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| Hiking | 2.20 Miles |
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| | Hiking | 2.20 Miles | 4 Hrs | | 0.55 mph |
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| no partners | | I get in the car on Saturday morning and it just heads to Perry Mesa. OK with me because I had an idea to check out some of the rimrock on the SE edge of the mesa, between a couple of the major ruins. Further there was one petroglyph I've seen pictures of (a red shaman) that I really wanted to find - and I had a pretty good idea where it was.
Turned out to be a great area...rock art all the way. I found the red shaman too...about 2 miles from where I expected but I'll settle for lucky. Looping back I found a "kitchen" area, about 20 bedrock metates in a cluster. Sort of cool since I hadn't seen anything like that near these ruins.
Now you may think that petroglyph cruising is a sedate activity for the "older hiker". But this excursion was not without drama. As I walked the rough terrain at the bottom of the cliffband, at one point I heard and saw many bees rushing in and out of a cavity about halfway up the ~50' tall cliff. I made a mental note: keep away from those guys. About a half an hour later I saw a similar nest - it was just boiling with bees. I photographed some glyphs well below the bees but as I continued along a bee flew in my mouth and stung my inner lip. At that point several things happened simultaneously: I heard loud buzzing, I started swinging my hat, I started running down the hill. I know I killed a couple bees but by the time I was ~50yds away the situation had calmed down. I assessed things: I only had one more sting (forehead), I had probably bruised my face via self-flagellation (confirmed when I got home), and I had flailed off my (brand new) prescription sunglasses somewhere up the hill. I thought about it a couple minutes and decided I had to go find those glasses - which thankfully I saw right away - one more sting (arm) - and then a wide berth.
But I'm not done yet. Maybe a half hour later I was scrambling near the bottom of the cliffband when I stepped on a big rock, a couple hundred pounder, and it started to move. It was not just shifting, it was coming off. It rolled slowly enough that I had time for my life to pass before my eyes AND to think what should I do? The one thought was to not let the rock fall on top of me and so I jumped to the left. It truly is lucky that I landed on flat soft ground 3-4' below, mainly because there is no flat soft ground in the area. The rock came down a second later about 2' to my right.
Not sure how much adrenaline a guy like me can produce but pretty sure I used it all. |
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