Tuesday & Wednesday, May 26 & 27, 2008

Once packed we headed north to Phoenix, enjoyed a lunch with a nephew I hadn’t seen since ’89 and one that neither Mark nor Michael had ever met.  He’s a nice man, and Michael easily related to him.  Shame that he isn’t closer.

From Phoenix we stopped into Cabela’s to pick up some cold-weather gear for Mark.  Thankfully we found a $50 jacket reduced to $12 for him since he needed it at our next stop, Bonita Campground in Coconino National Forest.  Last night was COLD, and oh so windy. We’re talking near freezing cold!   At one point the wind was so strong that the tent and suitcases were lifted off the ground, stakes went flying and we had to set the tent upright from the inside since we had all been fast asleep.  Mark was sent to retrieve Michael from his bivvy tent while I laid close to the windward side and held the tent in place, from the inside, while I laid in my warm bag.  Mark and Michael exchanged many nasty words while they worked to reset stakes so this morning we will not travel anywhere until they are right with each other again.  Not a pretty scene at all last night but the sun is shining this morning, the wind is absent, and the hummingbirds are flying by.

Prior to the wind and the tent being ripped out of the ground Michael asked me to join him outside to view night objects.  The lack of a nearby city and since we were at 7000’ made the night sky crisp and filled with stars.  He pointed out objects and I used his strong bionicles to try and find the objects he pointed to.  Michael’s excitement for finding these objects was really fun to be around and I just enjoyed the moment as he enjoyed finding one distant object after another, ones impossible to find in our light-polluted eastern sky.

Several National Monuments sit around Bonita; Sunset Crater, Wupatki (an Indian Ruin), and Walnut Canyon (Cliff dwellings) and we visited each one.  On the suggestion of a friend we traveled east about 50 miles to Meteor Crater, a big hole in the ground, run by a private company.  While it was nice to see it was expensive to enter, $30, and their museum signage had grammar errors galore.  Rather fun to watch the boys pick out the errors as they read the information.   It’s a place we could have easily missed.

Once back in camp we decided to hike to the fire tower on a nearby mountain peak.  When we paid our camp host for our two nights we asked our usual question; what would you suggest to do in the area?  In the course of our conversation he mentioned the five-mile hike to the mountaintop on a logging lane that isn’t used by truckers anymore.  The view from the top was going to be magnificent.  Although it was already 3:30, and really too late in the day to start on such on a long hike, we gathered up water, a few snacks, some warm jackets and headed up the mountain.  We also agreed that if we hadn’t reached the top by 6pm we would turn back.  We hiked, up and up and up, stopping for water, stopping to force Mark to eat a few granola bars when he took on his grumpy-attitude which he does when he is really, really hungry and even so hungry that he doesn’t realize he is hungry.  He improved and we walked always looking up at the blue sky and seeing the tower come closer and closer.

At 5:30 with about a guess of 500 vertical feet left and probable a mile more, I called us to turn back.  The sun was actually getting way too low in the sky for me, the temperature was dropping quickly and the wind was kicking up.  The way down, while we didn’t have to fight gravity, was difficult.  The wind was strong, 30-40mph, the temperature kept dropping and I had not had a snack since lunch.  My reserves were totally depleted and while munching on some raisins and nuts helped a bit we were all so very thankful to get into the camp by 7pm as we watched the sun set and darkness fall.  If we had proceeded to the top we figure at least an hour of hiking would have been in the dark, with a flashlight to guide us.  Eight miles was a good afternoon hike, don’t you think?