Blood Clot - Broken Toe string this spring. On the river, it began with the boat trailer doing a not so cool axle-self-destruct maneuver on the way to the ferry. Flipping boats before you even get on the water? Wha? (note my use of suspense here as I don't tell you about the other 2 things)

Floating on the clear water of the Colorado above Paria Creek.

And as if we didn't already have enough stuff on board, we had to add the passengers lol!

Our group was a chartered trip - a bunch of guys who'd gone to Harvard Law together and had made this once-every-20-years adventure through the Grand Canyon a tradition (72-92-12). The big-wig of the group paid for everyone's trip (plus the extra 7 seats they didn't fill). They brought along roughly $5k worth of good beer, wine and Scotch and their own, personal 'river guide' from Canada. These details should tell you several things about the group demographics - I'll leave it for you to piece together.

That being said, some of them were quite nice folks and we had a quite nice time with them. The others were...challenging.

Sirena talks about the ancient peoples of the canyon at one of the archaeology stops called South Canyon

Boats pulled up at south canyon. This little climb up the hill was characteristic of most of the 'hiking' we did on the trip.

Petroglyphs in South Canyon

Vasey's Paradise - one of those places that you probably won't get to if you're just hiking...

The first couple of days I was on the boat with Chelsea Atwater - an incredible woman of the river who's knowledge of the canyon and competence with the boats had me in awe. The first day, her motor began to struggle - switching off each time she needed to rev it up for a rapid or maneuver. (Number 2...bad motor wiring) So this multi-talented girl switched it out at camp the first night. I hope I don't need to mention that these motors are heavy as...well, they're pretty freaking heavy, and it's not like there's tons of room for people to help out. She and our lead boatman Kenny manhandled the motors around so expertly that I barely even knew that it was all going on (I was on kitchen duty).

My own photo of the Redwall Cavern from the river was lost...here is one from the Maricopa County Geology Club. I suppose from here it does just look like a hole at the bottom of a cliff.

As we approached Redwall Cavern on day 2, I got very excited. As those of you who know me could predict, when I get excited it totally shows. I'm hopping about and clapping my hands in joyous anticipation and the folks on my boat are saying 'what's so exciting?'. Even after I explained that this was one of those spots that you can only reach by boat, and that I'd been looking at photos and reading descriptions of it for years, they were still not understanding. From upstream, the cavern looks... well ...unimpressive at best. Another great example of how the canyon plays with scale.

By the time we left the massive cavern, most of them had changed their minds and were properly impressed. The rest, well, they didn't matter anyhow.

Pulling into Redwall Cavern. John Wesley Powell boasted that the cavern could hold 40,000 people for a concert...maybe a bit of exaggeration, but an impressive place in any case!

My sense of joy at being at the Redwall made it possible to get this rather mellow group to join me in a silhouette Wendy (even if some thought it was too 'corny') How could you not love this spot!?

The smooth red ceiling of Redwall Cavern

Just before my trip, a friend sent me a link to this video, which was taken by a group who was lucky enough to shelter in the cavern during a massive storm and resulting flood. You can see how the grey of the limestone gets stained deep red by the red shales and sandstones above it.

Sirena and I on a sunnier day at the cavern

Floating beneath the towering cliffs

Storm clouds building over the rim as we float past a chunk of the Redwall Limestone that had recently collapsed. You can see the true color of the rock beneath the red stain.

Even at my max zoom, it's hard to pick out the tiny bridge on the cliff above... The Anasazi built the bridge 400 years ago to help them reach the Unkar Delta - probably dragging the massive log timbers down thousands of feet of crazy canyon cliffs. These would not have been people who shied away from dangerous, difficult work like chopping onions or moving groovers.

Afternoon light on the Palisades of the Desert (cliffs on left)

By the end of day 2, the final of the three 'things' finally struck. Or, I suppose it's more correct to say we struck it. Our prop met an unfriendly rock and left us floating without power downriver for almost 20 minutes. Luckily, it was in a relatively calm area near where we'd intended to camp anyway. Our highly competent and collected boat drivers brought us into camp and while Sirena and I put together dinner once more, they put together a 'Frankenstein' motor out of the best bits of what was working. It took the best part of the evening and all four of us working in concert, but we managed to play tetris with 3 motors and get ourselves well situated for the rest of the trip.

I have to say - those boaters are bad-ass. I mostly just stood there and provided moral support (meaning I tried to stay out of the way). Kenny, Chelsea and Sirena - they made a task that would have daunted the most experienced Nascar mechanic look like child's play (and they looked good doing it).

Comanche Point from the north bank of the river. I'd camped beneath the Comanche before on my February Escalante trip... still an impressive bit of territory.

Sunrise on the river...not a bad place to wake up if you have to be up at dawn!

More petroglyphs above our camp near Lava Creek

The Unkar Delta area and the aptly named (and spectacularly colored) Supergroup formation.

After the first couple of eventful days, the trip settled into a pattern. Up with dawn, cooking breakfast and packing up camp, then floating the river - running some rapids and maybe checking out some side canyons. We tried to stop for lunch where we'd find some relief from the Death Orb (sun) and we kept ourselves cool and wet between the splashy rapids and waterfalls. I can see how the rhythm of river life is so appealing, even addicting. All day outside, moving through spectacular scenery only to be interrupted by short stops for good food and amazing side-trips. Yup. I liked it.

Descending into the Upper Granite Gorge

Floating below the Black Bridge on our way to refill water at Boat Beach. Such a thrill considering how many times I've stood on the bridge and watched longingly as boaters floated past!

Sirena and I switched boats after a while - to give her some time with Chelsea learning the finer points of driving a behemoth and to give me some one-on-one time with Kenneth Gouff (who's knowledge of the canyon is simply unreal). Kenny is not only a great boater, backpacker, hiker and chef - he's actually a sweet guy. Don't let him know I told you that, though, it'd ruin his carefully crafted gruff-bastard image.

Considering that Chelsea'd nick-named me Mary Poppins for the trip, we made an interesting pair...

Classic Grand Canyon view with Zoroaster temple soaring high above the gorge. Kenny was always pointing out great photo opportunities and pointing out named places from under his low-tucked hat. Said he hated the canyon (actually - said he hated everything), but Mary Poppins can smell bullshit a mile away!

Sirena and Chelsea above Horn Creek Rapids (a favorite of many boaters)

A photo taken by Brian on the other boat of my group at the bottom of Hermit Rapid - one of the most thrilling rides of all time, ever and in the whole world! Can you find yours truly?

Kenny snaps a pic of part of the group at Shinumo Falls. There's a grotto you can explore behind the falls and it's an awesome place to get some solo time!

Shinumo Falls without the 'distracting' foreground ;)

To paraphrase a friend: "Just another lousy day on the Colorado River..."

Ahead is the Great Thumb Mesa and Steven's Aisle...where you don't shop for laundry soap or cooking oil, but bighorn sheep and slot canyons!

Blacktail Canyon...with some of the most amazing acoustics anywhere - including all those buildings designed by less-experienced architect.

Shortly before the Irish Folk Tune Concert we shot the album cover...

Granite Narrows, the narrowest point on the river. Okay, so it doesn't look like much, but some things are all in the statistics... (for you nerds who really want to know more, here are some photos and explanation from a geologist.)

To be continued...

Throwin' the Wendy All Over the World...

2012-08-20T19:12:00.004-07:00

It's been too long...too long.

Kingsnake from Hikearizona.com on the Appalachian Trail...at 30 degrees (what can I say - we're desert folks!)

Booneman on Angel's Landing in Zion National Park

Outdoor Lover on Brown's Peak, AZ - The hike that started the phenomenon known as hikearizona.com!

