maloner's Triplogs • HikeArizona.COM

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May 24 2012

maloner

Photos 3
Triplogs 5

49 male

Joined Aug 15 2011
Phoenix, AZ

Lava River Cave Tube

Flagstaff, AZ

Lava River Cave Tube

Flagstaff, AZ

Hiking		May 24 2012
		maloner • Triplogs 5

Hiking	1.50 Miles

Hiking	1.50 Miles	2 Hrs	0.75 mph

no routes

no photosets

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no linked trail guides

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no partners

I was told this would be cold.

I wasn't told that the temperature would drop nearly 60 degrees IN 15 FEET. Seriously. On the top, it was mid-80s. Within view of the top, there were ice packs. Really nasty ones, too, in places I wanted to step. Lousy ice.

Being a Phoenix boy, of course I didn't pack a jacket. I borrowed an undersized fleece from a friend and it was cutting off the circulation to my hands. Also, despite the incredible cold, being 6'4, this trail requires a lot of stooping over and crab-walking for me, so I was getting a pretty solid workout. A quarter mile in, the fleece was off. Since I'd been sweating like a foul beast from the deep jungle, I was immediately freezing again, but that passed as we moved on in.

My caving companions all asked me, individually, if I was freaked out by the darkness. I just don't get claustrophobic. It's a good thing, because apparently I was the only reason we made it through, as I realized later. I was moderately terrified of lifting my head up from the 45 degree angle I walked at for most of the trail and giving myself a concussion on the million pounds of solid rock above me, but the closed in cave didn't bug me.

There's a point where you can go left or right. My friend who had done this hike before had always gone left. "Right is supposed to be a little more tricky. Let's go right." OK, we went right.

Don't go right. I mean, do, but really, don't. You get the the same spot either way! It's just, one way, you can walk and hunch over a little, and the other, you need to snake your way through scraggly rocks and a roof that is lovingly caressing the back of your head as you squirm on through. No, actually it was fun, but it's still smarter to go left. (So you should actually go right.)

I'd been getting a decent workout through the entire hike, so I wasn't freezing but my skin was pleasantly cool. So, I was a little confused when I suddenly didn't feel the cold on my skin anymore. Was I going into hypothermia? Was I delusional? Losing my mind? The latter two are almost certainties but that has nothing to do with the cave. It's wildly warmer at the end than it is at the start. Now, if someone can explain this to me, I'd really appreciate it. 15 feet in, the air was below freezing. At the end, it's a good 15 degrees warmer.

At the end, we ran into a few girls hanging out and chatting. Smoking. In a cave. With limited oxygen. And we aren't talking cigarettes. So, basically everyone in the cave that day who made it to the end got a little contact high.

The hike out was less eventful. I had grown to resent my friend's fleece and was tempted to stuff it under a few tons of lava rock, but I didn't see how I could do that discreetly. I let him go first in case the temptation grew too great and I needed to ditch it; that way I could club him with an obsidian slab but that hardly seemed sporting. As we got closer to the surface and the air cleared, my murderous tendencies subsided and we just ended up driving back to Flagstaff for a beer.

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May 08 2012

maloner

Photos 3
Triplogs 5

49 male

Joined Aug 15 2011
Phoenix, AZ

Butcher Jones Trail #463

Phoenix, AZ

Butcher Jones Trail #463

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking		May 08 2012
		maloner • Triplogs 5

Hiking	6.50 Miles	400 AEG

Hiking	6.50 Miles	3 Hrs 30 Mns		1.86 mph
	400 ft AEG		25 LBS Pack

no routes

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So after a small argument with my crazy mother a couple months ago (no this doesn't mean I have mama issues), I formed a random meetup.com group geared at doing random environmental stuff, like Boy Scouts only with some Girl Scouts, a lot more swearing, less pyromania, and none of the silly bigotry. Anyway, for our inaugural hike I dragged the few people who showed up back to the Butcher Jones Trail to see how much trash we could pull out. Fortunately, there was quite a bit of garbage to keep us busy...last time I was up there it was pitch black out, so I had no idea how messy it actually was. We filled up four 13 gallon bags in the first quarter mile, mostly plastic bottles and beer cans (including one FULL beer can...no, I didn't crack it open), but also about half of a destroyed tent and one diaper, thankfully unused, then after we ran out foulness to bag, we went on with the actual hike, leaving the bags behind to pick up on the way out.

