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Secret Canyon-FR152-Chuckwagon, AZ
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| Hiking | 5.15 Miles |
523 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.15 Miles | 2 Hrs 56 Mns | | 2.13 mph |
| 523 ft AEG | 31 Mns Break | 78 LBS Pack | | |
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| Partners |
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none
[ show ]
| no partners | | Hike/Backpack with Daniel Smith from the campsite on the Secret Canyon Trail back to the Long Canyon Trailhead. We reversed our route in of the day before.
For this trip to Secret Canyon, as an experiment and with encouragement from Daniel, I took my rifle with me. Hiking in and hiking out, I began to feel like carrying a rifle was being perceived by others we encountered as an unnecessary show of force. As we were hiking out, about a mile and a half up from the trailhead, I told Daniel that I wasn't going to bring my rifle again for the reason given above. We both calculated that the net present value of carrying my 1980's vintage Colt AR-15 HBAR Sporter was negative given the likelihood of upsetting garden variety hikers and the unlikelihood of meeting a bear.
Weirdly then, about five minutes later, Daniel said, "I heard something! ... Did you see that?!?"
I wasn't sure what was going on, but Daniel was insistent that trouble was brewing.
"That's a bear! I saw a bear!"
I was incredulous at this turn of events and thought maybe some wise pumpkin was playing at "scare the hikers," but when Daniel turned and I saw that he had drawn his Springfield, I knew he was serious.
"I saw a bear run into the creosote. Do you hear that grunting? It's galloping that way!"
I heard something moving through the thick creosote and concluded it couldn't be some idiot messing around. I chambered a .223 round and assumed point.
Then I started shouting things like, "Stop messing around! Don't be stupid! We're armed and my buddy is certain you're a bear! Come out and stop messing around! This is a stupid game to play!"
We cautiously moved forward when the noise stopped and passed without further incident. We were just up the trail from (34.946350, -111.816000) when this went down.
Daniel is sure he saw a bear and from what I heard and saw, I believe him.
I guess I'll continue to take my rifle up there after all.
That was the exciting part of the trip back. However, things really got tedious after we got on FR152 and the effort of carrying around our unreasonably heavy packs (but for winter hiking, we won't be able to lighten our load by much more than 10 pounds) caught up with us. Even though I'd lightened my pack by about 12 pounds by using up some of the water I'd brought, my pack was still on the heavy side (probably the heaviest we'd brought up to Secret Canyon). The last mile and a half (basically from FR9917 to the Long Canyon Trailhead) was painful for both of us. However, I did snap a few photos along this leg. See the photoset for the Chuckwagon Trail of December 2, 2012.
Before we do this again (and we'll have to if we want to do Secret Canyon since we can't drive to the trailhead anymore [at least given present transportation assets]), we'll have to do some extra conditioning. |
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Decisionmaking and action should only be informed by, not subject to, healthy, reasonable concern.
That being said, anything worth doing is worth doing to excess. |
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