Joe Bartels, Nick and Bruce on the Spencer Trail near Lee's Ferry at the head of the Grand Canyon

My Trail Sister - Angela (aka Tibber) on Cathedral Rock in Sedona. Check out her amAZing photos!

Vaporman and his fellow canyoneering partners in crime at Tatahtso Canyon in the Grand Canyon...

Boscoaz in the incomparable Buckskin Gulch in Northern Arizona

Joel and Belinda Norby on Escudilla Peak - Arizona's 3rd Highest Mountain!

Crzy4Az's Caroline celebrates on Picacho Peak

Rick Vincent (back) and the Tarantula Hawk (fore) celebrate on the 4-Peaks-Motherlode!

Rob in Greenhaven Canyon near Lake Powell, AZ

A familiar face...see the rest of the blog for more details on my trek in the Indian Himalaya ! That's Mt.Kanchenjunga in the background - the third highest peak in the world!

My fellow trekkers at the vista above Dzongri

The hearty bunch that made it to Goecha La

I only made it to the stone egg ;)

At Cibecue Falls on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation

With the Arizona Backpacking Club on Carr Peak in the Huachuca Mountains...awesome hike!

With a group of adventurous souls on an Arizona River Runners raft trip through the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River - Redwall Cavern. What an Epic Trip!

Our second group of folks - what a fun loving bunch!

I'm on a BOAT!

A Day in Darjeeling...

2012-08-15T11:08:00.002-07:00

We followed our porter and Rohit up the steep stairways and through the maze of people, shops, streets and alleys of Darjeeling. I was winded before we even hit the middle of town, and it was only because Sarah was a good head taller than anyone else on the street that I was able to keep a bead on our guides. She kept up with those legs of hers, and I kept her in sight - just a head with a bright hat bobbing through the throng in front of me.

When we reached the Hotel Dekeling, I hoped for a brief respite, but the porter continued to climb more stairs - four more flights up to the lobby of the hotel. While the lobby was on the fourth floor from the street, it was nearly level with the hillside behind the building, the terrain was that steep.

While Sarah inquired about a room, I paid the porter. I didn't have a 50 rupee note, only a 100, and I gave it to the man even though it was double the fee. I figured that he'd earned the $2 US harder than just about anyone I'd met yet. He wished me namaste and disappeared back into the crowds of Dajeeling.

Once we found the room we were hoping for (to get one with a view, we had to climb 3 more sets of stairs), and got settled in, we decided to hit Darjeeling and see as much as we could before night set in. The hotel was at the edge of the tourist market, though the majority of the tourists were Indians. We wandered through shops full of brass trinkets and textiles and past hundreds of stalls selling Western style clothing and knick-knacks from China. It was a beautiful, busy and fun bazaar.

The top of the bazaar - once school let out it was crawling with young people in school uniforms

Sarah models some Tibetan fashion

An example of the English-influence in the architecture of Darjeeling

We were on the look out for a number of things, including some old English tea mansions turned hotels as well as the local temple. We wandered through some lesser traveled side streets which in many other cities might have been deemed 'sketchy', but in Darjeeling seemed quite safe. The people always smiled and appeared happy to see us, even in areas one might consider verboten to tourists. The monkeys, however...they were a different story.

The monkeys are apparently welcome guests at the temple - there is a small shrine at the base of the hill with food and water for the animals.

I never captured a good picture of just how many monkeys there were here...there were LOTS.

As we approached the apparently deserted parking area, we were amazed at how many monkeys were running around on the hillsides. The closer we got, the more brazen the monkeys became. Sarah confessed to me later that she's a bit frightened of monkeys, and I think with perfectly good reason. When one particularly large animal came toward us aggressively with an open mouth full of sharp teeth, I felt more than a little intimidated. Sarah began to yell - probably the loudest noise I've ever heard come out of someone's mouth. She kept yelling as the monkey kept approaching, and we both started stepping backwards.

Finally, I think the monkey decided that not only did we not have food for it, but that the crazy white people weren't worth the trouble and it sauntered off. Sarah and I decided to walk as quickly as we could off the monkey hill and back to the safety and security of the city.

View from the monkey hill

Late afternoon light over the hills of Darjeeling

Chowrasta Market Plaza

These small stalls each lit their space with a camping lantern. Each one packed up all of their goods each night, carried them down the hill on their backs, and then carried all of it back up to set up again the next morning.

Not just your average tea...photo by Sarah

For 25 rupees this woman roasts you a fresh ear of corn over charcoal. She uses a palm leaf fan to keep the flame hot and turns the rocket-hot cobs with her bare hands!

I was disappointed that I couldn't partake in more of the street food... Many of the vendors had piles of delicious looking samosas, meat on a stick and noodles that I just knew were amazing. We played it safe, however, and got pizza and french fries at the hotel restaurant. There were many places to get coffee, tea and special treats as well along the market. After a blissful hot shower, we turned in to our soft, comfortable beds (at least by Indian standards) and slept.

The next morning, we finally got a chance to speak with our inkeeper. She was a friend of the Frenchwoman we'd met in Gangtok, and she had lots of great advice for us on how to get the most out of our time in Darjeeling. We only had a day left, and we had a long list of things to see and do - so we started early and didn't stop all day!

Dogs that lay together...right outside our hotel

First we made appointments for massages at one of the fancy British-style resorts. Sirena was right - massage here is inexpensive and VERY oily!

Nothing like a little Gothic architecture for your Girl's school!

Which way do we go?

The rooftops of another one of the famous British hotels in the area. These very high-end rooms can go for upwards of $100 US a night. Considering we'd splurged on our nicely appointed and comfortable room at $30 a night, I can only imagine what the accommodations would be here!

Vertical housing

Zoo and Himalayan Mountaineering Institute - one of the big attractions in Darjeeling

Our buddy Rohit was at the zoo playing tour guide for other clueless Westerners. It was nice to see him! I ended up leaving my huge old backpack with him - I'm sure he can use it more than I!

Even at the zoo the red panda is hard to get a photo of!

We hid from an afternoon monsoon storm in this fun little 2nd floor cafe...unfortunately the roof and walls leaked, forcing all the patrons into the center of the room!

The Hotel Dekeling - our room was way up in the attic...

The common room at the Dekeling - Sarah's checking email

Brandishing my favorite purchase - the Kukuri knife

With our host the morning before we left. She's a lovely Tibetan woman who is so kind and gracious! She helped me find my wonderful salwar camise which I wore for the trip home.

We did the required Darjeeling bit: we tasted and bought teas, had cookies at Glenary's, saw red pandas at the zoo and toured the exhibits at the Himilayan Mountaineering institute. We bought trinkets from local merchants (including Sarah's beautiful metal elephant which would be a blast getting through airport security over and over!), people watched at the Chowstra and had dinner at a Thai food restaurant. It was your typical urban vacation scene with that unique Indian twist.

When it was time to go to bed for our last night, we were both a bit conflicted. We were ready for the comforts of home, but we felt we'd barely even scratched the surface of what India had to offer.

Darjeeling, if you please...

2012-07-31T15:29:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we woke early as usual and had tea and a simple breakfast at the restaurant across the street. There were dogs all over India in general, and Yuksom was no exception. The dogs here were certainly fuzzier than in many other location - sure proof of the laws of evolution as I'm sure it gets darned cold here in winter. There were a couple of cute ones in particular that we bonded with in our brief stay, including one with a sweet face and black, floppy ears. Oh my.

FYI - I did NOT give him any of my breakfast. I certainly was tempted, though. Photo by Sarah

We were sharing a jeep with Alok, Anne-Gael, Gael and their guide Rohit (as well as 5 other passengers) headed down to the taxi 'hub' at Jorethang. From there, we'd be splitting up with Alok Gangtok (and the Hotel Pandim as we recommended), the French couple heading home via Siliguri's airport and Rohit, Sarah and I headed for Darjeeling. Rohit said he had business there, and Sarah and I hoped to do just a little more sight-seeing before we caught our own flight back in 3 days.