There was no more trash until the very end, suspiciously close to a couple of...lovely people* who passed us heading back to the parking lot. After we turned around, the immaculate trail we'd JUST COVERED was now littered with water bottles, candy wrappers, and a half-smoked, still-lit burning cigarette laying in the middle of a desert that was ready to erupt in fire at the first spark. Idiots. We passed them right after the cigarette and I politely let them know not to worry about all the crap they'd accidentally dropped, since we took care of it. Then I imagined giving them a gentle prod in the eye with my trash stick and we moved on. It was actually quite disheartening to me at the time. We got back to our first bag to find that some thoughtful person had places all of their new trash next to our bags, which is better than putting it in the lake I suppose, but HARDLY THE POINT. Argh, people. It was actually pretty depressing between the idiots on the trail and that.

One guy who came with us brought his dogs and one of the crazy mutts ended up swimming probably a good half mile on the trip back. I don't blame him since it was pretty hot out, but I was a little worried we were going to have to fish the poor dog out of the lake before he drowned. Nope, he had it under control.

After we collected our piles of garbage from the trail and threw everything away, some kids in the parking lot stopped me and asked if we were the ones cleaning everything up. When I said we were, I got a high five and a restored sense of faith in humanity. At least not everyone is an idiot!

* NOT the term I used for them at the time

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Aug 13 2011

maloner

Photos 3
Triplogs 5

49 male

Joined Aug 15 2011
Phoenix, AZ

Butcher Jones Trail #463

Phoenix, AZ

Butcher Jones Trail #463

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking		Aug 13 2011
		maloner • Triplogs 5

Hiking	5.50 Miles	400 AEG

Hiking	5.50 Miles	7 Hrs 5 Mns		2.66 mph
	400 ft AEG	5 Hrs 1 Min Break	25 LBS Pack

no routes

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juliachaos

I took a rather eclectic group of friends, few of whom had ever met each other before, out hiking at night on the Butcher Jones Trail by Saguaro Lake, and one of them, juliachaos, told me I needed to make an account here so I could log it. So, here I am.

I decided a couple months ago that I needed to start using my friends to give me excuses to go out into the wilderness to do star trail photos. A fairly good number wanted to go, so I loaded my camera bag with beer (and a camera) and ordered everyone to do the same (camera optional, beer less so). We got some grub in town then hit the trail around 9:00 or so.

The first part of the trail was almost disgusting. So much trash! I expected this from all the other descriptions I've read (I had never actually hiked this trail before leading my dear friends out into the night, a fact I cleverly neglected to mention until we were ready to go), but it was still sad. Also, for clearly being a popular spot, it was fairly overgrown with vegetation...probably because not too many people are going to drive out there for a summer hike when they can just go to the lake itself. They are missing out, because it was a great little trail.

After clearing the trashed area, I can't say too much about the trail itself, because it was too dark to see much. That's the idea, though...since it didn't appear to have been hiked too recently, and in the dark there were spots where it was ever so slightly tricky to find, which lead to a lot of, "Hey, are we on the trail?" with me saying, "Uhh, sure?" We were never lost for more than two seconds.

There was a fair variety of wildlife...we saw a skunk (I'm an Arizona native and I've hiked all my life, and can you believe this was my first skunk sighting? Thankfully we only SAW it and didn't SMELL it), the bravest little ground owl in the world, who barely cared that I'm a million times his size and let me get so close I figured he was hurt (he wasn't), some fine tarantulas, and multiple snakes. I take credit for scaring the first one out into the open because I kicked a cholla into my own ankle fairly hard, which caused some very loud cursing. I didn't realize a common comb could be so handy, but thank you, Miss Chaos! The highlight of the trip was the coral snake...never seen one of those, either. I wish I had my real camera out, but I did manage to get a cameraphone shot of him. (I'm trying to link that, but it's not working...I'll fix that when I know what I'm doing here.)

