The stars are glorious, filling the sky and traveling west with the Big Dipper in s different spot each time I adjust positions.
High up on my platform, the cactus wrens gurgly murmur and the finches with red painted faces awaken me from below in the washes.
I make coffee and eat a few bars right from my nest as the sky turns reddish orange then pinky yellow. Once I pack up to go and the sun is full on me, I feel strong and right where I should be – here, walking this trail.
It’s up and down as I follow a ridgeline with views to the east of the entire Galiuro Mountains range, high above the San Pedro River.
Flowers line my path nodding their heads in the cooling breeze. A canyon towhee makes a squishy squeak from a grassy wash I pass through. I am so tiny passing through this giant landscape.
It makes me feel humble, but also bursting with life and a creative spirit. I am alive now, what am I meant to do?
From high above I spy the large round metal tank painted a chocolate brown. It’s a way’s off trail, but the water is supposed to be good.
Fortunately, I don’t have to take water from the tank itself since that would require a climb up a ladder and reaching way in. The water is piped to a plastic pool.
On the fence post, a curved bill thrasher welcomes me, singing from that giant hooked beak a loud whistle as if to say I’m looking rather sexy in my hoodie and sunglasses.
I easily collect water with my cook-pot and pour it into the filter bag through a piece of stocking to catch all the bug carcasses. But when I try to use my filter, it’s clogged.
Oh no!
I checked it before I left, so have no idea what might have caused it to seize up. Maybe it’s ride in the airplane hold.
hmmmm
I bang it a few times then use a bit of my clean water to try to backflush it. Eventually I get water to flow, but it requires squeezing and is exhausting.
Still, it’s a good pull to the next good water, so I drink a liter and pack the other before setting off.
The saguaro fill the landscape, each seeming to dance to its own beat. Clouds are building and creating interesting shadows. I stop to take pictures of nearly every flower I see.
I meet a hiker with headphones jammed in. He’s friendly enough to tell me the next water – and the next – are all good. I tell him the birdsong is wonderful but I imagine he’s not interested.
The trail goes down now on well built switchbacks. It meets Camp Grant Wash, just deep sand now. I head up and up on a road into a saguaro plateau with views back to Mount Lemmon, still snow white.
A car heads my way and two older gentlemen offer me water. I take it with much gratitude, especially when they tell me Beehive Tank is full of green water.
From above, I see the green, as well as a shell of a windmill. A small shack sports brand new solar panels and again, a separate tub holds better water more easily accessed. I push past a few bees to scoop a liter, then find shade behind the main tank for lunch.
Oh friends! It’s salmon and mayo, artichoke hearts and fruit rollup. Life is good. This spot is a godsend in the desert but a bit spooky, so I drink a liter, filter another and carry the lot steeply up on a trail carpeted with wildflowers. I walk on a narrow peninsula of land above deep washes where I hear cows bellow.
I can see back to Lemmon but not yet beyond except for big puffy clouds. I then hear an explosion. Thunder?!?
I keep working my way up to see if a storm is brewing, but find only more of these lazy white clouds – gorgeous, but not really dangerous.
Perhaps it was a mine blast or an air-force jet. Who knows as I crest and head down again on zigzags to yet another wash. I flush a group of Gambel’s Quail who explode themselves in a flurry of feathers making me jump.
Ahead is the multi-summit Antelope Peak, part of the Tortilla Mountains, looking like a castle from here atop a gracefully sloping hill. I walk a half circle around it as clouds build looking black and menacing.
It’s getting close to 5:00 when I begin my campsite search since this early in the year, it’s dark by 7. There are some flat, grassy spots in washes, but if it does rain, that would be a poor spot to set.
So I continue walking, up and up, and around the strangely jagged heap all on its own. The cholla are iridescent in this oddly filtered light and I take the peak’s portrait from just about every angle.
Though I never settle on a camp spot. That is until I’m spit out on a dirt road. My views take in another similarly conical mountain plus a more traditional range to the west as the sun begins to turn everything gold.
I decide to set the tent, just in case my feeling about rain has any merit. This is a flat spot with a fire ring and there’s a big dead tree I can cook behind, out of the wind.
The sky turns orange and a few cows moo out in the cholla. The wind slowly dies when I crawl in. And I myst have been completely wrong about the clouds as the sky fills with stars.