The ride to Jorethang was 4 hours of bumps and sharp turns - as all roads in this area are. We passed through a number of small villages and settlements and again I was amazed at how tenacious the people of Sikiim have been in establishing civilization on these impossibly steep mountains. I was crunched into the middle, though, and had no opportunity to take any photos from this leg. Probably just as well - concentrating on the road ahead helps me keep from getting carsick!

The cost of this B-ticket packed roller coaster? 150 rupees each, or about $3. Hard to complain at that rate, for sure.

Jhoretang is a bustling city of about 3000, though I'd imagine during the day that population comes close to doubling as the thousands of share taxis come through on their way to Pelling, Darjeeling, Siliguri and Kalimpong. This 'hub' is so critical that the Sikkimese government constructed a 4-floor parking garage to function as the taxi 'stand'. Each floor is jammed with jeeps and Tatas, with people pouring in and out at a dizzying rate. Each floor is dedicated to a series of different destinations - but if you didn't know that, you'd be screwed as I didn't see a single sign explaining it. Thank gawd for Rohit!

An internet photo of the outside of the Jorethang taxi 'stand'

Sarah and I wait for Alok, Gael and Ann-Gael to get their spots on the cabs on the Gangtok-Siliguri floor

Cabs/Jeeps lined up and waiting for...well, I was never really sure how the system worked.

Rohit did all of the work for all of us. He haggled and got seats for the other three, then took us up a flight of stairs to haggle for our seats. He even got us permission to leave our backpacks in the ticket office so that we didn't have to haul them around (evidently we'd have an hour or so to wait).

Another observation about life in India: the idea of 'waiting in line' or 'taking your turn' seems to be completely absent here. I'd read in a book before coming to expect something like this, but it's hard for my very Americanized brain to even comprehend what is going on when there are 15-20 people crowded around a ticket window shouting, waiting, and jockying for position. It wasn't that they were rude or pushy or even angry - they just don't stand in a tidy row and let each person have their say in turn. Thus, a queue becomes a horde, and if you don't know the body language and cultural expectations, you're lost.

Again, thank gawd for Rohit!

He got us all our tickets, making sure we weren't relegated to the mashed-up front seat or the nauseating-rolling rear seat. His pride in this accomplishment was evident, and from the haggling I'd see later as we were trying to claim these seats, I could tell that we had a position of considerable value. I only wish we'd told him to buy the 4th seat in the row... Sigh.

We decided to get some tea and refreshments while we waited - kind of the equivalent of grabbing a soda from the machine at the bus station back home. The 'vending machines' here, however, were human and walked through the stand with their hot chapati, chai and bottles of water. None of us Westerners wanted to risk it, so Rohit took us to a small stand in an alley off the main drag a short walk from the Taxi stand. It's a good thing that I am not a nervous person, or I'd have been sure a gang of backpack-stealing marauders would be waiting for use up there...

Something about having "Fear Me, Ok Tata, Good Luck'" on the back of your truck makes me think you might have a personality disorder...

Alok and I toast with my favorite Indian beverage (Mazaa Mango Juice) in the dark alley

The restroom at the taxi stand...and I don't recommend using either if you can avoid it.

The main drag in Jorethang

The streets of Jorethang

Gael and Ann-Gael had to leave first, so we all returned to the taxi stand for them to load up into their keep. We passed hugs all around and promises to keep in touch. It is amazing how easy it is to bond with strangers when you're in another country. I don't know if Ann-Gael really was as nervous as she looked as she climbed up into that crazy ride - but I wouldn't blame her a bit if she was. The whole scene at the stand was insane - people shouting in several languages at once, bartering and begging, selling goods and trying to crowd as much as possible onto these poor cars. They drove off and we had a short wait until it was our turn to play the taxi cab shuffle.

While we waited I noticed that the fare-chart noted that the road between Jorethang and Darjeeling was 'rough and winding'. None of the other roads were noted this way - not even the very rough and winding roads we'd just been down for the last 5 hours.

This couldn't be good.

Our driver was very young and quite aware of appearing stylish and cool. His car, however, was one of the worst I'd seen yet - with sagging upholstery, bad retreads on the tires and seat springs that unexpectedly poked you in the back. It was a full car, too, tight to the point that I felt Rohit and I should maybe think about learning each other's last name if we were going to be that close for that long.

Loading up our ride - the driver is on the roof with our packs.

A rough, winding road with a wanna-be-rock-star driver, 12 shouting Indians and THIS is the tire we're depending on? Oye.

The ride was tortuously slow. Much of the road was so steep and rough that the jeep didn't top 24km/hr (about 15mph). At one point, we stopped on a very steep hill in a tiny village to deliver a tool to the driver of another jeep which was stranded with a flat tire. From the looks of the passengers, they'd been there a very long time. Our driver didn't even pull off of the road - I think he knew there wouldn't be any other traffic coming through. Very rural, very isolated, very remote. I was very glad not to have been on that other jeep.

We also had to stop at the Sikkim border. The whole car had to wait while our passports and special permits were checked and double checked by the police at the checkpoint. It seemed to take forever, and I found the whole scene so stereotypical that I had to photograph it. I got a couple of dirty looks as I did so, and Sarah practically whispered to me 'It's not a good idea to take pictures of police'.

Shows what I know, don't it. Stupid American ;)

The border between the states of Sikkim and West Bengal

As we neared Darjeeling, we began to see tea plantations on the hillsides. Rohit pointed out a few, and soon we were spotting them everywhere - dotted with the umbrellas of the tea-pickers. They use the umbrellas to shade themselves as they work out in the fields (brilliant). The beautiful, pastoral scene, can make it hard to realize that these people are laboring in the the very hot, intense sun for very little money with only an umbrella to give them comfort. I suppose it was easier to remember when I was jammed into the middle seat of a share taxi, but I still doubt that I have any real understanding of their lot in life.

At our rest stop, the driver got out - smoked a cigarette, ate some lunch and talked with some friends. All without really ever announcing to us that we were taking a rest stop or how long we'd be. He just left the car and disappeared into a roadside restaurant. We all sat in the car for the first five minutes or so. Then a couple of people got out and milled about. After about 15 minutes, Rohit got out and found the driver. He came back to tell us that we were taking a quick break, so we got out and stretched our legs. Of course, the minute we were getting comfortable outside the car, the driver re-appeared and we were jammed back into the jeep. If only I'd gotten out 10 minutes sooner, I could have gotten some good pictures of the rural character of that place. Instead, I only got a couple quick snaps and we were off again!

Our jeep is passed by some tea-pickers. Photo by Sarah

Even the humblest shops and homes have flower gardens here.

Tea Plantation - photo by Sarah

Our ride went on seemingly forever - until finally we could see the increasing density of settlement that told us we were getting close to Darjeeling. With over 130,000 residents, it was the largest city we'd been in since Delhi. From the stories I'd read and heard, I expected something more sprawling and pastoral - something that felt like an English countryside village. Instead, Darjeeling turned out to be something very different indeed.

My first glimpse of Darjeeling was unadulterated urban chaos.

I expected Darjeeling to look like this...(internet photo)

But it actually looked more like this (internet photo)

Road construction before the barely-one-lane metal bridge that you must pass to reach Darjeeling from the east. A traffic officer (who you can just see behind the car approaching us) must direct passage on the bridge, because the turn is blind in both directions. Photo by Sarah

Darjeeling taxi stand - Photo by Sarah

Once we'd arrived in the town itself, we pulled into what can only loosely be described as a taxi stand. It was essentially the main road through the lower portion of town, lined with jeeps 3 or 4 deep on each side of the street. Every square inch was moving - cars, people, dogs, cows, trucks and carts. We had the name of a hotel, and we had general directions that it was up a long flight of stairs, but beyond that we were clueless. We'd planned on maybe catching a local taxi to get us there, but Rohit recommended instead that we hire a porter. It was clear from the traffic jam that movement by foot would be faster here, and the vertical nature of the city also seemed to favor the pedestrian. Where cars had to wind back and forth up the narrow switchbacking streets, walkers could take long, narrow stairways straight up.