Not long after that we set up camp. I mean, we sat down and drank. I put the camera on auto, a little worried because there were so many clouds that I didn't think I'd get anything good (in theory, we were there to watch the Perseids, but didn't see any...someone claimed to see one but I think it was the beer). But there was a good light show...lightning far off in the distance, moonlight peeking through the clouds...and just a generally good time chatting with good people, which made up for the iffy lighting. And it turns out that wasn't so bad either.

When we got back to the meeting site in town, I dropped everyone off, made sure they got going safely, and turned on my car...clickclickclickclickclick. Dead battery! At 6:00 am, when I'm about as dead tired as I can possibly be? You've got to be kidding me...fortunately, my sister was still nearby so I called her and she took me home, then I dealt with that the next day.

But that was a minor glitch in an otherwise awesome day. I'm already planning the next one!

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Jul 23 2011

maloner

Photos 3
Triplogs 5

49 male

Joined Aug 15 2011
Phoenix, AZ

Peralta Trail #102

Phoenix, AZ

Peralta Trail #102

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking		Jul 23 2011
		maloner • Triplogs 5

Hiking	5.30 Miles	1,380 AEG

Hiking	5.30 Miles	6 Hrs 30 Mns		2.12 mph
	1,380 ft AEG	4 Hrs Break	30 LBS Pack

no routes

no photosets

Linked

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no linked trail guides

Partners

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no partners

Back in June, I was already getting sick of the summer and a bit restless about the lack of hiking in my life. So, I made a half-hearted attempt to get some friends to go out at night, but they didn't bite. In July, I was able to use my birthday as a reason to bully them into tagging along. This was our first night hike.

I've always wanted to do star trail photos up by Weaver's Needle, so that's where I dragged everyone. We met up for some pizza to charge up and hit the trail about 9:30 pm. It was warm, but not too ridiculous, despite the amount of complaining from the peanut gallery. I should mention that there were only two seasoned hikers on this trip -- most everyone was a rookie. I can do without the whining, but I was impressed at who decided to show up.

I'd been hoping for some good coyote action, but it turned out to be Night of the Tarantula. I think we must have seen 15, at least. I've never seen so many! It was awesome. There were nearly as many scorpions, too, which was fun because my sister (one of the unseasoned hikers) was deathly afraid of them at the start of the hike, and by the end she just didn't care.

Halfway up the trail, I let it slip that I'd never done a night hike like this one before. Oops. The peanut gallery turned on me like a pack of rabid hyenas. The whining escalated, and I told them they would need to keep going because I had the keys. Ha!

We got up to Fremont Saddle without incident. There was some lightning about 30 miles off in the distance, and people kept grumbling about our imminent death, but at this point I think they were just whining to bug me (one of them confirmed this after the fact).

Being our first night hike, we didn't bring chairs, so we just sat on the ground to drink beer with the tarantulas. It wasn't bad, but I made a note to get a chair for next time. I set up my camera, but got exactly zero usable shots because there was no moon and it was mostly overcast. Lame! Oh well...I guess we'll have to go back.

On the way down, my buddy sprained his ankle almost immediately. That's the tricky thing with night hiking (as we found) -- not much in the way of shadows to gauge depth or distance when you have a headlamp. Well, sucked for him but he didn't have a lot of choice but to keep going down, right?

