On July 17, John and I would be celebrating our two-year anniversary. Two years - wow! And they have certainly been two adventurous years, to say the least, when you consider all of the things that we have done in that short amount of time: the house, the baby, the web site and the new computer, and the countless miles that we have hiked and backpacked. I'm happy to be able to say that it is never a dull moment in the Verley household. The last two years have been wonderful, and I look forward to the rest of the years that are still ahead of us.

To celebrate our anniversary this year, John and I decided to do something that we had not done in a long time: go on a backpacking trip by ourselves, without Mary. For Easter this year, John's parents had printed up coupons for services that they could provide for us, such as housecleaning and babysitting, and they put them in little plastic Easter eggs, which they hid in the desert at Lake Pleasant. John and I were fortunate to receive both of the coupons marked "good for one overnight babysitting", so we decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to cash in one of those coupons and give ourselves an opportunity to be alone together. Naturally, John's parents were thrilled to take Mary for the weekend, and they planned out a fun weekend for her that included swimming and the zoo.

Once we knew that Mary's grandparents were willing to take her for the weekend, we chose our hike - something that we would not normally be able to do if we had Mary with us. John consulted Canyoneering Arizona by Tyler Williams and Lisa Gelczis and found a hike that he had been aching to do for some time: Chevelon Canyon, which was located about 35 miles south of Winslow. Chevelon Canyon is a seven to ten mile long forested canyon that begins at the Chevelon Crossing campground and ends at the Chevelon Lake dam. Like Aravaipa Canyon, there is not a maintained trail there, so there would be some bushwhacking and several creek crossings involved, but for the most part it would be a rather easy hike, with very little elevation gain and loss. I liked the idea of hiking in a forested canyon, and I imagined that it would be a lot like the upper part of West Clear Creek or like Kinder Crossing.

During the week before our trip, we printed up the topographical maps and packed our backpacks in preparation for our backcountry adventure. Without all of Mary's things, our backpacks were very lightweight - in fact, they were so lightweight that I kept thinking that I was forgetting something! We also purchased a new bladder for myself (because my old one broke at the Kinder Crossing Trailhead) and a new tube tent, because our old one had seen better days.

On Saturday morning, July 14, we awoke at 5:00 a.m. and quickly got ready to leave for our weekend adventure. While John loaded the backpacks into the van, I awoke Mary and fed her; then, at 6:00 a.m., we left the house. We dropped Mary off at her grandparents' house, where they had a surprise waiting for her: a new walker! Oh, what a wonderful toy for her - as soon as she figured out that she could move in it, she started laughing her head off. She didn't even care that we were leaving her there the whole weekend, nor did she cry as we walked out the door.

After stopping for bagels and coffee, John and I drove to the Mogollon Rim, along SR 87. Once we reached Payson, we turned right onto SR 260 and drove through Star Valley and Little Green Valley towards Woods Canyon Lake, which is on FR 300. We took FR 300 to FR 169 - where we had cut down our Christmas trees in 1998 and in 2000 - and turned right. From there, we still had about twenty miles of dirt road before we would reach the Chevelon Crossing campground; fortunately, FR 169, an all-weather road, was in very good condition. John set the cruise control for forty-five miles per hour and did not have to touch the brake very often.

FR 169 ended at FR 504, and from there, Chevelon Crossing was another two miles away. We arrived at 9:15 to find that the campground was nearly empty, except for a few fishermen unloading their gear. John anticipated that this would be one of those hikes where we wouldn't see a single soul; we certainly hoped that this would be the case, because we were in need of some solitude.

We didn't linger long at the van; around 9:30, we were ready to go, so we shared a new trail kiss then embarked on our journey into Chevelon Canyon.

From the campground, we hiked cross-country across the rocky ground until we came to the trail, which cut through the river rock and immediately crossed the creek, eventually merging onto an old jeep road. The jeep road edged along a very large, green meadow that was lined with tall ponderosa pine trees, next to the canyon wall. Here, the canyon reminded me of West Clear Creek, and that was very much what I expected the rest of the canyon to be like.