'Does the porter know where our hotel is?' I asked Rohit. I was feeling the clench of that mild crowd-phobia that kicks up in me from time to time. Rohit nodded. His English was limited, but I got enough to know that the porter would take us right to the hotel for 50 rupees. He would even carry my bag. Looking at those stairs, it sounded fantastic.

Before my feet were on the ground for even five minutes, this tiny little man (I mean - shorter than me tiny) was strapping my backpack into his forehead strap. Rohit then hoisted Sarah's pack onto his head. We'd assumed that there would be two porters - one for each of our bags. Instead, here was a little bit of a man carrying what had to be close to 100lbs on his head. I wanted to object, but I didn't get a chance.

The little man took off like a rocket ship on speed.

Picture by Sarah (who stood at least a chance of keeping up with this man)

Safely back in civilization?

2012-07-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

Photo by Sarah

After our evening of tumba, delicious food (remind me to tell you someday about 'has been potatoes') and cut-throat Farkle, we had little left to do but return to our room for our first night of sleep up off the ground in a week-and-a-half. Rohit, the guide for the 'other' group (Gael, Ann-Gael and Alok) who was also our dinner host actually insisted on walking us back to our hotel. He was sweet and generous with his aid - earlier in the day he agreed to help us with securing a fair-priced taxi ride to Darjeeling the next morning. Even though the walk between his inn and our slight-step-up-from-a-tent was less than a couple of American blocks, he felt better if the two ladies had an escort. After all, the streets are dark and the pavement uneven. See what I mean, sweet.

Across the street from our hotel was the bar of the Restaurant Food Paradise evidently a popular hang-out among the guides. Raj was there, smoking ciagrettes with his buddies. I think he'd been laying in wait for us. Literally. I think he was waiting for us to leave Rohit's place and come back so that he could talk to us a little before we went to sleep. If that sounds a little creepy, that's how it felt - a dark street, a bunch of guys hanging outside a bar waiting for a couple ladies to try to enter their building...

Raj's cough seemed better (which I hope was in part because he got a hot shower), but he'd also had quite a bit to drink. They were drinking Hit Super Strong, a popular light beer we found all over the area. They were drinking quite a bit of it. He talked Sarah and I into coming into Paradise for a celebratory drink, which turned into one toast and then Raj talking to us a lot about the difficulties of being a trek guide and how hard life is in Sikkim in general for over half and hour. His buddies in the bar were chiming in quite a bit, and honestly I think it might have felt like a more fun, genuine experience if everyone didn't seem more than a bit tense and weird.

Now - I have to make a small addition to my story, and I can't verify it's truth. In fact, its 100% here-say, since I wasn't present for any of the events. So, unfortunately, it looks like I'm going to gossip. Shocker.

It seems that Anke and Arne were down in the streets of Yuksom earlier in the day and overheard an argument between Raj (our guide) and the cook and porter. If you'll recall, the cook and porter were originally a part of a separate group and we all got merged together because we couldn't secure a full staff. Anke and Arne asked someone what was going on, and what they were told was that Raj didn't want to give the money that was owed to the cook and porter. There was some problem with the brand new tent that Raj had us using, evidently now sporting some rather large holes, which no doubt was going to cost some money to fix. Anke and Arne didn't stick around to find out how it all worked out, but Rohit reported that the police actually had to be called. I can only assume it all ended equitably. (Done with gossip!) We'd discussed it over our own drinks at Rohit's house, but since no one was really sure of the whole story, it didn't get a whole lot of table time.

To make a long story short (I know, too late) - I blame all of this mess with the cook and porter and police and onlookers for the tensions in the Restaurant Paradise Bar that night. I'm sure all the guys in the room were totally on Raj's side, but I doubt anyone was really sure whose side Sarah and I were on. Raj bough Sarah a beer (I refused the offer, as I'd already had a lot of tumba). And he talked. And talked. And talked.

Finally, I had to stand up and basically insist I was going to bed in order to stop the discomfort. Everyone was a total gentleman, and no one tried to stop us, but we couldn't help but feel like we'd escaped an uglier scene. Can't say why - just a feeling.

It was now very dark and quite late (at least for the schedule we'd been keeping for the last weeks). As we crossed the street and approached our hotel, the proprietor was sitting on the stoop - also waiting for us. I am quite certain he was embarrassed about it, but he had to ask us to pay for our room for the night. We'd been told back in Gangtok that our dinner and our room the last night was included in the price of our trek, but the inn keeper told us that Raj had paid for his own room, but instructed him to ask us for our rent.

It was 35 rupees - about $7. Sarah and I briefly debated going back and confronting Raj about it. But neither of us wanted to go back into that bar or do any 'confronting' with a drunk and reportedly belligerent son of a Gurkha soldier. So, we dug out the cash and figured that if we'd only been cheated out of one night's hotel fee and a dinner in our whole time in India, then we were actually doing rather well.

Super Strong Hit...Not the end of the story!

We crawled into bed with that shivering anticipation that comes from a long-awaited pleasure, such as a softish bed after 10 nights on the ground. We were just about to doze off when a commotion started upstairs.

I believe I might have mentioned that the whole hotel was under renovation. We're not talking about a new-paint and bedspreads kind of thing but a gutting walls and putting in new doors kind of renovation. While the work was happening, much of the hotel was completely open to the outside. So open, in fact, that a nest of birds had been created in the main hallway, the eggs of which hatched while we were on trek, so we got to see the babies upon our return. This open, unfurnished blankness meant that even the smallest noise carried throughout the building. And the noise of 3 men unloading a truck full of tiles - well, that just reverberated like a brass band.

We patiently waited it out. Afterall, these men had to make a living, right? Who were these rich tourists to tell them they couldn't work?

Then they started cutting the tiles with a power saw. And hammering them into place. and dragging boxes from room to room. Sarah finally sits straight up in bed and says one word: "Really?"

I'd had it with being polite and sweet and trying to make a good name for all American tourists. I got out of bed, opened the door and called into the hallway,"Are you going to be working all night?".

There was a long pause before the answer, which I heard but couldn't understand. Sarah said that I was much nicer than she would have been, so I told her we'd step it up next time and let her at them. The work did stop almost immediately, for the most part. We still heard the occasional bang and clatter throughout the first part of the night. Or, at least Sarah did. I had fallen thankfully and blissfully asleep after one of the more interesting single days in my recent life.

Time out for a little photographic 'how-to'...

2012-07-12T11:08:00.001-07:00

Of course, I'll get back to the last few days of the India Project soon. But just to add a little variety...

One of my favorite internet haunts is photojojo.com: basically an idea engine for all things photography related. A number of the ideas for my recent photo projects have come from the site in one way or another (such as the Andy Warhol inspired Kodi print and the reusable family shopping bags). They're looking for new, fresh and fun ideas for DIY photo projects and - well, let's be honest here - who better than me to help out!? So here it goes: my attempt at a photojojo DIY project intro!

(Disclaimer: Okay, folks...I'm a landscape photographer, not a studio girl. I'm doing my best!)
_____

If you're anything like us, you've amassed quite a collection of spare photographs over the years. You know, those prints that didn't quite make the cut for the album or frame gallery - ones with too much sky, a little out of focus or perhaps just the third or fourth copy you didn't mean to order but somehow made it home anyway. Letting go of these less-than-stellar photos can be hard – after all, they have some value, right?
Wouldn't it be great if we could find some way to make these photos into something other than volume in a landfill?

