May 10-11, 2003

"Ill-Prepared"

Springtime 2003 once again brought Manuela and Detlef, my friends from Berlin, Germany, back to Arizona for six weeks of hiking adventures. During the weeks leading up to their trip, I told them that I hoped we would be able to hike together again, as we had done in 2001 (when we hiked the Lost Dog Wash Trail in the McDowell Mountains). After reviewing their itinerary, it was decided that we would all meet up on May 11 to hike in the San Pedro Riparian Area, located between Benson and Sierra Vista, off of Highway 82. Of course, that was Mother's Day weekend, as everyone reminded me. My thought was that I would rather be out hiking on Mother's Day - not drinking mimosas at a stuffy brunch. John decided that it would be fun to make a camping trip out of it - and, since we were going to have to pass through Tucson to get to the San Pedro Area, we could stop along the way to take my mother on a special early Mother's Day brunch. (As for John's mother...well, we already had a special plan for her Mother's Day gift...) Although I was looking forward to a nice, relaxing camping trip and a fun hike with friends, my heart just wasn't in it this time, mainly because of the terrible morning sickness that I was having. I was in my 11th week of pregnancy and in the grips of "all-day" sickness - I was nauseous and exhausted all day long. Feeling that lousy meant that I had no motivation to do anything, not even making sure that we were completely prepared for our camping trip. Nonetheless, with the Jeep fully loaded, John and Mary and I left the house on Saturday morning, May 10, to embark on our adventure. Due to our lack of preparedness, we didn't leave the house until sometime after 8:00 a.m. - much later than usual for us. Of course, I had told my mother that we would be there between 9:00 and 9:30, so we were going to be quite late. Instead, we arrived at my mother's house in Tucson around 10:30 a.m. We ate brunch at the Blue Willow Café - a trendy little restaurant on Campbell Avenue in Tucson. There, we met my brother Wayne, and the five of us had a delightful lunch out on the patio. After lunch, we visited for a while longer with my mother then said our goodbyes as we continued towards our camping adventure. From Tucson, we continued along I-10 until we arrived at the junction with SR 83, which would take us to the town of Sonoita. Our plan was to camp in the Las Ciengas Conservation Area, about eight miles north of Sonoita - we didn't know much about the area, but it sounded like a great place for us to camp. The elevation was low enough that it would not be too cold overnight, but high enough that it wouldn't be too hot for us during the day. Since it wasn't too far out of the way, we stopped at the General Store in Sonoita for some forgotten supplies (did I mention that we were ill-prepared?). Then, we backtracked north on Highway 83 and turned off onto Empire Ranch Road, which would take us deep into the Las Ciengas area. As we made our way down the dirt road and into the conservation area, we kept our eyes peeled for places to camp. Much of the area was filled with sprawling grasslands that were much too exposed for camping, and most of the side roads had more of the same. As we drove deeper and deeper into the area, though, we spotted a nice, riparian area where we were sure to find nice campsites...that is, if we could find the road that would take us there. When faced with that challenge, the explorer in John came out, and he made it his goal to find the right road that would take us there. He turned off onto a side road then followed one side road after another until we finally found ourselves at a dead end, at which there was a very nice campsite located next to a small creek. The creek, which was lined with sycamore and cottonwood trees, sat about ten feet below the campsite, with a small footpath leading down to it. We parked the Jeep and continued exploring the area on foot, in hopes that we could find a nicer campsite in the trees that surrounded the creek. The ground, however, was much too muddy, so we decided that it would be better just to camp at the end of the road instead. So with that, we hiked back and started unloading our camping gear to get ourselves settled for the evening. Once our tents were set up, I decided that it was time for me to lie down to take a nap - exhaustion was winning out, so I needed to rest a bit before dinner. While I slept, John put Mary back into the Jeep, and the two of them took off to explore the area. They returned shortly before dinnertime, at which time I woke up and emerged from the tent somewhat rested but still sick to my stomach. While Mary played Pooh Sticks by the creek, John prepared dinner for the three of us. After we were finished eating our delicious meal, Mary retreated to her little tent to play with her toys, while John and I relaxed around the campfire to watch the sun set on a lovely day. As