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| Canyoneering | 11.00 Miles |
200 AEG |
| | Canyoneering | 11.00 Miles | | | |
| 200 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | I had no plan to return until I could finagle a Fall trip here, but Steve got up to asking what we were doing for Memorial Day weekend. I don't ever think that far ahead but for giggles I perused the Aravaipa permit site. I was much surprised when there were permits available so I just gobbled up the 6 for the 2 days possible even though I wasn't sure who 5 and 6 would be.
Steve's my other adventure partner so we devised a plan to leave a day early in the morning so we could drop the girls off at a truck camp on Turkey and then we could go do some explore photography all that live long day.
Golden ticket 6 looked like a wash and then #5, my brother-in-law and Steve's brother, bailed on the trip last minute because "school is more important." 24hrs before leave time, Noel found a friend couple that wanted in which made me nervous because her last two invitees had showed up 1.5hrs late to their own house for their 1st trip pick-up time and then didn't do well on their 2nd try trip either. The new two seemed good-people and the 6 seat squeeze in Steve's truck wasn't too cramped.
His truck is a pretty 2wd street Ford with a lot of wheel. As soon as we hit dirt, he had me drive the rest of the time. I ended up turning off that fancy anti-slip crap. It felt weird when it would engage at 60mph to try to keep you straight. I kept the pinstriping down to a minimum. It felt weird breaking in someone else's metal lady but he was cool with it so.
We nabbed a great drive-up-camp down Turkey and set up before departing for fences unknown. New Eddie came with and enjoyed himself as well. The girls read and napped until our return almost 5hrs later.
The next day I drove us back to the trailhead and we headed downstream. We passed one 3 person family's camp on the way and ended up camping at the same spot Noel and I did last year at the last camp SE of Deer Canyon. We set up camp and then we headed into the Deer slot. We made it to the spring and drank and hung out for a bit then returned to camp.
The next morning, we headed down to Paisano to swim at the waterfall. Just around the corned of camp, I saw black movement, motioned to the group and ran off after it. I don't know if I thought it was Javalinas, it was just my fight response, or if maybe I wanted to turn the tables from last experience but there I was running at a bear. I did stop at some point and Eddie caught up to catch how big she? was. She was a thick pumpkin for sure. Biggest I'd seen in AZ at least. The girls were able to make out pieces of her as she slowly trod up and out of sight on the south slope.
Later, I came across a large group of people (8?) headed our opposite and I let the guide know that "there was a large bear up ahead." I assume he was a guide because he acted totally nonplussed and even interrupted louder that "that's probably where" [he] got bit by a Mojave 2 days ago."
"Ah. So no poison?"
"Oh no, they're real poisonous!"
"Right but he didn't use any on you?"
"Oh well, he struck at me."
"Wow, he missed then?"
"Well only because I blocked his strike with my hiking pole."
Rrrriighhht. So 10 on a pumpkin-full scale then? Gotcha.
We moved on, hit Paisano, swam and jumped around. We made it back to camp around 1pm, packed up, and headed out. We found by tracks that the bear had hiked out for a while too. Even looked like there had been a couple deer drinking that got skittered by something that morning too.
We got back to pavement, hit Apache Burger, then headed home. Good times.
*There are at least 2 good band names in this report. |
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May he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm;
May he bring you home rejoicing : at the wonders he has shown you;
Armchair Crisis Design |
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