The work of Raleigh-based artist and landscape architect Scott Hazard gave us some inspiration for a way to re-purpose some of these lost photos, and get out a little of that frustrated need for destruction in the process! His work utilizes layers of printed photographs with meticulously torn, concentric shapes to create new photographic interest: holes in the sky, plumes of smoke and mysterious openings in brick walls. Hazard's technique can take an otherwise uninteresting photograph and turn it into a 3-d art piece worthy of a spot on your display shelf.

Not to mention that there are few things more deeply gratifying than ripping, tearing and peeling in the name of progress!

All you need to get started is a pile of photos, some tape and one very sharp blade…

Amassing the Goods: a cutting mat, double sided craft tape, a craft blade, straight edge and that magical material known far-and-wide as 'fun foam' (we used the kind with the sticky already on one side!)

Begin by using the blade to 'dot-in' an outline of your hole. Don't cut it out - we're going to tear it with our fingers. The dots just give us a good guide that keeps us from going too far. Then use the blade to cut an X out of the hole to give our eager little fingers the access they need. Repeat for each photo, creating a slightly smaller hole each time.

Trace your holes onto the foam sheets and cut out a hole about 1/8" bigger than the one you've torn. Stick each photo to a sheet of foam, then using the double-sided tape, stick each photo layer to the previous one.

Viola! It's a complete piece. This example uses 5 different photos, each with a different sky color. If you have a shadow-box frame, it would be perfect. Otherwise, this simple business card holder works well.

Trek Day 11: The Remains of the Trek

2012-06-29T15:30:00.001-07:00

The cast and crew...

The next morning we awoke to another beautiful, warm day in Sikkim. No elaborate breakfast this time, just whatever is left out of the packs: we were out of instant coffee, eggs and toast. Our porridge was light on nuts and fruits. It was a hardship, but we endured - afterall, we'd have a soft bed and hot shower tonight! Right?

Right?

Ahem...I get ahead of myself once again. First we have to hike back to Yuksom.

Loading up the animals for the final day. I think they were glad to be heading back home, to a few days rest and plentiful eating

And people wondered why I wasn't as fast... Look at all the legs I was competing with!

On the trail below Tshoka

Raj shows us the color of the cobra lily

The pack animals crossing the Prek Chu

Along the way, we encountered this young pony who seemed lost. If ever something looked like the embodiment of the 'My Pretty Pony' dolls from the 80's - it was this one!

Back into the jungle, amid giant trees

Sarah and the white rhododendron

Each individual bloom on this plant was massive!

Just below Bakim

Poor Raj was not having a banner day. I think he caught my cold - or someone's anyway - and he was coughing and sneezing the whole way. He would stop repeatedly to clear his throat or his nose, and with my nearly 13 days of coughing, I totally felt sorry for him. At least it made him a little easier to keep up with!

To add to the problems, the brand new tent which we had been using ended up getting damaged somehow during the trip (I swear - it wasn't me!). Several holes appeared in the bright pink rainfly, and from all of the arguing in Nepalese, I think there was some debate as to who's responsibility it was. Either way, Raj's brand new tent was damaged, and I'm sure that's no small expense for him.

Since our stop at Kokchurong, I'd been trying to talk one of the crew into trading with me for one of their special Khukuri knives. They were constant companions for the porters, yak men and cooks, who used them for everything from gathering food from the dzo to cleaning under their fingernails. Knowing how Gary loves blades, and the fact that these 8-10" long steel monsters were something unique to the region, I figured a well used, trail worn one would be a perfect memento to give as a gift. However, the men were more than a little hesitant to part with this essential tool of the trade. I told our guides that I was willing to trade a number of cool things, including my own lightweight pocket knife, but I was informed that a 'trade' of cash would be more attractive. So I offered cash.

Another yakman with his Khukuri

Honestly, I offered more cash than these things would have been worth brand new (though I didn't know it at the time). But no takers. I think that Raj's bad temper had more to do with my failure than anything, and since I could barely say hello and goodbye to the others without a translator, I was stuck. It seemed that the precious Khukuri blades were just not for sale. At least not on the trail...

The steepness of the environment was incredible

The final bridge on the way back to Yuksom

It's like walking though a botanical garden

I've had these as houseplants, but never had leaves like this! Each one is at least 5' long!

Another example of Arisaema

Raj on the trail just before Yuksom

We got into town around noon. It was still a beautiful day - warm and sunny with some small clouds in the distance. Raj lead us back to our same hotel, but this time the room we'd been in previously was now torn apart in the renovation process. There was only one room with a functioning bathroom, on the ground floor. As we waited for our bag, we retrieved our other things (including CLEAN LAUNDRY!) from the office.

Our room this time was not nearly as nice as our last - it lacked the nice views, the small balcony and the extra roominess that we'd enjoyed. Considering that we'd been in a tent for ten nights, though, we thought it couldn't be too bad. Then we realized that the toilet didn't work, and that the hot water tank was - well, if not broken than at least not REALLY functional.

No flush toilet. No hot shower. Beds only slightly softer than our mats. So much for 'civilization'!

Even Raj, who was staying in the same hotel, asked if he could use our shower, as his didn't work at all. We gave him the key as we left the room to wander Yuksom again. I guess by the time he got there, some hot water came out. Lucky Raj!

Sarah walks through the outskirts of Yuksom

School yard and villager

Day's hike: 12km and 1000 meters lost (about 7.4 mi, 3200feet)

After our tepid showers (at least we're clean, we set out to wander Yuksom again. We quickly met up with our trekking mates (it's not a big town!), and we had one last adventure together. Although we re-visited many of the sites that we'd seen days before, it was fun to wander again with good company.

A lovely home in Yuksom, complete with a sat. dish on the outhouse...

A shifty gang of Westerners walking the streets of Yuksom

These women were tending their garden - barefoot! Wielding sharp digging tools barefoot would probably not end well for someone like me...

Detail from the chorten

Strips of bamboo lashings drying at a construction site

While peeking at the shops and street vendors, I found a place that sold locally made Khukuri knives. Although the woman who owned the store tried to talk me into the less expensive, more elaborately decorated ones made in China, I was drawn to these 11" long simple blades hammered out of an old automobile spring. It came complete with a wooden sheath similar to those worn by our guides, and though it wasn't used, it was as genuine as I could get. I couldn't help but balk at the 120 rupees she was asking for it. It sounded so extravagant - but I couldn't stop thinking about it. I walked away thinking I'd still be able to get a better deal elsewhere. Such an American, right?

The group decided to meet for dinner, tumba and one last 'championship' round of Farkle. Although we'd been promised at the start of our trip that dinner and hotel were included on the last day, we couldn't find Raj to get an answer out of him, so we just went ahead and met with Anne-Gael, Gael, Alok and the Germans at the Dragon Inn - the very small home-stay style hotel owned by Anne-Gael and Gael's trekking guide.

Here begins the discussion of 2 important things I learned in Yuksom:

Tumba is awesome, even though it sounds terrible.
If you think it's hard going without running water, try living in a town where electricity goes out more often than it remains on.

I'll get to the tumba in a minute, but it was number two that really struck me. As we sat at the inn, we were only aware of the coming-and-going of the electricity once it became dark enough for us to need artificial lights to play our game of Farkle. Even though we'd lived in tents for 11 days, we were so 'hardwired' (as it were) to expect electricity that we had a lot of difficulty dealing without it. Candles blow out whenever there's a strong wind (like, whatever!) and gas lamps are blinding single-point light sources that are very difficult to read by.

