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| Hiking | 10.20 Miles |
1,010 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.20 Miles | | | |
| 1,010 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | So the Wife tells me her sister is visiting and wants to go camping with us. Hmmm, how many ways can that go wrong? So I let them pick the place – Red Creek, one of our favorites.
Loaded up and headed out on Friday. It’s a long bumpy drive out, but luckily we couldn’t fit 3 people plus the luxury camping items in one vehicle, so I got the Jeep all to myself. Found our favorite site empty. Actually, we wouldn’t see another human all weekend.
Camp went up quicker and less painfully than I had imagined. Gathered enough firewood for the entire weekend thanks to some nearby dead trees and my newly acquired chainsaw. Was way too warm for March, but a cloud brought a sprinkle of rain and a much appreciated ten degree drop in temperature late in the afternoon. A pair of ravens nests nearby and kept us entertained with their squawkings and spy flights over our camp. Luckily they never found anything loose enough to steal from us.
Steaks, sweet potatoes, and veggies, all done over the fire, topped off with peach cobbler out of the Dutch oven made for a good dinner. One of the dead trees turned firewood was a mesquite and so the coals were perfect. The sister-in-law really liked the sweet potatoes, but who doesn’t like warm cinnamon smelling things? And anything made in a Dutch oven is twice as nice.
The girls’ dorm was cots in our tent on the FAR east side of camp while my modest (and much quieter) lodgings were up creek to the west. I slept well.
Woke a bit late to confusion in camp. They were on their third attempt at cowboy coffee in two different pots. The fire was going nicely though. Got the coffee situation straightened out. Took the 5 layers of tin foil off the quiche she had prepared at home so at least it had a chance of warming up over the fire. And soon we had a good breakfast. Secured camp and headed east along the Red Creek trail to the Verde.
On our last camp on the Red, a large cottonwood had crashed down near our camp in the middle of the night. With the Fall and Winter floods the remains of the tree were 500 feet downstream and wedged pretty well spanning the creek. Very impressive display of the power of water.
The girls chatted a lot along the hike but enjoyed beauty of the place. We made a side trip to the Red Creek airport, but yet again there were no flights in or out scheduled for the day. Worked down to the Verde for lunch. The picnic table that was once there is gone, a victim of the high water this year. So we sat in the sand along the Verde’s edge eating a light lunch and admiring a wild river in a wild land.
The desert is very green right now and flowers were in bloom everywhere. The Red was really strutting its stuff. Luckily, we all brought along hay fever medications for the abundance of pollen. Even beauty has its drawbacks.
Back in camp we munched and relaxed. The sister-in-law dug out a pool in the creek and got wet. I played with toys I’d brought and set an upside down fire lay for later in the evening. I’d pieced together a gravity water filter from a Sawyer Mini and some various parts lying around the shop. Worked far better than expected, filtering 2 liters in 3 minutes and 40 seconds. Of course the Red is spring fed and almost totally silt free. But the little rig kept us in plenty of water. The shower we’d rigged up the hill from camp was a hit since the afternoon was warm.
Dinner was a dehydrated meal brought back to life. Mary Jo has become pretty proficient at making these since neither of us are fans of many of the commercial meals, but we also like the simplicity of a quick hearty meal after a long day of hiking. The chicken alfredo totally worked.
Later, I used a piece of flint and the side of a file I’d smoothed down to throw a spark into some char cloth. The ember in the char cloth then lit a fluffed up nest of cottonwood bark which set the upside down fire to blazing. Two hours later we still had a nice fire and hadn’t had to attend to it once. The clear sky meant the evening cooled rapidly once the sun set and thus we appreciated the fire. Video below of the process.
https://www.youtube.co...
The campfire conversation was scintillating. Blonde #1, “While I was on the crapper (we bring a fold up to put over a deeply dug hole), a bee landed on my boot.” Blonde #2, “Was it the same bee that was buzzing around me up there earlier?” You just can’t buy that kind of entertainment on iTunes.
The second night passed peacefully and the coffee making was far less a taxing chore the next morning. The sister-in-law was getting pretty good at coaxing the embers of the night’s fire back to life for some morning warmth. After breakfast we did a short hike upstream. Let’s say it was prettier and far more eventful than the previous day’s hike downstream. Separate triplog coming on that one, as I think this hike deserves a designation all its own.
We broke camp on return and did the long slow drive back home, all wishing we’d had just one more day on the Red. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
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Middle Red Creek |
Medium flow |
Medium flow |
| | | 50 gallons a minute or more in most places. Clear. | | _____________________
All you have is your fire...
And the place you need to reach |
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