We quickly learned that this canyon was not what we were expecting. As we left the jeep road, the trail became a narrow footpath that began to climb up the rocky slope of the canyon wall. Here, the foliage changed to pinions, agaves and prickly pears - not the type of foliage we expected to find in a "forested canyon". From the canyon wall, as we hiked higher and higher, we also noticed that the creek was quite different than we had expected. Chevelon Creek was as wide and as deep as the Verde River, but the waters were not flowing rapidly at all - in fact, the creek was quite calm.

The trail, however, did meet at least one of our expectations: we were expecting to do some route-finding, and that is exactly what we did that morning. After climbing and climbing for about fifteen minutes, we suddenly came upon a dead-end, as the rocky slope on which we were hiking suddenly became a sheer cliff wall, with out-jutting rocks. Obviously, we had missed a turn somewhere, so we hiked back downhill and proceeded to look for the right path. It didn't take us long to find it; we crossed the creek again, and continued our hike.

That happened to us two more times that morning. The first time, we went right past the next creek crossing and kept hiking upstream until we ran out of dry land. Nearby, there was a troop of girl scouts filtering water (people!), and the called out to us that the trail was right where they were standing, on a dam of rocks. We thanked them and continued along the trail. A bit further down, we saw a cairn but went right past it…and when the trail suddenly dead-ended again, we returned to the cairn and crossed the creek there.

After that, all hell broke loose. We got lost.

We had been following the footpath for about an hour, through some very diverse foliage. At one point, we found ourselves in a dense grove of young oak trees, in the middle of which was a campsite. Then, as we emerged from the oaks, we were back in the pinions and agaves again. Closer to the creek, though, we were forced to hike through areas that were literally choked with thorny wild roses, wild grapevines, and tall reeds. The area was so overgrown that route finding became very difficult. Eventually, we lost the trail completely, and no matter which way we would go, we could not find the trail at all! To make matters worse, we ended up bushwhacking through some of the thickest brush that we had ever seen just to get to the creek, because we were convinced that we needed to cross the creek at that point.

Upon reaching the other side of the creek, the conditions weren't any better. We bushwhacked through another dense patch of vines and shrubs until we finally emerged in the middle of a dry, grassy meadow. It took us an hour to reach that point, and by that time, I was completely exhausted from the bushwhacking that all I wanted to do was sit down and rest.

We cut through the meadow for about a hundred yards or so, looking for the trail. We found a cairn marking some sort of path that began to climb up the rocky slope of the canyon wall. It just didn't look right, so John scouted it out before coming to the conclusion that we were still lost. "Take a look at this," he suggested. "See what you think. If you can hike on this, we'll keep going this way."

I looked first at the rocky slope then across the creek at the beautiful, grassy meadow, where there appeared to be a trail. "I think that's where we need to be," I said to John, pointing to the other side of the creek. "This isn't right at all."

At that point, we knew what we needed to do, and that was what we did. We crossed the deep, wide creek. We trudged through the silty, thigh-deep water, using the slippery rocks as a guide (because the water wasn't so deep there), until we finally reached the other side of the creek. There, we found ourselves back on the trail - we were no longer lost.

However, we were completely exhausted. We stopped for a long packs-off break in the meadow to regroup before deciding what to do next. We were considering camping there then continuing on towards Chevelon Dam with only our day-packs. There were several campsites within the meadow, so all we had to do was choose one. Next to the fire ring, though, we found something that made us change our minds: a fire ant hill, on which there were hundreds of fire ants busy at work. We decided that it would be best to leave the fire ants alone and camp somewhere else.

For the rest of the afternoon, we managed to stay on the trail…although there were times when even that was difficult!

Soon after we began hiking again, we heard gunfire off in the distance - there were probably hunters, though I didn't think that there were any hunting seasons open during the summer. The gunfire continued for a while, then it stopped before we reached Durfee Crossing.

