Backpacking Arizona
At the end of winter break this year, the Rice Outdoors Club offered two backpacking trips for Rice students. One was a trip in Big Bend National Park in West Texas. The other (better) trip was a week of backpacking in the beautiful Superstition Mountains in the Tonto National Forest of central Arizona.
On Jan. 4, the members of the Arizona trip found their way back to Rice. Tom Reed, a junior, flew back to Texas from Seattle. Another junior, Dave Gordon ("Gordo"), flew to Houston from Florida. Jennifer Clarkson, a freshman, drove back to Rice from San Antonio, and I (eventually called "Curly" -- you know, the dude from City Slickers ) drove in from my home in wonderful Lake Jackson, Texas.
People spent the evening stressing out over different aspects of the upcoming adventure. Tom, who stayed in San Antonio with his roommate, was tired from the long flight, so he slept for over 12 hours. Gordo spent the evening trying to figure out exactly what to take and what not to take, as well as trying to get his backpack to fit just right.
Jennifer, scared to death at the prospect of going backpacking for the first time, was trying to figure out why exactly she signed up to do this. And I spent most of the night poring over maps, itineraries, food lists, money and just about anything else that came up. And we thought academic life at Rice was tough!
The next morning, the three at Rice woke up at 6 a.m. and left the campus at seven in the morning in my (parents') brown station wagon. You know, that's kind of early for anything. As our crew went through San Antonio, we slowed down to about 20 mph, and Tom jumped in the car. "Hey guys, did you get enough sleep last night?" (Whatever, Tom.)
The mighty foursome drove and drove and drove. When we were eating in El Paso at about 10 p.m., we were deciding what to do for the night. Tom suggested that if we kept going we would probably get to the trail at about 12 or 12:30. To cut a long story short, we finally got to the trail at about 4 a.m. (and the Arizona speed limit is 75!!!), where we quickly set up our tents and went to sleep.
Later that same morning, our fateful crew woke up at about 9 a.m. and packed the backpacks for the first four-day trip. We drove into the exciting town of Apache Junction, Ariz. The average age of the population of this town must be 75. You've gotta check out this place. We had breakfast at Burger King, called home and packed up some water for the trip. After driving back to the trail (and along an eight-mile rocky, dirt road), the crew loaded up and started the hike.
After about six miles (and once we were far away from the wimpy day-hikers), we found a seemingly nice place to camp. There was a windmill, which pumped water into a cattle tank. This is where we got our drinking water while we were camped that night, as well as for the next few days on the trail.
For some reason, our crew was not the only group which felt that this was a nice place to spend time. Evidently, cows and horses had felt the same way. How did we figure this out? Crap. Really. Everywhere. For dinner, we cooked up some beef stew. "Damn, that was good stew," Jennifer said.
Day two (on the trail): After a great breakfast of fresh eggs, cheese, salsa and tortillas, we hiked about eight or nine miles. That's a serious understatement. The trail was tough -- very rocky and hard to find in some places.
The toughest part, however, was the thousands of cacti (that's plural of `cactus,' for all of you from the north and the east ... ) and sticker bushes that constantly reached across the trail. I got a half-inch spike stuck in his leg, and everyone ended up with scratched legs and arms. As Tom so eloquently described it, "It was like having thousands of tiny pins raking my ass every second."
Everyone was exhausted by the end of the day. We finally found a nice place to camp on a ridge with a view of a grand little canyon ("what a `grand' canyon"). We were too tired to cook the spaghetti for dinner, so we ate the next day's breakfast, along with some Miller Genuine Draft that we brought along. (Of course -- we had to replenish our liquids, right?)
The next morning, with memories of the previous day's lacerations still on our minds and bodies, we awoke and hit the trail. After only about four miles, we found a perfect place to camp -- even before lunch. We had lunch and set up camp. The afternoon was spent with naps, reading and showers in super-cold water. Dinner was macaroni and cheese with tuna and corn, as well as MGD.
We awoke to a breakfast of Grapenuts and freshly baked blueberry muffins. We hiked an easy nine or so miles back to the car. We saw really great views of mountains, valleys and huge saguaro cacti (those are the ones you always see in Roadrunner cartoons; they look like one tall pole with a couple of branches that come out on the sides).
Then we drove into town and took care of laundry. We also got some cheap fresh fruit at some market -- oranges were like 20 cents for a pound. And of course, dinner: where else? Burger King. On the way back out of town, one of our crew members went into a gas station and bought ... some more beer? (Someone was 21, right???)
We drove back to the trail and set up our tents and stuff. We also built a small campfire (it was really hard to find wood to burn). "Some" of the people disposed of the beer and some food that was around. We saw several beautiful falling stars.
