The Subtleties of the English Language...
I want to preface this blog by warning you that we have a constant theme of injuries, exhaustion and despair to most of our hikes and mountain biking. Keep in mind that we do not do anything halfway and want to get the most out of our activities. If there is no pain there is no gain... or in our case loss. I should also add that Pete is often the recipient of much of the punishment on our little outings. That is not to say that he does not enjoy them when they are over, but often times during the activity he questions his own sanity. All in all, he is a great sport and gleefully if not reluctantly agrees to come along and sometimes lead our activities. That is where this story and near death experience begin.
When we suggested to Pete that we wanted to hike the Red Mountain, a red dirt/sand and rock behemoth that is roughly four miles from the house, he was anxious to lead us on the hike. "Sure, I've hiked Red Mountain" Pete assured us. It can be unnerving to hike a new trail, particularly one that involves the steep slopes of Red Mountain so you can imagine our relief to have someone guiding us who had actually done the hike. This is where the English language gets a bit sketchy. "I've hiked" does not necessarily equate to "I know where I'm going". In fact, it could not be further from reality as we discovered when our 4 hour hike turned to 10 hours.
We met at our house at 7:00 AM and rode with Pete to the trail head which is about 20 minutes drive from our house. We decided that since the trail was 8 miles long and ended 4 miles from the house, we would just walk home after the hike in order to get some additional exercise. That sounds reasonable doesn't it? We were on the trail by 7:30 winding our way along a very nice if not rocky path that led to the Snow Canyon Overlook, approximately 2 miles. We did not take the short path to the edge as there would be plenty of other opportunities to enjoy the view of Snow Canyon State Park as we traversed the ridge that led to Red Mountain. Shortly after the Overlook turnoff, the trail disappeared. When I say disappeared, I mean it turned into a sand filled wash that stretched as far as the eye could see in the direction of Red Mountain. We had read that the trail was "primitive", but did not realize it meant non existent. We slogged through sand that was probably 4-6 inches deep. Imagine yourself walking along a beach in dry, deep sand for hours... Yes, that is what we were dealing with. We trudged on for several more miles until the sand finally turned to rock. When I say rock, I'm talking about long expanses of flat rock with intermittent rocky ravines, and hills which involved climbing up and down steep rocky slopes using feet, hands, knees and in some cases butts. At one point we stopped to empty the sand that had accumulated in our shoes and socks. We also had a bit of lunch while we assessed our location and current situation. "The trail head leading down should be right over that-a-way", Pete assured us. We headed down yet another deep sand wash that ended in a vertical drop of a couple hundred feet over the edge of Red Mountain. "That is Hell Hole", Pete informed us. We were encouraged by his positive identification of this land mark. "We go left to the trail head", and off we went. I will spare you the details and cursing, but several hours later after crossing what seemed like the entire mountain range, we were once again walking down a sandy wash. I said to Julie that I feel like we had been here before. Pete assured us we had not. Several minutes later we were standing at Hell Hole, which by this time was living up to its name! Pete once again said "We need to go left".
At this point, I was out off water, and Julie had had quite enough. "You said that the last time we were here!!!" at which point she sat down refusing to go further. I volunteered to walk along the cliff edge looking for the trail head or some way down. After quite a bit of time and searching I discovered what looked like a possible way down off the cliff. I could not tell if it went all the way to the bottom or stopped at what appeared to be a ledge 100 yards down. I crept my way down the slope of lose rock and sand until I could clearly make out that it was not passible. I called back on the cell phone and told Julie and Pete to continue the search. As I as assessing my situation on how to proceed without climbing back up, the phone rang, it was Julie! "We found the trail head"! Apparently someone was coming up just as they were passing by. Now keep in mind that by trail head, we mean a rocky, sandy vertical slope that has you shimming your way between rocks, sliding on you butt and generally slipping, tumbling and sliding down a near vertical slope. Hearing they had found such a sweet trail, I worked my way in their direction and ended up ahead of them on the trail as they worked their way down. Beating them to the bottom, I ran the four miles to the house, grabbed the car and water and headed back.
When I got back, Julie was down and still waiting on Pete. At this point everyone had run out of water. "Don't be alarmed when you see Pete, he has foam in the corners of his mouth". Ok, I had seen most everything on the hike at this point, a foaming mouth on someone who had run out of water should not be a surprise. Well, I was wrong. When he finally came sliding on this back end to where I were standing, the foam in the corners of his mouth was fluorescent pink! Could it be blood? Surely that would not be bright pink. I caught up with Julie as we walked towards the car and informed her the foam was pink. "Dad, why is there pink foam in the corners of your mouth?". "Oh, that must be from the mint I had after my water ran out". Whew! I thought we were going to have to call 911!
So, lessons learned...
- Always take more water than you think you are going to need
- Always take more food than you think you are going to need
- Don't mention to me about a trail that we could take down which involves ladders and ropes when we don't have ladders and ropes, you will not like the reaction!
- Don't bother calling Cookie for help, she is busy playing Parcheesi!
- Always take someone who has actually been on the trail when it is designated "Primitive"
It turns out on further questioning, Pete had hiked up the trail from where we finished, but never approached it from the opposite direction so he really did not know where to find the trail head as we found out. Instead of 4 hours we were gone 10, we covered about 16-18 miles, and missed a dinner with wine pairing which we paid for in advance. All, in all, not a bad day!
Just so you don't think the day was a complete wash, no pun intended, I have included some lovely pictures taken before things started to go south, north, east and west. Oh, and if anyone wants to hike this particular hike, Pete is more than happy to take you!
Thanks for listening, my therapist says it helps...
Amazing flowers in the desert
While we were still smiling, well two of us...
The "twins" with Snow Canyon in the background
