2012 in 2012

We are pretty pleased. In addition to hiking some 350+ miles in 2012, today we crossed 2012 biking miles in 2012, and we did it in the middle of what we feared would be a difficult 3.5 mile climb.

We had done this climb last February, and it was hard. This year, we kept waiting for it to be hard. I guess that reflects the 1900 miles we have ridden between the two rides.

Here is a photo at the 2012 point for Vicky.




A self portrait of me:




One of us together at the top:




Yesterday we did a short hike at Lost Dutchman State Park. This is a hike I and my family did with my mother many years ago. We tried calling her from the top but had no reception.

Brought back old times, and good memories.

Tomorrow we store the camper and pickup and fly home for a month. Neither of us can believe how much we have done and seen in the past two months.

We are really looking forward to seeing our family.

We have climbed Mt. Everest: Pass Mountain Loop Trail, Usery Mountain Park, AZ #282

Sorta.

We have been in Mesa two days now. We like Usery Mountain, especially the site we have, which we knew about from our previous trips here last year.

Surprisingly, it is a county park, not a national forest or state park.

There are practical matters that have to be attended to on a road trip.

Yesterday, for example, we got an oil change and washed our clothes at a laundromat.








We had our dinner at Serannos, and I got to reminisce about the many times I had been there with my children, my parents, and with Vicky.




We were going to ride our bikes again today, but again today it was very windy, so we decided to try one of the hikes here. We weren't expecting much (what can one expect from a county park?), but were put into our place with a very nice hike. 7.5 miles with 1100 elevation gain, and some beautiful views.  The hike is on the Pass Mountain Trail, which is inside Usery Mountain Regional Park in Mesa, AZ.  Some of the trail goes into the Tonto National Forest. 








































On Roadtrip 2.0, since we left home early in September, we have hiked almost 170 miles and climbed 5000 feet more than the height of Mt. Everest.

Mt. Everest is some 29,000+ feet, and we have climbed over 34,000. We are frankly puzzled about the big deal about Everest, and wonder why no national magazines want to do stories about us.

We are going dancing again this evening.

Hike Report:  Pass Mountain Trail #282 AZ

(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)

Dancing in Mesa

We had a terrific evening, and danced beautifully. Lots of compliments, which still take us by surprise since we are just into it for ourselves and not for how we look. We hope to find another dance Saturday.








Oh! I won the door prize! A free admission to another dance! We will use it someday.

Bittersweet return to Usery Mountain, Mesa

We got down from Pioneer Pass without incident, driving less than 5 mph for over five miles. We left early in the morning, shortly after it was light enough to see the road, because I did not want to meet anyone on the steep one-lane road. Unless we happened to meet at a place where the road was wide enough for two to pass, the other driver, since s/he would be coming up the mountain, would have the right of way, meaning I would have to back up if one of us needed to. I did NOT want to have to back up.

Vicky's job was to catch glimpses of the road ahead, looking for other vehicles so I concentrate on driving slowly and using the brake as infrequently as I could.

We really liked Pioneer Pass, and will return.

But boy is that road steep, and do the drop-offs ever go forever.












Our first order of business after we got down was to wash the camper and the bikes.





The second order of business was to find a McDonalds so I could get an Egg McMuffin and coffee.

We drove to Mesa along some beautiful stretch of highway.








And arrived in Mesa well before noon. We had reservations at the campground we stayed at several nights last winter when we were here to visit my parents and, after my father died, when my sister and brother-in-law arrived.

It all felt a bit unreal to me--being here reminding me so much of the 20+ years my parents lived here happily, and of the dozens of times I visited them.The rituals we had, many focused on eating of course, on their favorite restaurants and on the meals my mother prepared, especially her noodles.

I can so easily and vividly picture my father hunched over his computer in the Arizona room playing free cell, and how they would decorate their house for Christmas, anticipating the arrival of children, children-in-laws, grandchildren, and, later, great-grandchildren.

When I first started coming to Mesa I would see them waiting at the gate at the airport (remember when you could do that? It wasn't really all that long ago), then we would call and they would drive to the arrival area. As time made driving more difficult either the shuttle would be taken to their home and then a rental car because they no longer had a car. My father's aging reflected in how one got from the airport to their home, and now his death makes even that nonexistent.

Someone else lives in that home in Leisure World now, and in that apartment at the Springs, the extended care facility where they lived the final three years in Mesa and where Vicky and I traveled to last April to move my mother to Fort Collins where she is now.

The inescapable fact is that I miss my father, but mostly want him to still be alive--to still be watching movies on TV, playing free cell on the computer, and trying mightily to hear my mother because his hearing was mostly gone.

He married us, me and Vicky, as well as Bill and Kathy, and Sean and Emily, and was scheduled to marry Jules and Jessica until my mother experienced some health problems at the last minute and they couldn't make it. His marriage ceremony for my and Vicky an heroic act of will, given he had so little strength and mostly gasped for breath his last few months when the COPD that he was not responsible for destroyed his lungs.

Tomorrow night Vicky and I are going to the restaurant that represented all of his favorite restaurants to me, the one we went to most frequently by far--Serannos. As I am doing now I will think about my parents living here, and all of the things we did together for those many years. A couple of years ago, while visiting them, we went there and stayed for about three hours, as I talked a lot about what I remembered from my childhood--trying to communicate how grateful I was. I know my parents appreciated that, and if I could do one thing in my life over, and only one thing, I would have tried to have another of those events so I could be sure that my father knew, before he died, what he and my mother did for my life.