After hearing coyotes calling to the full moon much of the night, we woke to yet another beautiful day -- no clouds, no rain and perfect temperatures. We drove into town and picked up some more water. We also had breakfast at a little mom-and-pop style place, called "Waffle on Inn." Interestingly enough, it was their first day to ever be open. The food was fantastic, and it filled us up enough for the trail.
We drove out to a new trail and began a three-day excursion. We started hiking, and we saw dozens of people at first. Luckily, we soon turned off of the main trail and didn't see anyone until we were almost finished on the last day. It was a fairly easy day -- easy trail, few cacti on the trail, etc. We found a fantastic campsite in a ravine, where we set up camp and had dinner. Dinner consisted of fettucini alfredo, green beans and cheesecake with strawberries. I think most of us gained weight on this trip ...
The next morning, we were awoken by the yells of one of our comrades, who will stay anonymous. It seems he had needed to get out of the tent to relieve his bladder. He hadn't put on shoes, and he stepped on a large cactus chunk. And this guy goes to Rice?
We had breakfast and packed up again. We headed out, following the bottom of a small valley most of the day. In the early afternoon, we found a great secluded spot that was nice and flat. Some spent the afternoon playing cards and reading. I went and climbed a massive mesa nearby.
After dinner, we reminisced about the things we had enjoyed about the trip: the weather, the food, the scenery, almost everything. Tom went off and dug a deep hole, and Gordo helped to put rocks around it, making a very fancy community toilet. I think some people were starting to go a little bit crazy by then.
Time for the last day of backpacking. We woke up a little bit earlier than we had previously, seemingly excited about getting home soon. We ate a quick breakfast and hit the trail. Fairly late on this day, when we were near the cars, we passed a crew of probably 40 or 50 retirees from a local resort or something. Every one of them had hiking sticks, and as we passed them it seemed like they all had comments about "finding a McDonald's at the end" or something. A few of us were called hunks as they passed by. It was an interesting event.
We finally got back to the beautiful station wagon and ate a small snack. We then drove into town and headed to Burger King, where we cleaned ourselves up, ate a little bit more, etc. We hit the road and started driving (wow -- 75 mph speed limit after a week of hiking. Wow). We drove to Carlsbad Caverns in southeast New Mexico to spend the night, eventually. While driving, we talked, listened to music and slept (all except for the driver ... ).
Of course, there was the truck driver incident. It all started when the truck driver tailgated our station wagon. It then proceeded to pass us. Next, it swerved directly in front of us, not more than a few short yards away. I flashed my lights to show mighty disapproval of what this 20-ton vehicle had done.
The trucker then slammed on the brakes, and so I moved to the left lane to pass. As we were passing, the trucker then swerved, trying to run us into the median. As we went past the cab, the trucker and a person in our car exchanged one-fingered salutes. Our car sped up to a high rate of speed to leave the trucker. Unfortunately, we were going downhill, and as you physics majors may know, F=ma. The truck had some serious mass, and as it sped downhill, it had one heck of a force. We did all we could do to keep from getting crushed by this beast.
We then took the next exit to let the truck go on past, but the trucker followed us to a gas station. The trucker (who was the biggest female trucker you've ever seen) and an anonymous member of our crew exchanged "verbal assaults" with each other. Another member of our crew was scared and tried to run into the gas station! We finally left, and when we got home, I called the number on the back of the truck. If you would like to join our cause, just call 1-800-418-9020. Tell them you were driving around the border of Arizona and New Mexico on Interstate 10 on the afternoon of Jan. 12 and you saw Truck #9543 trying to run a brown station wagon off the road. That'll teach her!!!
But I digress. We finally got to the Carlsbad Caverns parking lot around midnight. We decided to just spend the night in the car. Needless to say, no one got a whole lot of sleep that night. In the morning, we toured the awesome caves -- it was pretty incredible.
After that, we started driving and driving. At about 9 p.m., just east of San Antonio, we had one more incident. Just cruising along, I saw the terrible sight of flashing blue and red in the rearview mirror. We obediently pulled over. As the cop was asking us where we were going, where we had been and such, he flashed his flashlight around in the back of our car. He seemed really suspicious of the four of us, who hadn't had a real shower or a shave in more than a week.
I finally asked him why he pulled us over. He told us -- the light above our license plate had burned out. Do these cops have no one better to pull over on a Saturday night in San Antonio?
Around midnight, we finally got back to Rice. And showers. And beds. And everything else that comes with civilization -- pollution, stress, traffic, etc. Overall, it was a great trip. Perfect weather, no serious injuries, and lots of fun.
Additional Information
The Rice Outdoors Club organizes several trips a semester. Contact Doug Ramsey (630-8748) -- dug@rice.edu -- for more information.
This item appeared in the Features section of the January 26, 1996 issue.
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