darkness spread across the land, and the air began to cool, the silence of the evening was broken by the loud and somewhat angry calls of a cow. It seemed to be just a few feet from our campsite, but it was actually several hundred feet away from us, on top of the ridge overlooking our campsite. I could see its silhouette as it moved slowly along the fenceline on top of the ridge; every now and then, it stopped and mooed mournfully then continued on, eventually disappearing from my sight. I could still hear it mooing for sometime thereafter, but thankfully, peace was restored before we all went to bed. Once the sun had set, it became very, very cold outside. We bundled Mary up in several layers to ensure that she would be warm all night long; then, at eight o'clock, we put her into her sleeping bag, where she promptly fell asleep. John and I stayed up for another hour, shivering next to the fire until we at last gave up the fight and retired in hopes that we could find some warmth in our sleeping bags. Unfortunately, that wasn't any better; the two of us were freezing all night long, and as a result, neither one of us slept very well. Ironically, Mary slept all night long in perfect warmth. Lucky kid! At five o'clock in the morning, John gave up on the idea of sleep and crawled out of the tent to start the day. He got the fire going and tried his best to warm up to no avail - it was just too cold! We just weren't prepared for it to be as cold as it was that night. And just how cold was it? Well, the Jeep's thermometer registered a low temperature of twenty-eight degrees, with an ice warning. However, it by 8:00 a.m., it warmed up to sixty degrees, so we had a hard time believing that it could have been that cold overnight. We figured that it must have been in the low forties or upper thirties...but that was still too cold for us to be without the proper clothing! As it was Mother's Day, John prepared breakfast for us; then, once Mary was awake, it was time for presents. I received from Mary a new fondue set and a beautiful framed picture of the two of us playing in the snow in Flagstaff, during our latest snow adventure. The best part, however, was that she actually told me, "Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!" It was so wonderful to hear my baby girl speak! It didn't take long for the sunlight to warm up our little campsite, and soon we were warm enough to move around and get dressed. While I began to pack up the sleeping bags and the air mattress inside of the tent, John loaded everything into the Jeep as fast as he could, knowing that we were already going to be late for our hike with Manuela and Detlef - we were supposed to meet them at 8:00 a.m., but we were going to be lucky if we broke camp before 8:00! We hated being late, especially since we didn't have a way to get a hold of them to let them know that we were going to be late, but we knew that they would understand. We broke camp at about 7:45 and started on the road towards Fairbank, where we were to meet Manuela and Detlef for our hike. To get there, we returned to Highway 83 and proceeded south to Sonoita. In Sonoita, we took a left turn onto SR 82, which would take us past Whetstone (and the junction with SR 80) and into the San Pedro Riparian Area, at which we would find the old ghost town of Fairbank, currently under renovations by the Bureau of Land Management. The entire trip was about forty miles, so it took us just under forty-five minutes to get there. We arrived a half an hour late and found Manuela and Detlef patiently waiting for us in the parking lot. Indeed, they were very understanding about us being late and were very happy to see us again. They were especially excited to see Mary again and couldn't believe how much she had grown over the past year. They had many gifts for her, including a cute little fox that she called "Rat" because she didn't know the difference. When we tried to tell her that it was a fox, she pronounced the word "Fok", so we decided that it was better for her to call it a rat. After exchanging gifts for each other, we decided to embark on our hike. The trail that we would be hiking was the San Pedro River Trail, a 3.7 mile-long loop that would take us to the San Pedro River and back. Along the way, we would find some rather interesting ruins, as well as a graveyard. Manuela and Detlef had hiked this trail before and were excited to be able to show us all of the different points of interest to be found. The first landmark was the graveyard, which was located off of a spur trail, on top of a hill. Surrounded by catclaw mimosas and other prickly plants, it was difficult for us to get there without getting little scratches on our legs and arms, but we soon made it to the top, where we found about thirty old graves, many of them marked with fading headstones or wooden crosses. A good number of them bore Spanish names; some of them belonged to children who died at a very young