I spent a zero day—a day with zero trail miles—in Camp Verde, staying very close to the "World’s Largest Kokopelli." He was bent over playing his flute just below the Starbucks sign above him.
It rained most of the time I was there. I met a couple of local hikers who told me they were heading home to wait a week or two before getting back on trail because they didn't want to hike in the rain. I just smiled and told them I understood, but figured the locals around here were made of sugar. Back home, if you don't walk in the rain, you don't do much walking at all. You just get out there and do it, no big deal.
Turns out, it’s not so much that the people down here don’t know how to deal with rain—it’s that the earth doesn't know what to do with it.
My route out of Camp Verde had me road-walking along the shoulder of the highway for twelve miles toward my first camp on the way back to the AZT. The speed limit ranged from 35 to 70 mph, and the shoulders were either uncomfortably narrow or completely nonexistent. It was unnerving.
There was an ATV track cutting through the desert, running largely parallel to the highway. I ducked over to the track to escape the traffic, but the recent rain had turned the desert dust into a thick, gummy slime. With every step, my feet slipped, and my shoes accumulated more and more of the goo.
I remembered watching a documentary once about the ancient Anasazi making adobe bricks to build their homes. They showed spray-bronzed actors in wigs and loincloths meticulously mixing admixtures of small pebbles and straw into mud in precise proportions, and forming them into uniform blocks. I think thatys probably ivory-tower balderdash. My guess is that people simply tried walking around, and the mud adhered to their sandals, agglomerating with each step until it reached brick size.
The only way to get the mud off your shoes is to stop and pry it off by hand. It's so sticky you can't scrape it off with your other shoe because your feet get glued together, and you can't push it off with a trekking pole because it's not blunt enough.
In pure frustration, I gave my leg a mighty kick. My foot immediately felt lighter and refreshingly cool. I watched with satisfaction as a gooey chocolate cake traced a graceful arc out across the desert. But as it tumbled, I noticed my shoe embedded in it.
Strangely enough, as I walked the twenty yards or so to retrieve my shoe and pry it loose from the birthday cake, no mud stuck to my sock at all. I thought about ditching the other shoe and just hiking in my stocking feet, but I had eight or ten miles left to go and there was cactus out there. I trudged back to the highway
The camp at Clear Creek was pleasant enough, and I managed to pitch my tent just as the first raindrops began to fall ahead of the next round of thunderstorms. Clear Creek itself was roaring at flood stage, which I made a careful mental note of.
The next morning started with another couple miles along the highway until I reached Fossil Creek Road, a Forest Service route. When I arrived, there was a barricade sign declaring the road closed due to hazardous conditions, alongside another sign warning that a four-mile section was permanently closed. It would have been nice to know that before hoofing twelve miles along a highway shoulder to get there, but the road surface looked decent enough where I was standing, so I figured I might as well go have a look. The worst that could happen was having to turn back and go hungry for a day.
My plan was to reach the road closure by mid-afternoon and take the horse trail detour. But when I arrived, I discovered the detour immediately required crossing Fossil Creek, which was also running at full flood stage. Attempting to ford it would have been suicidal. I pitched my tent on a flat bench above the rushing water and spent the night hoping the "permanently closed" road was still passable on foot.
Fortunately, it was. That stretch turned into my favorite part of the entire trip so far—climbing back up toward the Mogollon Rim with sweeping views across a maze of ridges and canyons.
Fossil Creek Road led straight into Strawberry, where a nice trail parallel to the highway carried me into Pine. Monica had sent a care package to the Pine post office, and just a few miles further down the road, I hit the trailhead and stepped back onto the official AZT. The rest of the day was smooth and pleasant.
The following day, not so much.
I had to cross a river seventeen miles ahead at the end of the day, and after seeing both Clear and Fossil Creeks at flood stage, I was worried. Still, the rain had stopped, and I hoped the river would be low enough to wade once I got there. If not, I figured I'd simply backtrack to Pine—no real harm done except a bit of hungry walking. But the trail deteriorated, becoming downright brutal.
Remember that gummy, sticky slime-mud? It was back, only this time it was strewn with sharp-edged volcanic rocks ranging in size from golf balls to footballs. If you stepped on a larger rock, your foot slid right off it. The smaller rocks rolled beneath you, throwing your foot in a random direction. The smallest rocks just agglomerated with the on your shoes. It was absolute torture for ankles, knees, and hips. It might have been beautiful country, but I hardly saw any of it; my eyes were glued to the ground with every single step. I decided I was getting across that river one way or another, because there was no way I was walking back through this stuff.
Near the end of the day—about an hour and a half behind schedule—I finally reached the East Verde River crossing. Fortunately, about a quarter-mile upstream, was a broader, shallower braid where I could ford at waist-deep.
From the river, a side trail took me toward Payson, eventually spitting me out onto Baby Doll Road for the final nine-mile stretch into town.