I had secretly been surprised by the lack of snakes, but on the way down, we found one. Big ol' rattler coiled up right in the middle of the trail. I was on snake patrol and came around a corner not three feet away from him...oops. Fortunately, he didn't spook, just stuck his tongue out to wave hello. He clearly wasn't moving, so we bushwhacked around him and all was well. It was fun listening to the newbies make up theories about snake behavior. "Well, snakes eat tarantulas, so if there are tarantulas, then that means the area probably doesn't have snakes." "Well, you have to figure if there's a snake in the area, then there aren't any others nearby because they each have their own turf to hunt in. So we saw that one, so we should be safe now." Yeah, right! As it turned out, that was our only snake encounter, so I let them keep their little fantasies.

We got back to the car about 4:00 am. I signed us out on the trail ledger thing and noticed that some other group had actually started up AFTER us. We didn't see them, though, so they must have headed off around the other side of Weaver's Needle.

It's funny, because I nearly aborted the trip based on the overcast weather and the fact I wouldn't get any photos. And I didn't -- but that would have been a huge mistake.

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Sep 19 2009

maloner

Photos 3
Triplogs 5

49 male

Joined Aug 15 2011
Phoenix, AZ

Hop Valley and Kolob Arch Trail

Southwest, UT

Hop Valley and Kolob Arch Trail

Southwest, UT

Hiking		Sep 19 2009
		maloner • Triplogs 5

Hiking	14.70 Miles	1,000 AEG

Hiking	14.70 Miles
	1,000 ft AEG		15 LBS Pack

no routes

Linked

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no linked trail guides

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I'm going to backlog a few of my favorite old trips...not everything, just the ones that struck a chord with me.

A couple years ago I went up to Zion with some friends. I had been there before, but I was nine, so I barely remember it. This time, we couldn't camp in the park, so we found a dustbowl nearby along the creek that cuts through the actual canyon. It was great...after the wind died down.

We didn't hike in the main area. Instead, we did the cool hike on the northwest side of the park (which is not even linked up to the main area by roads, so barely anyone goes there) to Kolob Arch, which is said to be the largest natural arch in the world. The arch is so high up and you have a bad angle on it, so this award is somewhat wasted, but the hike was still great.

The hike in wasn't too memorable -- beautiful, certainly. We started around 10:00 am and it was pleasantly cool, but never cold, on the hike in. There was an old naked man cavorting in the creek, alone, and that was moderately disturbing. He was not scared off by the band of hikers and one photographer, and the photographer wasn't inclined to record the event, so you'll just have to take my word for it. I will say that he had a great campsite.

The arch is about 7.4 miles in. Honestly, the arch is not the high point of this hike. It was neat, but it's soooo far up the side of the cliff that you just can't get a good view of it. You can barely see under it, in fact. And i was so beat at that point (it was getting hot) that I didn't even try much for a good shot -- because there wasn't a good shot, at least not with my lenses.

The hike out, frankly, sucked.

It got very hot, and while the trail wasn't steep, it was kind of long, and it was uphill the whole way. By the end, I was feeling pretty rough. My buddy Lon, who currently volunteers for the forest service to do search and rescue, and is in far better shape than me, was also in pretty bad shape. I'm not kidding -- I felt TERRIBLE on the way out. I have been hiking my whole life, and I rarely have this kind of trouble. The sun just sapped everything out of me. Of course, going in was easy, and I didn't drink much water. Coming out was a drain, and I drank it all...but I should have had it earlier. DRINK YOUR WATER, people. You don't have to be thirsty...just drink it. Lon and I were stumbling by the end.

And our friend Scott, who I kind of wanted to murder, was traipsing about the wilderness as if it was a lovely spring day. You're lucky I was so exhausted, Scott.

All in all, a great hike, but one to do when it's a little cooler, or to do as a backpacking trip (to camp where the naked man was -- campsite 7, if I recall; hopefully, he won't be there). But it's not the actual Zion experience, which is most certainly the main canyon. And for that, I will need to return.

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WARNING! Hiking and outdoor related sports can be dangerous. Be responsible and prepare for the trip. Study the area you are entering and plan accordingly. Dress for the current and unexpected weather changes. Take plenty of water. Never go alone. Make an itinerary with your plan(s), route(s), destination(s) and expected return time. Give your itinerary to trusted family and/or friends.

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