Pioneer Pass in the Tonto National Forest

Hikes: 

To Pinal Peak on the Pioneer Trail (196)
and East Mountain Trail

We drove down from Arcadia Campground in the Coronado National Forest Pinaleno Mountains early in the morning (there is supposed to be a little squiggly over the second n in Pinaleno, but the IPad won't let me). We traveled at this time of day to avoid traffic, as the road is very steep and winding, and I thought it would be easier if I was the only vehicle on the road.

Then, later in the afternoon drove up another mountain road that was worse.

That would be Forest Road 112 up to Pioneer Pass in the Tonto National Forest.

It is steeper, more winding, narrower, and to add to the fun, dirt. Of course this means ruts and that wonderful feeling of driving over a washboard.







The drop offs are at least 1000 feet of straight down. No guard rails of course. Gulp. Driving up all I could think about was the drive down in a few days where I knew that even driving in 1st gear would not be slow enough, and I would have to be very careful about not riding the brakes. There are some areas where it is possible for two cars to pass, but they are few and far between.

If you are reading this, we made it. If you are not reading this, send help--we are somewhere deep in a ravine in the Tonto National Forest.

As has been the case so often recently, we are the only people in the campground. It is an interesting campground because it consists of several small campground enclaves spread over approximately one mile of the road. We are in the second little enclave, with sites numbered 7-11. And once again no trash receptacles-- grrr.

Each enclave has well maintained bathroom. Since the sites are numbered (printed on the concrete picnic tables) one wonders whether the campground used to be one where you had to pay.



We noticed that there appears to have been water provided here at one time. This is something we have seen frequently on this trip--evidence that a campground used to have a water source but no longer does. Have all the water sources dried up or did they become too expensive to maintain?




Since we are the only people here I cleaned the bathroom for our use. Here I am with cleaner and disinfectant. The next day, while hiking, someone came and thoroughly cleaned the bathroom, stocking with new rolls of toilet paper. I guess they thought I hadn't done an adequate job.



On our first day we hiked to Pinal Peak on Pioneer Trail (196). We had to walk a mile up the road to the trailhead. Beautiful fall colors.



Overall the hike was 6.5 miles with a substantial amount of gain--1800 feet--some of it on the mile walk to the trailhead.

The first mile of the trail was dirt and soft, and very easy to follow. And it provided stunning views of the Superstition Mountains.







Then we went through a small stand of what looked to be Arizona's version of Madrona (sp) trees, with bright red trunks.


Then we went through the section that reminded me of fall in the Midwest--fallen leaves and brightly colored ones still on the trees and bushes. We walked on a carpet of fallen leaves, making a lot of noise as we walked.











The last mile or so was not our favorite part of the hike. More evidence of burn.



For hiking purposes what burn does is that it destroys the forest canopy. The first part of our hike, where there was the canopy, was lovely because you could see through the woods to the other hills. But when the canopy is gone bushes spring up, so you are hiking through brush. It is hard to even see the trail at times, and occasionally we had to walk around a bit to find it. Vicky caught one of those times when I am perplexed as to where to go.


Toward the top was a spring that I'm guessing was originally the source of the water for the campground.

We surprised a deer drinking there. It surprised us too.


This cleared up (sorta) a puzzle about an old trail sign we saw near the beginning of the hike. Although the trail is called the Pioneer Trail on all of the printed and on-line literature, it appears that a long time ago it was named the Squaw Springs Trail. Unusual. The spring we found is or used to be named Squaw Springs apparently.




A bit later we reached what we thought was the end of the trail, an open area with LOTS of horse droppings, indicating that people have spent the night there in the past. Found another great place for lunch.


And then started back down. Sometimes when hiking back down to the trailhead one can enjoy the views more because you aren't hunting for the trail and because you aren't huffing and puffing as much.



On our way down we saw a fox. I couldn't get a photo, drat, because it was so small. But we followed it for awhile in the woods.

At the end of a hike--drying things out and having chips and our unique-recipe salsa and fruit dip. Yum. So refreshing.






Hike Report:  Pioneer Pass (Squaw Spring) Trail  196.

(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)



East Mountain Trail

Our hike the next day began, again, with the one-mile trek up the road to the trail head, except today we went left rather than right at the top.






The trail went up for about 1/4 of a mile, and then leveled off.






We ran into a guy hunting bear. He was sitting on a hillside, with field glasses trained to the following hillside. About an hour later we heard the retort of a rifle, so apparently he got off a shot.




We walked some more along the trail until the views to our south, east, and west opened up. Stunning.



















We went through another small Madrona forest.





Another great place for a lunch--this time at the top of the hike, just before about a mile of descent on a few dozen switchbacks.






On our descent we could frequently see the road, our goal, through the trees.



We found another spring which had been capped several years before.



We continued down until we reached the road, about half a mile below our campground.


Because today's hike was a loop, and because we had a hiking map, it was an opportunity to check one of the features of my Garmin Foretrex 401 hiking GPS.

One of its screens is of an energetic little man dropping bread crumbs. We have already tested to see if creates a trail that could be followed back if one gets lost (verdict: it does).

Today we wanted to see if it would create a trail in the shape of the trail map. As can be seen, it does a great job.






Today's wildlife photo: a tarantula. Isn't he cute?

Hike Report:  East Mountain Trail, Pioneer Pass AZ


(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)