Just before Durfee Crossing, the trail became a little more difficult. Here, we had to walk along the water's edge, through an overgrowth of shrubs. One shrub in particular caught our attention. Though the leaves were consistent with the rose family, there was a little red fruit on it, which indicated that it was not a rose. The fruit looked like a wild pomegranate, but it was not that either. We are still not sure what this plant was, but we didn't want to find out the hard way by taste-testing the fruit!

We soon came to the most treacherous part of the trail: the ledge. Here, the trail followed a narrow ledge that was barely a foot wide. On one side of the ledge was a rock cliff; on the other was the creek, about five feet below. In order to cross this ledge, John side-stepped the entire way across, using finger holes in the rock cliff to keep him from falling backwards into the water. I slid across on my butt, with my feet dangling over the ledge, then got back onto my feet once the ledge widened out again.

At Durfee Crossing, we came upon an old jeep road, as well as another group of three backpackers - three men who were wearing khaki hunting clothes. At their campsite, which was up on a small mesa, there was a picnic table made of tree logs, at which they were sitting and cleaning their gear (I think one of them was cleaning a gun, but I wasn't sure). We were certain that they were the ones who were shooting their guns - we were not going to camp near them.

Around noon, we arrived at a campsite that was situated under several pine trees. At this point, we were completely exhausted, so we decided that it was time for us to set up camp and rest. It was also lunchtime, and our lunch consisted of our choice of either Sweet and Sour Pork or Chicken and Rice MRE's - we purchased those so that we could try something different, rather than eating the same old cheese and sausage.

We dropped our packs and unpacked our cookware and food. While I set up the gas stove, John went to pump water from the creek. When he returned, I explained to him what we needed to do to cook the MRE. "You boil two cups of water and pour it into this bag…" and as I said that, I picked up the plastic bag, which contained the freeze-dried chicken and rice, and the contents spilled out onto the ground!

"You ARE clumsy!" John remarked. "Let me do the cooking!" With that, he took the Sweet and Sour Pork from the food bag and prepared it while I cleaned up the remains of the chicken and rice. For the rest of the afternoon, John cracked jokes about the chicken and rice, such as, "Look at that weird scat! Some animal shit chicken and rice!" or "I'm hungry, I could sure go for some chicken and rice right about now." Smart-ass!

Just before lunch, we were joined by the girl scout troop - the same ones we had passed earlier that morning. They stopped when they reached our campsite, and I overheard them suggesting that they stop there and camp. However, their leader explained to them that we were going to camp there, so they continued on.

During lunch, a cool breeze began to pick up, and in the distance, I could see storm clouds gathering - a summer monsoon storm was approaching. After we ate our meal, we quickly set up our tent and covered up our backpacks with the tube tent to keep them dry should it rain. Then, we relaxed and waited for the storm to come - we were ready for it. Naturally, since we were ready for it, all it brought for us was wind and thunder; it passed over us quickly, and soon the skies were blue again.

Once the pending storm had passed, John and I decided to take a short swim. Since John was very tired, all he did was get his feet wet, but I waded in until the water was thigh-high. I didn't stay in long, though, because the rocks that lined the creek were beginning to hurt my feet. As I made my way back to shore, I slipped and fell into the water…and when I tried to get back up again, a crawdad pinched my toe! That put an end to swimming for the day.

Soaking wet, I returned to camp and stripped down to my underwear so that my clothes could dry, and John and I crawled into the tent to take a nap. We slept for about an hour and were awakened by the sound of approaching thunder and the voices of returning girl scouts. The girls were just ahead of the next wave of monsoon storms that were passing through the canyon. Not more than five minutes after they passed through our campsite, the skies opened up, and the rain fell heavily upon the land, soaking everything in sight…except for me and John, because we were safely hidden in the shelter of our tent. We laid on our Thermarests and listened quietly as the storm passed overhead.

The storm didn't last long, and soon the sun came out again. Refreshed from our nap, we emerged from our tent and went for a short walk up the trail, just to see where it went. We hiked for about a half of a mile and turned back when we reached the next creek crossing. Although we could have gone further, we didn't want to get our camp shoes wet (we weren't wearing our hiking boots), so we returned to camp.