Yet, we were being hosted by this very gracious and sweet family who operated completely as if this electrical fluctuation was not inconvenient or annoying - it was expected! They were willing to make us tumba, cook us dinner and listen to our Western dice obsession and they didn't even have power! (Now I understand the nationwide habit of cooking on wood or propane).

That's the beauty of Indian hospitality right there!

So, on to tumba...

We were served our tumba, and our eyes got big

Eventually we moved the party inside to the kitchen, where we could enjoy our dice game by candlelight.

Flash!

ah, the lights came back on...

Those massive bamboo cups before you in each photo are the traditional vessel for making/serving tumba. As I mentioned in my post from Gangtok it is the traditional beer of Sikkim (also called chang). Even so, it was only available in a few of the bars andrestaurants in town. Other Westerners we'd talked to described it as 'nasty' or 'bitter', s we were a little hesitant t try it - but the Travel Channel watcher in me just wouldn't be satisfied until I at least gave it a shot.

So, what is Tumba? Well - it starts with the fermented millet that we gave the monks in our puja. In order to reach this particular stage of fermentation, the grain is boiled and then left to sit at room temperature for about a week or two. Then it's scooped into the large hollow bamboo mugs you see here. Hot water is then poured over the millet. You let the water sit for 10 minutes and mix with the fermented millet, then you sip it up through a bamboo straw.

That's it! When you've consumed most of the water, you just pour more on. It's a one-time purchase that keeps giving all night long!

It's not really what I'd call beer - but it's pretty close in terms of the strength of the alcohol. It's warm, which in the Himalaya seems like a good thing. It's easy to transport, as it doesn't become a liquid until you add the hot water. It's inexpensive, particularly if you want to drink a lot of it (since you only buy the beer once). And, it's actually pretty tasty. I'd put it in the 'nutty and sweet' category, though there was a slightly bitter aftertaste (though nothing compared to an IPA). Overall, I am quite glad I tried it and wondering how hard it would be to duplicate on a cold Tucson winter. If there were such a thing.

The tea pot and teacup collection in the Dragon's kitchen

In the meanwhile, I talked about the stupid Khukuri knife until the group told me to shut up and go buy it. Gary would love it, they all assured me, and it really was only like $25 American. A steal, really. It's just, well, it always sounds like so much more when you hear it in rupees!

And, in case you were wondering, Anke won the final round of Farkle - which put her ahead of everyone else by like a dozen games. The woman was a high scoring dice machine. Remind me never to bet against her ;)

Trek Day 9b - 10: We'll Be Coming Down the Mountain When We Come!

2012-06-25T11:46:00.005-07:00

The Prek Chu River in the mist

So now you think you've seen it all...it's just more of the same heading back, right? In some ways, you'd be correct - that pattern of clear blue mornings and misty afternoons, pine forests, hardwood forests and jungle is indeed repeated for the last few days of our trek. However, I was there, and I don't feel like I got to see it all - so I hardly think I could have shown it all to you through the very limited lens of the blog.

On the other hand, it will move much more quickly now. Our hike certainly did! After days of creeping ever upward, slowly acclimating to the elevation and the trek, now we were speeding back down as if we were on a mission.

And for me, it was a mission. After my disappointment at not reaching Goecha La, I was pretty much done with the whole thing (emotionally at least). I just wanted a hot shower, a soft bed and a chair to enjoy my dinner on. While I've certainly felt this way before on longer backpacking trips, I've never actually found myself counting the nights until I was done with it with quite so much relish. I was still enjoying the experience, but I was ready to stop enjoying it and get back to enjoying something else!

We were glad to be headed down the canyon and this group of 40 or so was heading up. They were an Eco-Tourism class from the University of Puget Sound in WA, and it was nice to talk to some Americans. Note to self: find courses to teach which involve taking students to places like this!

A willow tree getting ready to bloom

Enjoying the hike, for sure! - Photo by Sarah

Back at Kokchurong

At this point, the mists were still rolling in and out, giving us brief glimpses of Pandim.

Sarah journals while we wait for our tents to be

erected

Karma was the only pony in our group that was actually trained for riders, so Raj decided to hop on and give it a spin. without the proper bridle and saddle, though, it didn't last long or go far! - photo by Sarah

The Prek Chu

Mists down the canyon

Pandim peeking (or is it peaking) through

By mid-afternoon, the fog was so thick you could barely see 10 feet in front of you. We all retired to long games of Farkle and Rocks.

That evening it rained quite hard, and we were pretty tent bound. After dinner, Raj stopped into the dining tent (for the most part, we couldn't pay the guys to join us in the tent) to talk to us a little about the end of the hike and to encourage us to keep in touch. And he kept talking. And he kept talking. A couple of times, Tashi came in and asked him questions in Nepali, but he always just sort of waved it away. Turns out Tashi and the others were wanting to kick us all out of the dining tent as it turned into their sleeping tent at night. Eventually, we got Raj out and we all turned into our own sleeping tent.

The next morning, we didn't see Raj first thing. He admitted to us a little down the trail that there'd been tumba (a local beer - will post more later) involved in the long conversation the night before. We all had a good laugh at that, as none of us had been brave enough to speak the theory aloud, but all of us had suspected it.

Day's hike (for me without Goecha La): 10km and 400 meters lost (about 6.2mi, 1200feet)

As predicted, the morning was sparkling clear!

Looking down the valley where we'd be hiking in the morning. The night before, Raj had scared us a little with his talk of 'stupid' tourists who don't listen to their guides and fall to their deaths on this portion of the hike. As it turned out, it was nothing at all to be afraid of!

On the trail through the dense forest. This section of trail is too narrow for the dzo and ponies, so they are lead back up the very steep hill we'd descended a few days before. Thank goodness I'm not quite as wide as a dzo!

This 'cave' under a massive boulder is named for a guide who died here from altitude sickness. We're still well above 10,000' here, within the zone where you can encounter life threatening problems at any moment.

Sarah demonstrates how hollow some of the trees are...

It's just after 8am, and already the mists are settling in. Something tells me it's going to be a very long day hiking in these conditions...(you can just see Sarah up ahead of me on the trail)

If the trek from Dzongri to Tanasing was my favorite bit of hiking, than this day (from Kokchurong to Tshoka) was the hardest. The trail itself was relatively easy - gentle up and down for several miles as it contoured in and out of the tributary drainages of the Prek Chu. However, the mists settled in thick and cold very early, and there were many sections of this narrower, more forested track that were still covered in slick ice. What wasn't icy was slick and muddy. Anke, who's knee wasn't the best on downhills, really struggled with the slick descents and Sarah, too, kept an unusually slow pace in order to protect herself from knee pain. With few views, and only occasional points of interest (usually little waterfalls) to keep us entertained it turned into a very long hike which all kind of runs together in my memory.

Sarah begins a climb up one of the icy sections.

Anke crossing some packed snow - as we lost elevation, however, it did get warmer.

A small tributary

Wild violets

One of the many ridges we crossed

Back into the land of the rhododendron.

We stopped for lunch at Phedong, but once again that spot was complete fogged in. The rhododendron forests were creepy in the thick mist, but it added a whole new kind of beauty to the trek. At that point, however, we were back on the pack trail, and the combination of rain and heavy traffic had made the trail a complete morass. We took the steep descent slowly to avoid ending up face down in the muck.

Raj was really dragging all day, and I began to suspect that it was more than just the excess of tumba the previous night...

Sarah in the blooms

Petals falling on the path

Misty mountain majsety

The sacred lake at Tshoka

Ponies grazing at Tshoka

Day's hike: 17km and 1000 meters lost (about10.5 mi, 3200feet)

Our team set up camp in the same spot at Tshoka, though this time it seemed that there were more groups already in the small town. Alok, Gael and Anne-Gael's group was staying in one of the hiker's huts and when we saw the tables and chairs in their room, we elected them to host the rest of the card and dice games.

