It just goes without saying that winter in Arizona is wonderful.  While others across the country are fighting their way through the snow and ice, we are enjoying the sunshine and weather in the 70's in the desert.  It's the reason why Arizona is inundated with tourists - or "snowbirds" - during the winter months.

What many of these winter visitors don't realize, though, is that Arizona is not always warm and sunny between December and March.  Like the rest of the country, we, too, have wicked weather and cold, gloomy days, and this winter was no exception.  In early December, we had a vicious storm that brought rain to the desert and snow to the high country, with winds topping 75 miles an hour.  The winds caused a lot of damage across the state; even we had to repair damage caused by the storm.  Our aluminum carport blew down on top of my car; and in Overgaard, one of the juniper trees at the Gaard-Chak blew down - we had to clean that up while we were there for Christmas.

During the week of January 19, a series of three winter storms blew into the state, bringing with it an entire week of wild weather.  The fiercest of the three storms arrived on Thursday, and it packed quite a wallop.  The high country received quite a dousing of fresh snow, while those of us living in the desert received rainfall equivalent to half of the annual average!  Half of our annual average in one week?  Now that was wild!

Despite the wild weather, John was still convinced that we needed to go backpacking during the following weekend.  According to the weather report he had seen on his Weather.com iPhone application, the winter storm was due to leave the state on Friday, leaving Saturday beautiful and sunny.  That, of course, conflicted with the ABC 15 weather report, which stated that the storm would not clear out until sometime Sunday afternoon; Saturday would be cold and cloudy, with a 40% chance of rain.  Backpacking on a cold and rainy day just didn't sound like fun to me.

"No, this is the perfect time to go backpacking!" John insisted.  "Imagine how much water there is going to be in the Superstitions!  All of the creeks and springs are going to be flowing now!" 

It was a valid point, but it still didn't change the weather report.  It also didn't change the fact that, during week, both he and Mary started hacking up a lung.  John returned from his last business trip with a nasty cough, one that refused to break up; and Mary was just getting over a bad cough that started around Christmastime.  Neither one of them sounded very good; sleeping outdoors, out in the cold, was probably not a good idea for them.

Nonetheless, John's decision to go backpacking was final; he had his heart set on it and wasn't going to let a little bad weather and a little illness stand in the way of adventure.  At that point, it didn't do any good to try to stop him.  We were going backpacking, regardless of the conditions.

So there we were, on a cold and cloudy Saturday morning, with all of our backpacking gear packed in the back of the 4Runner, driving to the Peralta Trailhead.  And there I sat in the 4Runner, watching the clouds hang low over the Superstition Mountains and longing for the warmth of my bed...

Although John was still determined to go backpacking no matter what the weather was like, he did seem a bit hesitant when he saw the ominous cloud-cover for the first time.  As we approached the Peralta Trailhead from US 60, he said to us, "We may have to wait a bit before we start hiking; it looks like it's going to rain."  If it wasn't already raining in Peralta Canyon, it certainly looked as though the skies were going to open up at any minute and dump more moisture on the already-saturated desert.

When I said that the desert was saturated, I wasn't exaggerating.  Driving down Peralta Road to the trailhead, we had to cross several creeks, all of which were flowing.  It had been a good number of years since I had seen that much water in the desert.  While it is true that our wet winter wasn't going to be enough to end the long Arizona drought, it certainly helped to have all of that rain.

Despite the wet weather and the threat of more rain, we arrived at the Peralta Trailhead to find that nearly all of the parking spots were filled, even at that early hour of the morning.  Most of the vehicles belonged to day-hikers who were only planning to go as far as Fremont Saddle; but there were also lots of backpackers as well.  We knew that Peralta's popularity meant that we would not have the usual solitude that we craved when backpacking; even with the bad weather, we were in for a busy day on the trail.

As we began gearing up for our hike, we hit our first minor snag of the morning, when John could not find the topographical maps that he had printed for the trip.  He was almost certain that he had put them in the 4Runner, but he couldn't find them anywhere.  That meant that we were going to have to rely solely on the GPS for navigation to Chapin Camp (where we were hoping to spend the night).  Fortunately, the GPS - our new Oregon 300 - had maps loaded on it, so all was not completely lost.

Our hike began about 9:30 that morning, as we stepped onto the Peralta Trail and set out for Fremont Saddle, about 2.3 miles away.  For the first quarter of a mile, the trail was easy and mostly flat; but it wasn't long before we felt like we were back in the Canadian Rockies, hiking to the Fiddle River.  For one thing, the cold, dark gray clouds were still hanging low over Peralta Canyon, giving us the feeling that we weren't in Arizona anymore.  To add to that, the trail became muddy and wet; when we weren't hiking through squishy mud, we were hiking through a stream that was running down the trail.  That, of course, made the rocky trail very slick, and that slowed our progress.

