| | -
-
-
-
-
-
| 1 label |  |
|
|
-
-
-
-
-
| 1 label |  |
|
|
-
| 1 label |  |
|
1 |
|
| | |
|
| Hiking | 9.47 Miles |
3,540 AEG |
| | Hiking | 9.47 Miles | 7 Hrs 38 Mns | | 1.85 mph |
| 3,540 ft AEG | 2 Hrs 31 Mns Break | | | |
|
|
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | The question of the day: Could someone who hasn't done a 10-mile hike in two months, who has an average AEG of only 665 feet for 58 hikes this year, who hasn't acclimated himself to high ground above 4,000', could this someone get to the summit of a 9,453' peak along a continuously steep and rocky trail on a warm day? The answer is . . . a qualified yes.
At one point as we started out, my hiking partner, MJ, said, "Can you tell me again why we're doing this?" There was no rational answer. Part of it was sentimental, I suppose. We'd gone up Wrightson with little trouble 28 years ago, in July no less. It was one of our first hikes together in Arizona. And then there was the macho thing. That and over-estimating my conditioning. Zipping up Shaw Butte four days before had done that. This was different, and deep down I knew it. I talked myself out of doing Wrightson on Easter Sunday, saying I needed another day's rest.
We started out late on Monday. Very few cars parked at the TH. It was already 1030 when we passed the birders and their super-zoom camera lenses and turned off to Josephine Saddle, about two miles away. The trail was steep, all right, but my eye told me the rise was not much different than other trails I'd done recently around Phoenix. Confidence grew. We made the Saddle in an hour and a half. About half way to the summit and more or less on schedule, if you consider a 6-hour round trip average. The thing is, if anything the trail gets steeper the rest of the way. At Josephine, we ran into a dozen others, all coming down from somewhere. I had no idea how far up the trail most of them had gone before turning back. A young couple said they had reached Josephine Saddle and that was enough. We took a break there, ate some trail mix and pushed on toward Bellows Spring, about a mile and a quarter away.
It was along this stretch to the Spring that I began to feel the agony. My legs began to wobble a bit and my breathing was labored. We passed a middle-aged man at a switchback. He was sitting on a boulder taking in the grand vista to the north. He had gone up as far as Bellows Spring and was now descending. From that point where he sat, you can see all the way to Tucson and the Catalinas 40 miles distant. But the foreground was not pretty. You walk through an old wildfire area and blackened trees pop up everywhere, victims I believe of the 2005 Florida Fire. The sun peeped in and out of clouds and the air would suddenly go from warm to cool, particularly when the breeze picked up. It got so cool once that I began thinking about those Boy Scouts that were killed in a snowstorm many years ago near Josephine Saddle.
I thought a stop at Bellows Spring would revive me. There is some shade there and some flat rock to lay on. Cool spring water came out of a pipe in a half-inch stream. The sound of it, if nothing else, refreshed me somewhat. We ate parts of our store-bought sandwiches, drank from our water supply and moved out.
The next part of the trail, the 32 switchbacks up to Old Baldy Saddle was a killer for me. Steeeep. And the elevation was increasing to about 8000 feet. I sat down to catch my breath almost at every turn. To cover that 3/4 of a mile and 500 feet elevation took me 1 hour, 35 minutes. About half way up the switchbacks, a slender dark-skinned man with gray hair and beard passed on the way down. He looked like he could hike to the moon and back. We nodded but didn't speak. It was the last human we'd see for the next three hours. No one is up here now but MJ and me, I thought.
MJ had been waiting about a half-hour when I hit Old Baldy Saddle. The first words out of my mouth: "What do you think?" She knew immediately what I meant. Should we give up or go on? We had only 9/10 of a mile more to reach the summit, not to mention another 700 feet el. But it was almost 1530 and we didn't want to get caught up high in the dark. No telling how long it would take me to crawl to the summit. We lingered awhile in the Saddle. Grand views spread out to the southeast and northwest, and a light wind blew through some pines making a soulful sound. Then we headed down.
My GPS showed we had traveled 4.85 miles to this point and stood at 8,717' elevation. What had taken 4:45 to come up took only two and a half hours to come down to the TH and the sanctuary of our car. A nice supper at the Arizona Family Restaurant in Green Valley was exactly what the doctor ordered. Ah, survival. We motored back home to Phoenix, no problem.
So, the answer is this: Someone like me could have made it to the summit that day even with all the liabilities. Just as a snail could, given the time. If only we had started out a few hours earlier. If only . . . . Next time maybe. |
|
Wildflowers Observation Light
|
|
  |
Bellows Spring |
Gallon per minute |
Gallon per minute |
| | | Don't know whether a gallon or gallons. But a steady half-inch stream of clear, cool water came out the pipe the entire time we were there. It overflowed the tank, ran onto the trail and then downhill. | | _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