Placement of the rocks became of vital importance in this game... re positioning them became a game in itself.

It was our last night on trek and our cook went to great lengths to make us a fantastic dinner. The highlight of the meal was a whole head of cauliflower (which by this point had become one of my favorite trail foods), steamed and topped with a spicy Chinese sauce and cheese. YUM! As we were finishing our meal, Chung-Wan came in to speak to us for a while and help us with our 'thank you's' for the crew and tipping. Though it was made clear from the beginning that tipping was expected, we weren't ever able to get a straight answer about how much from Baichung or Raj, and no one else we spoke to seemed to be sure. It was very nice of Chung-Wan to help us out, and after a bit he brought in the whole crew - who came bearing two small cakes the cook had baked just for us with the words 'Happy Trek' written on them in decorative icing. It was such a wonderful treat.

We thanked each of the helpers on the trek, for they had been enormously helpful, generous and cheery the entire trip. Unfortunately, Raj wasn't feeling well and didn't make the final gathering. We ate as much of the cake as we could after such a big meal and retired for our last night on the thin, hard foam pads.

Three candles and the bigger tent...so special!

Add caption

mmm...cauliflower!

The cakes were made without flour - so they were dense but very tasty!

Trek Day 9 - Goal: Goecha La!

2012-06-19T18:19:00.001-07:00

So, for those of you who would rush forward to see the photos of me throwin' a Wendy up at Goecha La, I'm going to tell you right away: I didn't make it. There are no pictures of me up on that high pass with the alpenglow of Kanchenjunga at dawn looming close in the background. No pictures of my smiling mug at Samiti Lake or trooping along the Talung Glacier.

I decided a day or two before that last ascent that I wasn't up to it. I was still coughing a lot, and the group that started out for Goecha La was hiking at like 3:30 am, in the dark, freezing cold mist. While I thought I could probably tough it out and make myself do it, I really just felt like I'd slow the group down and possibly make myself even sicker.

At 3am when Sarah was getting dressed in the dark and I was snuggled in my uber warm sleeping bag, staying behind seemed like a stellar idea. But two and a half hours later, when I was awake and drinking my tea alone in camp it was slightly less stellar. And then, when I hiked a little further up the valley to see the Mani stones at Lamuni and I caught the first glimpses of Kanchenjunga through the clouds it seemed like a pretty bad idea.

The longer I sat there, the more disappointed I became. Here I'd traveled 8,000 miles, hiked through rain, fog, cold and coughing fits to this insignificant camp only 3.5 miles from the highest point you can hike to in the region - and I had given up.

Shit.

5:30am - I figure at this point the rest of the crew was kicking it up at Goecha La

Kanchenjunga peaks through the clouds

The shelter and Mani stones at Lamuni - with the mighty mountain shrouded in cloud

Mani stones have the mantra Om mani padme hum inscribed over and over on their surface - the mantra is worthy of a whole blog entry on it's own... These stones could be hundreds of years old.

The distinctive naturally egg-shaped stone on a cairn near Lamuni, which is a sacred spot - named because it is where the Lamas go to pray.

Now, to give myself credit (or to justify my failure - you pick), I was really quite sick. Still going through several hankies a day and keeping Sarah up at night with my hacking. The mountain air was really NOT helping, and another 1500' of elevation was not going to be a tonic.

But still. This is what those guys got to see (I stole their photos shamelessly)

Kanchenjunga from Goecha La - photo by Sarah

Avalanche on the southern slope of the Kanchenjunga Massif - photo by Sarah

South face of Kanchenjunga - photo by Alok Nagdev

- photo by Alok Nagdev

The holy source of the Prek Chu - Samiti Lake - Photo by Alok Nagdev

Represent! from left to right: Gael, Anne-Gael, Alok, Raj and 2 porters from Gael's group - photo by Sarah

So, it was a mopey Wendy who greeted the hikers as they began to reappear on the hillsides above the valley top. Though they tried to down-play the spectacle of the pass, it was clear that I had missed the real high point of the trip - literally and figuratively. As if to console me, the skies opened up and afforded me some amazing views of my own. Not, perhaps on the caliber of Goecha La, but enough to remind me that I was still on the roof of the world and witness to giants.

Hikers coming down the terminal moraine

As we talked, the clouds began to clear...

Spirits lifted by the view!

We stuck around Lamuni as I soaked in the mountain views. Even though I felt like a whole day had passed already, it was only 7am when the best views were popping up of Kanchenjunga, Pandim and their cohorts. Raj spotted some blue sheep in the distance - the only non-avian wildlife we would see on our trek. From so far away, we thought they looked more like brown deer than blue sheep (our visit to the Darjeeling Zoo later would only confirm this).

Kanchenjunga from Lamuni

Hikers at Lamuni with Pandim towering above

As zoomed as I could do on the blue sheep

Panorama just below Lamuni (4000m). Pandim (6691m) is the peak on the far right, Kanchenjunga (8585m) is center, with Kabru (7338m) just below it to the left. Rathong (6679m) and Koktang (6147m) are peeking out from behind the valley wall to the left. You can see the other hikers on the bottom right.

Sarah and Raj hike along the line of Mani stones

Kanchenjunga - free and clear against the blue sky!

Zooming in on the glaciers of Pandim's slopes. Those ice walls have got to be hundreds of feet high.

Sarah, the great world traveler and the mountain!

Back at camp, it was time for some breakfast and a little relaxation before the second half of the day's trip: hiking back to Kokchurong for that night's camp. It would be mostly down hill along the Prek Chu, on trail that we'd hiked up in two days. Easy peasy!

Gael, Anne-Gael, Alok and Sarah back at camp compare stories from the trip to Goecha La

Raj, Chun-Wan and Deepen relax back at camp

Breakfast under the mountain

Looking back at camp from the trail down the valley. The clouds are returning early...

Sarah hikes back into the rain forest

Trek Day 7-8 - Dzongori to Tanasing and Lamuni

2012-06-18T14:55:00.002-07:00

Morning light on Pandim from camp with the 4 Chortens in the middle ground

As the sun came up on day 7 of our trek, I reflected on what Raj had told us the day would bring: up and down for a while, then a lot of down, then a little up.

He was obviously a master of the 'quick summary' of activities.

I felt ready for just about anything. Though I was still coughing a good bit, I'd almost become used to it. I was rotating between three cloth hankies, washing them out in the afternoons and hoping they'd dry for the most part by the next morning. My stomach issues were gone, and I'd figured out how to sleep on the skinny pads. Now, if only I could get my lungs to adapt to breathing that thin mountain air, I'd be totally set!

The first part of the day we retraced our steps toward the four chortens on the hill, passing them on the right at a low saddle. We followed the rolling hills of Dzongri for about an hour and a half, with spectacular views of Pandim and the Singalila Ridge to keep us entertained.

The dzo climb out of a valley in Dzongri with the Singalila Ridge Behind them. The other side of that ridge is Nepal.

Sarah climbs to a high point with Black Kabur in the back.

Anke and Arne near the pass before the descent into Prek Chu gorge, Pandim in the back

About an hour into the hike, we saw our dzo guy and the animals stopped on the side of the trail near another group which had a number of ponies. A number of the animals were being unloaded. It seems that Tashi's dzo (2 of which had already been swapped out for more docile animals) were acting tired and walking too slow. He was trading them out for two of the ponies from the other group. Evidently ponies move faster and are less hassle than the larger dzo. The reduced carrying capacity generally means that the porter needs to carry more on his back, but since our group was pretty light anyway, it all worked out.