It was five o'clock when we arrived back at camp: time to start up a campfire. While John spent time trying to get a campfire started, I cleaned up our pots and pans from lunch to prepare for dinner. As I did so, I noticed that more storm clouds were gathering - we were going to get hit by yet another wave of monsoon storms. "I think we'll be eating in the tent this evening," I announced.

And I was right. Before we even started to cook dinner, it started to rain again, so we climbed into the tent. John cooked our meal in the vestibule, under the rain fly of our tent, and as we ate dinner, we watched the rain pour down again.

The rest of the evening was dry, as that was the last of the monsoon storms for the night. We spent the evening sitting by the campfire and talking about everything from work to home, and we wondered if Mary was doing okay with her grandparents. Just before 9:00 p.m. (which was very late for us), we finally gave up on trying to stay awake, so we crawled into the tent and fell asleep.

We slept very badly that night, because our tent was situated on a downhill slope. All night long, we kept sliding down to the foot of the tent, which caused some pain in our necks and backs. We both awoke at 5:00 a.m., by which point we had given up on sleep and decided to start the day.

Our plan was to break camp by 8:00 a.m., which would get us back to the trailhead by 10:30. That would put us in Christopher Creek by lunchtime - and since I had dropped our extra lunch on the ground, we would have no choice but to eat lunch at the Creekside Restaurant (bummer!). After lunch, we would slowly wander back into town just in time to pick Mary up, sometime between 3:00 and 5:00 p.m., as promised.

In reality, because we were up so early that morning, we broke camp at 7:00 a.m. and began our hike back to the van. Now that we knew where the trail was, our return hike was much easier than it had been the day before, so we made it back to the van by 9:00 a.m. Along the way, we set up cairns at the point where we had gotten lost, to keep others from getting as lost as we had been.

Since it was so early in the day, we decided to blow some time by doing what any couple would do if they were childless for the weekend - we played naked in the back of the van! It had been a long time since we had done that, and we had certainly missed that naughty little part of our life!

To get back to civilization, John and I decided to take an alternate route; instead of returning the way we had come in, on FR 169, we decided to take FR 504 to FR 172 to FR 99, which would end up in Forest Lakes, on SR 260. All of the roads along this route were all-weather roads, though not as good as FR 169, and oddly enough, we hardly saw any people at all! The area, though extremely beautiful, was almost completely devoid of campers. Perhaps this would be a nice place for us to do some car camping later in the summer!

We arrived in Forest Lakes at 10:00, and by 10:30 (or at "Beer-Thirty"), we entered the small town of Christopher Creek. We ate lunch and drank two beers each at the Creekside Restaurant, where we had a lovely table by the window, overlooking the birdbaths and the petunia garden. What a perfect way to end a fun hike.

Then, we went home. We returned home at 1:30 and called John's parents to let them know that we were back. When John asked how Mary had been, they replied that she had been a little angel and that they had a surprise for us. A surprise! We wondered what it could be - did they buy us a walker for Mary to use at home?

After doing a little grocery shopping, we went to pick up Mary from her grandparents' house. Before anyone could say anything, John picked up Mary and noticed that she had little red blotches on her cheeks. "What have you got on your face?" he asked.

"She has them all over her body," Erika replied. "Mary has chicken pox."

Although they had pulled a description of chicken pox from the Internet and were convinced that Mary had them, they were relieved when we told them that she did not have chicken pox. We took a look at the red blotches on her body and said, "These are not chicken pox - these are hives." Mary had obviously had an allergic reaction to something she had ingested: either the Augmentin (an antibiotic) or the cran-raspberry juice that Erika had given to her.

"Great!" we said to them jokingly. "We give you our daughter for the weekend, and you damage her!"

But all's well that ends well. Mary's hives went away the next day, thus averting yet another visit to the doctor's office, and John and I had survived another fun adventure. Then, on Tuesday night, July 17, John and I celebrated our marital bliss with a night out at the Salt Cellar restaurant in Scottsdale. (We left Mary with her grandparents again.) Another great year of our marriage had ended, and another one was just beginning.

Return to Naked in the Woods.