I was still out in the middle of nowhere, having just passed an abandoned homestead and then a sizable, modern off-grid ranch house perched on a knoll. The road crested a rise and to my left sat a massive steel-truss pavilion, large enough to park fifteen or twenty school buses inside.
Parked around the perimeter were ATVs and side-by-sides, and under the roof, stood a circle of men in camouflage, shoulder to shoulder, holding rifles with their heads bowed around a large fire ring. There was one man without a rifle, reading something from a Bible in his hands, obviously their ringleader. Or a pastor, possibly.
I hoped he'd read long enough for me to slip past unnoticed while the riflemen had their heads bowed. But right as I drew even with them, a rifle shot cracked out sharply to my right, shockingly close.
The entire circle looked up and saw me, now picking up my pace into a brisk power-walk. It seemed they must have had a sentinel posted who fired a warning shot. I tried telling myself not to be paranoid; it was probably just an eccentric outdoor prayer gathering. But then again, it was a dozen armed guys in camo out in the desert wilderness.
I told myself I only had another nine miles to town, civilization, and cell service. On the other hand, I was nine miles from town, cell service, and help. And limping along on sore ankles, knees, and hips. I was sixty-six years old, and only nine months post-spinal surgery. I was no longer as difficult to kill as I used to be.
A few minutes later, a vehicle approached from behind. It was Pastor Ringleader in a Mini Cooper. As he rolled past, he gave me an unsettling look and wave. He broke eye contact abruptly, his gaze sliding back to the empty road ahead, and the wave he offered was the kind you’d give a condemned man you didn't particularly like, but knowing full well that you’d never have to see him again.
As the car passed, I caught the vanity plate: PSALM 61.
I whipped out my phone, praying for just enough signal to text my friend Paul to ask what the hell Psalm 61 was about. No service. Was it about peace, mercy, and loving your neighbor? Or was it about overpowering your enemies and smiting down Philistines? Right then, I really wished I had studied the Bible a little more and remembered it.
Behind me, I could hear ATV engines starting up.
Shoot. Had Pastor Ringleader just whipped his flock into a frenzy and then driven off so he wouldn't be around to witness whatever they decided to do? I knew it sounded completely paranoid. But on the other hand, if a pack of guys did run me down and drag me across the desert by my ankles behind their four-wheelers I’d feel awfully stupid for just staying on the road and making myself such an easy target.
So I dove off the shoulder, crashed through the brush, and scrambled over the nearest ridge out of sight, and started bushwhacking toward town with my GPS. It was slow going, but the ground was finally drying out enough that I was no longer lumbering along with elephant feet.
After a couple miles of bush travel, I dropped into a draw with a corral and a couple of horses. Earlier, when I’d passed that modern ranch house, I had noticed a big red dually with a welding rig and toolbox pulling out of the driveway; now, here it sat by the corral.
The rancher was there working on a fence, accompanied by his three dogs. The dogs alerted him to my presence, and I waved both hands overhead so he wouldn't shoot or sic the dogs onto me. He was slightly amused as I explained why I was wandering through the brush, and asked about the armed congregation up the road. He told me his neighbor who built the pavilion and holds those prayer meetings was definitely a little wacky, but harmless enough.
It turned out it was the final day of elk season, when hunters could shoot cow elk in addition to bulls.
"I haven't seen an elk since Strawberry," I told him. "I don't think there are any out here."
"I know there’s no elk out here," the rancher said. "But the state sells cow tags for this week here anyway. So these guys will shoot at anything that moves. That's why I can't bring my cows back here to their winter range until next week when they're all gone. "You know," he said, "you'd probably be a lot safer sticking to the road."
We ended up having a wonderful chat. I learned that I’d been walking across his ranch all day yesterday, had another four hours of it ahead of me today, and if I kept heading south, another day and a half on his property after that. It was everything you could see from where we were standing, and a bit more—hundreds of square miles just for his winter pasture.
When Dale, the rancher learned that I had recently retired and decided to hike from Flagstaff to Mexico, he asked if this hike was a gift I was giving to myself, or a gift I was giving to my wife. He laughed and reached out to shake my hand. His hand was rougher and meatier than my own, with a large, round tattoo inked on the back.
Looking at it, I said, "Geez Dale, that would really suck if that hand got ripped off in a bulldozer track, wouldn't it?"
He looked at it and said, "I've thought that exact same thing many times."
He gave me a candid rundown of what to expect on the trail ahead across the rest of his rangeland—which sounded, sadly, like plenty more loose volcanic rock and knee-jarring terrain. He told me again to get back on the road into town, we shook hands again, and I went on my way while he got back to work.
Here in town, Payson, I’m taking another zero day at a hotel. From here, I’m catching a Lyft south to Sunflower to jump back on the AZT and continue heading toward Mexico. That will bypass the rest of Dale’s rangeland, hopefully sparing my battered knees from more volcanic rock, and give me a fresh start.
I’m definitely looking forward to it.
Comments
Post a Comment