It’s seven o’clock in
the morning, traffic has picked up again, and I catch a whiff of a strangely
familiar smell when I push open the window a crack. Could it be ....? Yes, it is
indeed the smell of skunk! This would explain the strange noises I heard during
the night. I wonder what caused the skunk such distress that it left this
greeting at our door. In here it is not bad enough to bother us; in fact,
it is a reminder of spring. Snow and cold are still present at
home, we've been told, so we’ll gladly live with a bit of skunk smell if it means being able to
hike where spring has made its debut.
Back to the
desert east of Phoenix, then, where it was definitely on its way.
From our camping spot
we had a wonderful view of the Superstition Mountains, and several interesting
hikes start right from the campground. We chose one of the most difficult,
but also most rewarding for our first hike on Monday: Siphon Draw, ending at a
place named ‘Flatiron’, a rocky bulwark jutting out like the walls of a
medieval castle. Estimations varied as to the length of time required to
complete the hike; some sources said four to five, others three, some six
hours. As always, it depends on the fitness level and the objective in reaching
a destination. We were not doing it to prove how fast we could get up and down,
but for the hike itself and its eventual reward, the view.
We leave the
campground at 8:45 am, with lunch, a snack, and enough water, which is very important
when hiking in this climate. Unlike the trails we have taken in the Rockies,
where water is present almost everywhere, water sources are sparse in these
mountains, and the low humidity makes it dangerous to be caught without water.
The backpack also contains sunscreen, a notebook, and an Arizona plant guide:
the desert is just starting to bloom.
The first hour or so the winding path leads slowly but steadily uphill through meadows filled
with low brittlebush, buds still mostly closed, several different types of
cacti, the little blue hoods of the lupines peeking from their finely cut
silver green leaves – and, still rolled up tightly, the promise of a carpet of
golden orange once the sun wakes them up: California poppies.
We are by far not the
only hikers headed for Siphon Draw. Fit looking men and women in their
seventies march uphill with determination, young kids, maybe on spring break
from college, overtake us, full of energy and ready to tackle the steep part of
the trail ahead. Catching our breath for a bit at a spot with a good view we
talk about the trail ahead with a Canadian who has done it several times
before. He warns us not to underestimate the difficulty of the last long
ascent: it is steep, and one has to climb over rocks to get to the ‘Flatiron’
part. ‘Many people stop at the Basin’, he says, ‘and the last (steep and quite
difficult) quarter mile before that gives you an idea what the 1 ¾ mile will be
like. If you find you have difficulty there, I advise you not to attempt the final
ascent.’
No comments:
Post a Comment