age. All of them had died between the late 1800's and the early 1900's. Having spent a solemn fifteen minutes wandering through the graveyard, we decided that it was time for us to leave. We took the spur back to the main trail and continued on our way, stopping every so often to either encourage Mary to hike faster, or to take photos of the ruins along the way. There was plenty of history along the trail. At one point, we reached the old mine, where we found signage about how the mine operated way back when. There were plenty of old ruins there as well; they had been built into the side of the hill and were not easily accessible. John attempted to climb up onto them, but he reconsidered so that we could continue hiking. At the midpoint of the loop trail, we came to a trail junction, where we had an important decision to make: should we hike to the San Pedro River and back, or should we complete the loop? Naturally, it wasn't a difficult decision to make - we had come there to explore. So, we followed Manuela and Detlef onto the spur trail that would take us about a quarter of a mile to the San Pedro River. The San Pedro River, though flowing, was quite low due to the drought, and it was easily forded by crossing over a two-by-six that someone had laid across the water. Manuela, Detlef and I decided to cross over to see what we could find on the other side, while John stayed by the river with Mary, who thought it fun to splash around in the water. On the opposite banks of the river, we found what we though was the old Presidio Santa Cruz de Terranate Ruins, but we later discovered that it was just another old ruin. There was a single wall still standing, on the other side of which was the foundation of the building, set about three feet into the ground. Some of the bricks that had been used to build the structure were still scattered about the ground, interspersed with tall yellow grass. The three of us took some time to explore the old ruins and take pictures of them; then, we returned to the river. We got back just in time to watch Mary cross over the plank for about the tenth time. Despite her poor balance, she had taken a liking to walking across the board and wanted to keep doing it. Then, when that became boring, she decided to sit down on it and splash around in the water. She could have stayed there all day had we not insisted that she get up so that the rest of us could cross over it. At that point, playtime was over; we still had about two miles left to hike. Not long after we returned to the San Pedro River Trail, we encountered wildlife - a huge green snake was blocking our path! After we determined that it was probably not poisonous, we pointed it out to Mary by saying, "Mary, do you want to see the snake?" Big mistake! She shouted out, "Yeah!" and went running after it, scaring it away into the trees nearby. Manuela managed to snap a picture of it before it slithered away, but I was out of luck. The next part of our hike did not have much historical significance to it, but it did give us some nice views of the San Pedro River, which was about fifty feet below us. It was indeed a very beautiful riparian area that warrants further exploration someday. Towards the end of the hike, we came to the old railroad tracks for the San Pedro Scenic Railroad; we followed those all the way back to the trailhead. We also found the old station, where passengers could board the train in the early days. There, we came to another trail junction, where we could hike another spur trail that would take us back to the San Pedro River. We decided to skip it this time, though, because Mary was getting tired and cranky. It was about 11:30 in the morning when we arrived back at the trailhead. While John made sandwiches for us to eat for lunch, I said our goodbyes to Manuela and Detlef, who still had eight more days in Arizona before they had to fly back to Germany. (Naturally, they were so excited about being there that they didn't want to go home - but who can blame them? Arizona is a wonderful state!) I wished them a safe journey home and insisted that we do another hike with them next year. Of course, I know that they'll be out here again - I think Arizona has become a sort of second home to them. And we enjoy having them out here to visit! Having completed our fun-filled hike with our German friends, it was time for us to head home to Phoenix and leave Manuela and Detlef to enjoy their last few days in Arizona. Shortly before noon, we left the trailhead and began our long, three-hour drive home. Needless to say, we were completely exhausted when we arrived at home, so John and Mary decided to take me out to dinner, rather than cook me a Mother's Day dinner. We ate at PF Chang's that evening...but when it was time to pay to check, Mary was a little bit short on cash, so John spotted her the money. It was a nice ending to another nice Mother's Day...

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