And as if things weren't wet enough...then, we had to cross Peralta Creek, several times.  Peralta Creek was gushing with water - probably the most water it has had in ten years!  The water was high enough that there was no way we could get through it without getting our boots wet.

As the morning wore on - and as we started our climb towards Fremont Saddle - we started encountering the first of the day-hikers.  A lot of the hikers were not from Arizona but were winter visitors, who were marveling over the lack of sunshine.  "We didn't think it ever rained here!" they said.

Guess what?  It does!

That was only the beginning of the day-hikers; by the time we less than a mile from Fremont Saddle, the trail became incredibly busy.  It was almost like hiking Squaw Peak; about every three minutes we had to step aside to let faster hikers go by.  That, too, slowed us down.

Not that we weren't slow enough as it was.  This was just not one of our best efforts.  Since it had been a long time since our last backpacking trip, Mary and I were struggling with the hike and could only manage about a mile an hour as we made our way up the 1,300 foot climb to Fremont Saddle.  That pace was killing our progress; there was no way that we were going to be in camp by lunch at that rate. 

As it turned out, we only made it as far as Fremont Saddle before lunch.  When we reached Fremont Saddle, we arrived to find that it was crowded with about forty other hikers, all sitting down to rest and to take in the incredible view of Weaver's Needle.  Despite our struggle to get there, that view of Weaver's Needle - one of the most distinct rock formations in the Superstitions - was well worth it. 

Although it was noon when we reached Fremont Saddle, the morning chill was still lingering in the air, and the clouds were still hanging low in the sky.  In fact, it seemed to be getting colder by the minute.  We overheard another hiker nearby indicate that it was only forty-five degrees outside, according to his weather station.  If it was only forty-five degrees at noon, imagine how cold it was going to be overnight!

For lunch that afternoon, we had macaroni and cheese, prepared on our backcountry stove - the same backcountry stove that had survived the trip to Canada and back...barely.  In order to pack it in our luggage, we had to dismantle it, clean it, then put it back together...and ever since then, the stove had not worked right.  It either burned so hot that the burner glowed bright red, or it didn't produce enough heat to boil a pot of water.  On this particular afternoon, we were experiencing the latter of the two problems; it took forever to cook our meal!  John had to stop cooking and repair the stove - again - in order to get it to heat up our water.

And if the cold weather and the broken backcountry stove wasn't enough to scare us off of that backpacking trip...well, then it started to hail.  While we were huddled around the stove, waiting for our food to cook, we were suddenly being pelted by pea-sized bits of hail falling from the sky.

And that was when John realized that maybe that backpacking trip wasn't such a good idea after all. 

"I think we should head back," he finally said.  He went on to explain that he didn't need to make himself - and Mary - sicker by camping out overnight in the cold.  On Monday morning, he was traveling to Akron, OH, where daytime temperatures were going to be well below freezing; to be sick on top of that was only going to be miserable for him.  And if Mary was sick while he was gone, it was only going to make my life hell.  At that point, it just wasn't worth the risk.

So, after eating our lunch and packing up our backpacks, we started back down the Peralta Trail again, towards the trailhead. 

During the first fifteen minutes of our return hike, the hail continued to fall lightly on us, which indicated to us that we had made a good decision by turning back.  The chill also remained in the air for another hour and a half as we made our way back to the trailhead.  It wasn't until about 2:30 in the afternoon that the cloud cover finally started to burn off and the sun emerged briefly, shining through the holes.  The temporary periods of sunshine were a welcome relief; we were finally able to shed some of the layers that we were wearing during our hike.

The steady stream of day-hikers continued to pass us on the trail, to a point where it just seemed ridiculously crowded.  It seemed that we were stopping to step aside more and more often.  A lot of them stopped us to ask us about our gear or to ooh and ahh over our little backpacker.  Mary, of course, loved the attention and decided that it was fun to just strike up conversations with random strangers about our ill-fated backpacking trip.  After a while, we had to put a stop to that behavior!

Although our return hike was all downhill, it was by no means easier.  We still had to deal with all of the same obstacles that slowed us down on the way there.  The crowds were only the tip of the iceberg; we still had to cross the gushing creek several times, trudge through the mud, and rock hop along the streams that flowed down the trail.  As a result, Mary had a meltdown about halfway back and hiked at a painfully slow pace.  It seemed like we would never make it back to the trailhead!

Between the slow hiking pace and the frequent, long breaks, it took us three hours to make it back to the trailhead.  By that time, the cloud cover and the chill had returned; although it never rained again that day, we were glad that we weren't going to be spending the night out there.

As soon as our gear was loaded in the back of the 4Runner, we drove away from the Peralta Trailhead and headed home.  With that, another Verley adventure had come to an end...

...The adventure, however, continued into the following week for John.  While in Akron on business that week, he became very sick - he even called in sick one day and stayed in bed in his hotel room!  That bad cold lingered for about two weeks afterwards.

I guess it could have been a lot worse...

Return to Naked in the Woods.