Into the Wilderness…
Alrighty, so for some strange reason I have an attraction to the outdoors. I’m not sure why exactly either. I’m not that physically fit, I hate bugs, and tbh I’ve never quite accepted nature on its own terms. I’m more a technologist than a naturist. Make a computer or machine work and I’m your man. Ask me to grow a pot of flowers and we’ll both be lucky if it doesn’t somehow catch fire and explode within a week.
But anyhow, I do have such a calling though and am keen to get out into the great outdoors. I do enjoy taking in a bit of exercise, and as I grew up in mountainous Colorado I have a fairly sure footing on rocky slopes. Indeed, it’s almost second nature to me to leap from stone to stone, never slipping or losing balance. This is in stark contrast to my regular life, where I commonly walk into walls, desks, chairs, and other people (when I’m not falling over simply by standing still). So, with this lust for challenge and the ease in which my natural abilities makes this endevour possible, I try to take myself camping whenever possible.
To this end I’m currently stomping around the rocky area of Flagstaff, Az. A lovely dead volcano mountain chain with lots of foresty woodland and an overpriced ski town surrounding them. The trip is a three hour drive (each way), but getting out of Phoenix is well worth the effort. Here it is a good 105+ weather, even in September. Up there they have temperatures ranging from 70 to 25 degrees. All F, obviously. if it was 105C here then I would be dead. Indeed, all of us would have boiled away in a very painful fiery hell.
Aaaaanyhow, the goal for this was to do a bit more hiking than my previous excursions, and also to test out some new kit I’ve been putting together. I’m trying to strip things down to the most lightweight available within my budget (a couple hundred dollars) so that my bag can be small, portable, and let me escape far from the reaches of other people/zombies/gun wielding anarchists should I need to. To this end I’ve gotten myself a brand new frame backpack, a 2.5lb sleeping bag, sleeping mat (obviously), 3 litre water bladder with tube, and a small homemade survival kit.
Also this time round I decided to take a tyvek emergency survival blanket with me. I’ve been dying to try out some of these survival blankets to see if they actually work at all. rediculously paper thin but claiming “reflects 80% of your body heat!” So having some time up there and some cold weather, I thought I’d give one a go just to see how well they stood up
Anyhow, I have to say this thing worked stunningly well. At first I was very toastingly warm inside of it. The only downside at the start was the noise. The material is not the quietest out there and as I rolled around my ex-wife (whom I bring to excursions like this - as a friend. I find it much more pleasant to be on good terms than to hate one another) complained about how loud it was. As such, I undid the velcro down a side to leave it half open. Unfortunately, this turned out to be something of a mistake.
It was about 1 a.m. when the temperatures started dipping way down. It was also at this time that I realised that I’d rolled over whilst asleep and now the open portion of the bag had slipped down beneath me. I had a sleeping mat on the ground but even with that the cold was slipping up into the bag and freezing various parts of me. Constant adjustments were insufficient and being pitch black and rather enclosed near my sleeping ex-wife I couldn’t see well enough to fix the bag and seal it up. A fleece blanket helped somewhat but only really bought me another hour or so of sleep. So by 3:30 I was in my full sleeping bag and a bit warmer. Of course this was a benefit as well as I needed to test out this new bag too (it is rated at 15F and I’d say it could handle down to there though probably no further).
Anyhow, morning arrived and after some cleaning up we set off for the first leg of the day’s adventure. After driving the night and arriving around 10 we’d pitched our tent only a couple miles from an underground lava tube which is now open at one end. The cave runs 50 or so feet under the ground for about a mile. Some of the cavern is 20 feet high, other parts are low enough you almost need to crawl. So, leaving our bags in the car we donned some flashlights and lept in 
It was fairly interesting. Pictures were a bit too hard what with my iphone having no flash on it or any of that. The cave maintains a 35 degree temperature year round, the rocks glistened with cold droplets of water. The ground of the cave though was mostly dry, even with it raining on the outside above.
Once we were done exploring the cave, we turned our attentions on to the next part of the day’s adventure: geocaching. Now this is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, but have never owned a GPS. This trip though I decided to pick one up, if only to ensure that if we went backpacking for a night (sadly we didn’t) I wouldn’t get terribly terribly lost in the wilderness. It’s probably irrational but I have no desire at all to end up dead, my bones being eaten by packs of coyotes, them saying “Gad, British food really is horrible!”
Anyhow, this time round I picked myself up a cheap GPS, one made for hiking and good enough to do some actual geocaching. And I have to say it is very exciting to do this. It’s like a treasure hunt, constantly seeking out new goodies and boxes. While the GPS can get you within 10-20 feet, you still have to work out how to navigate the terrain yourself. I found that combining the GPS with a compass I had also helped immensely as GPS units can’t update your heading if you’re not moving. (well, the 3-400 dollar ones have built-in compasses, but I couldn’t bring myself yet to pay that much for one of these devices.)
The first of the geocaches was right outside the cave, about 50 feet away. Bolstered by the confidence of its quick discovery, we then set out on a couple mile hike to the next one. As the journey wouldn’t be that far (and indeed, partially on a frontage road), I quickly loaded one of the bags with food, water, jackets, and a survival kit. That prepared, I then proceeded to have my gnomish ex-wife carry the bag the entire way there and back again while I held the GPS and hat.
The second geocache was slightly more intense than the first. After an hour’s trek we came across the rock outcroppings where it was supposed to be. After 10 minutes of searching we were startled by the sound of coyotes, *very* close by, yelping and barking to one another. Not wanting an encounter with a pack of sharp-toothed wildlife, we put extra emphasis on finding the box quickly. Another 5 minutes of hastened searching finally led to me discovering it tucked away up a small gnoll, well disguised under some rocks and ground detritus.
The hike back was mostly uneventful. Rain and hail came down lightly, was waved at by an entire boy scout troop as they passed by, chased away some cows that were looking at me funny. My ex-wife elected to take a nap at that point, and I took the car out to scout out some places for next time I come up here. The first was Mt Kendrick, which can be seen in that picture above of us walking along the road. It has several beautiful trails leading over the mountain, and I would very much enjoy taking a pack up it for the night.
The second, more interesting but much colder, place I checked was the San Francisco peaks in the Kachina wilderness. The trailheads for this dead volcanic mountain start at the ski resort of Snow bowl, so taking the car up there we drove almost quite literally into the sky. The clouds hung extremely low to the mountain and rain started bucketing down on us as we drove. Eventually the rain turned into hail, and after some more elevation gains the clouds started to scatter and sunlight started beaming in on the very cold and wet forested mountainside.
Having a geocache within a half mile of the trailhead, we decided to make one last hiking excursion before evening set in. The air was notably thinner than down below, which I found very enjoyable. Having grown up in the mountains this all felt like home to me, and brought about great waves of nostalgia and emotion. Or my brain could have been going made from being deprived of oxygen, I’m not sure. Either way though, between the cold temperatures, low air density, and mountainous terrain I was quite quite happy.
The last geocache was a decent challenge. Tucked away a good 40 feet above the trail and through some dense foliage and rocks, it was well hard (but fun) to find. That said, between the rain pouring down all around and the fact my ex-wife wanted to leave early Sunday anyway, I decided it’d be pointless to set the tent up and sleep on the hard ground again that night. As such we packed it in, and with one final shot of the sunset, headed home.