This was one thing that really impressed me about the entire trek. Everyone on the mountain seemed to work together as a team. While down in Gangtok and Yuksom they obviously competed for customer dollars, up here it was more about getting the job done and keeping everyone healthy (including the animals). Pack beasts were frequently traded, as was information about trail and camp conditions, food and even equipment such as tents, cookers and (in our case) cooks. While the foreigners were often completely oblivious of all the ways the locals were helping each other out, it was obvious that nearly all of the competition was left down the mountain. Up here, we were all on the same team.

Photo by Sarah - Ponies being loaded up

The views kept up, too: the Prek Chu valley far below with Pandim's massive eastern face making up the far side. The entire valley had the distinctive U shaped curve of a glacially carved channel, with hanging valleys and glaciers lining the upper reaches. The sun was brilliant all morning, recharging not only my camera batteries, but my internal desert-rat batteries as well. This was turning out to be one of my favorite days on the trail!

While Tashi loaded and unloaded the animals, we continued on to a low hilltop, from where the trail began a steep descent. Even a seasoned Grand Canyon hiker had to be impressed with this particular descent - it was rocky, steep and direct. Before we could blink, we were back in the hardwood rainforests we'd left behind days ago. Between Dzongri and the crossing of the Prek Chu river at Kokchurung was a 500 meter drop (almost 1500'), and though no one could tell me the exact distance, I'd say most of the elevation was lost in about a mile and a half.

The Prek Chu gorge, with Pandim towering over. The bare looking patch in the bottom right of the photo is our destination for the day: Tanasing (or Thansing, depending on who's spelling it).

Not a hill for those with bad knees!

Moss on a low hanging branch, lit by the sun

The curling bark of a rhododendron tree...every part of these plants was beautiful!

Anke near the bottom of the hill, following a small drainage

Crossing the Prek Chu on a small wooden bridge. It seemed woefully under-built when you looked at the size of the boulders this river moves around!

Those of you who are hikers/trekkers will know very well the feeling you get on a very steep downhill during an out-and-back type of hike. That feeling of 'man this is nice, but I'm not going to like climbing back out this monster'. For those of you who don't hike much, you could probably compare the feeling to the one you have as you're eating a delicious, high calorie meal that you know you're going to have to spend extra time on the treadmill working off. Happiness mixed with dread, joy dulled by anticipation, elation tempered by premonition.

Needless to say, when Raj told me we wouldn't be climbing back up that particular stretch of trail I was ecstatic. No - that's too soft a word. I was positively and completely uplifted to a more transcendent plane. Suddenly my every step became lighter and my whole being nearly floated down to the base of the valley. It was the best news I'd had in ages. Our route back to Yuksom would take us along the wall of the valley to Tshoka via Phedang (where we'd be fogged in on our trip up). The pack animals, who weren't able to make the narrow trail above the river, would climb the hill but we would not. Hooray!

Of course, like all good news, it really sounded better in that moment than it would days later when I was walking through a misty shroud on the icy slopes of that detour. But I get ahead of myself...

Anke and Chung-Wan contemplate the mighty Prek Chu

The first mile or so of the trail from Kokchurong to Tanasing was along the riverbed itself, and was very rocky

Clearly this riverbed has drained more than a few glaciers in its time - the huge boulders are well polished by more than just the flow of water.

As the day wore on the mists began to come and go

High tech signage ;)

This was a common scene, but one which I found it difficult to photograph diplomatically. I can't say why I found it so fascinating that the pack animals were carrying food and shelter for the humans, while the humans are carrying food and browse for the pack animals...

The trail eventually climbed up a bit above the riverbed and back into the more sparsely vegetated slopes. We continued to have excellent views up and down the river, and our climb continued to be steady toward the flat expanse of the meadows at Tanasing.

Snow on the northern side of the higher peaks from which we'd just come.

Construction on a new trekker's hut at Tanasing. The older one, which was said to be similar to those found in Dzongri, was destroyed by the earthquake.

Camp at Tanasing, and the mists are closing in - Photo by Sarah

We weren't at Tanasing long when the mists began to close in once again. There was a caretaker's cottage here, and it seemed like perhaps more comfort amenities for the trek crews. Perhaps this is why the boys decided to hold an impromptu game of cricket. Nothing like running, batting and throwing a round rock while you're at 13,000'.

The Americans, Frenchmen and Germans watched from a distance and Alok - who was the only one of us familiar with the game and it's rules - explained to us the way the game is played. Kind of, anyhow. He lost patience with our stupid questions (as he should have) and eventually went out an joined the game. It didn't seem as though there were winners or losers in this particular sporting event - but everyone clearly had a very good time. I got out of breath just watching them!

The game was eventually called in order for the cook to get back to his kitchen to prepare us yet another elaborate dinner. After all, we'd only eaten like 3 times already that day!

Day's hike: 8km and 270 meters lost (about 5mi, 864feet)

Extreme high altitude cricket

Pizza for dinner - with peas, cabbage, tomatoes, cheese and a sauce which was strongly flavored with clove. Not my favorite dish of the trip, but definitely indicative of the skill and creativity of our cook! - Photo by Sarah

The next morning was a more relaxed one than usual. Our hike on day 6 was very short - only a few miles up a gradual incline to Lamuni. The point was to get as close as we could camp to Goeche La in order to make the hike up to the pass as short as possible. Though at some point it was permitted to camp at Samiti Lake, it is now prohibited (I believe in part because the lake is considered sacred, and in part because of the fragile high alpine environment where dzo and ponies can do substantial damage).

It was a delightful little bit of trekking, though low junipers and fragrant shrubs. The stark walls of the valley were beginning to close in on us, and the river was becoming more of a large stream. We met a couple of groups who were hiking down from Goecha La, and their experiences definitely supported our guides claims that we needed to get there at sunrise. Amazing views of Kanchenjunga were to be had, but the mists came in very fast at that altitude.

Morning brings blue skies once again, and views of our gracious host, Pandim. This 6691 meter (21,952') peak is sacred and is off limits to trekkers. It is said that no one has ever been to the peak.

Breakfast at Tanasing with the white shoulder of Kanchenjunga in the background

Sarah captures a picture of the dzo and drivers as they come down from their pasture in the morning.

My version of the same photo. What can I say - we know what we like!

Pandim from the trail

A way maker or cairn along the route

Sarah hikes in the quickly disappearing sunlight

Our goal for today: Lamuni. Tomorrow: Goeche La!

As we neared the base of the mountains, these very large boulders became more an more common. It was unclear if they were erratics, left behind by the retreating glaciers, or if they were simply fallen from the steep slopes above us.

Approaching our camp at Lamuni - which, as it turns out is not really Lamuni but another spot that is has the Nepali name for 'Place out of the wind'. Or something like that.

Our next camp was to be at Lamuni - but according to our guides we actually camped just below the traditional location of Lamuni because the winds up higher are quite punishing. It seemed to me that with the problems we'd been having with the mists that wind might be a good thing - but I was really at their mercy in terms of where I slept. After all, they had my tent.

Our spot was in fact a very nice camp - close to the river and tucked in the shelter of some very impressive rocks. The mists were early, however, so our enjoyment of the outdoor space was quite limited. We were now above 13,500', and it was cold - even when the sun was out. With the mists and the valley walls to shade us, it got down right chilly quick. The soft tourists hid in our tents, but our crews - not to be brought down by a little bad weather - played cricket again.

Arriving at our camp, we all headed straight for the calming call of the water

Despite the cold, Sarah dunked her feet. She said it was quite refreshing. I took her word on it.

Gael demonstrates the scale of one of the rocks across the river. I think the camouflage was unintentional...

Watching the boys play cricket outside the tent window was a bit like watching TV...only colder.

I'd love to talk to a geologist about THIS mammoth rock!

Out ponies didn't seem to mind the mist and the rain...as long as they could find something to munch on they were pretty happy.

No use in keeping a big distance between the tents when you can't see more than a few feet!

Day's hike: 5km and 250meters gained (about 3.4mi, 800feet)