October 28, 2001

"Hoolie Crap"

As Halloween approached, the weather finally began to cool down in the desert, bringing with it the beginning of our desert hiking season. This year, we were looking forward to returning to the Superstitions for more hiking adventures, because we would now be able to get to some of the less-accessible trailheads - the ones that required a four-wheel drive vehicle to get there. And the first one on our list would be the Tortilla Trailhead, which was located about six miles east of Tortilla Flat, on SR 88 (otherwise known as the Apache Trail). John had read that the first quarter-mile of the road to the trailhead was a challenging four-wheel drive road, and he was anxious to give it a try. Once we reached the Tortilla Trailhead, we would have the chance to hike the Hoolie Bacon Trail #111, a trail named for an old local rancher, John A "Hoolie" Bacon. The trail is four miles in length (one way) and begins about a tenth of a mile from the trailhead, branching off of the J.F. Trail #106. (The J.F. Trail is also named for an old-time local rancher - Jack Fraser - and ends at the Woodbury Trailhead.) The Hoolie Bacon Trail then ends at a junction with the Red Tanks Trail #107 - the trail that goes into Upper LaBarge Box. We were hoping to make it all the way to the Red Tanks Trail that day, and if we were feeling up to it, we could explore a little bit on the Red Tanks Trail before heading back to the trailhead. The plan was to do this hike on Saturday morning; then, on Sunday, John would go to the office to get some work done. A nice plan in theory, but when Saturday morning came, we just weren't ready to go! We did not have any topo maps printed, nor did we have our stuff put together for the hike - we didn't have time, because our week had been extremely hectic. John's grandparents had been in town for another visit, and on Friday night, we took Mary to a Halloween party at her day care center. When we woke up Saturday morning, at 7:00 a.m., we looked at each other and said, "Sunday?" That gave us much more time to prepare for our hike. On Saturday, while John worked at the office to get some of his projects done, I shopped for supplies for the hike. That night, before going to the Strunks' Annual Halloween Party, John printed up the topo maps, and I set out all of our gear so that we could easily load it up in the morning. Then, we dropped Mary off for the night at her grandparents' house to spend the night, so that John and I could have a nice evening out among friends… Of course, we spent most of the party in front of the television set, cheering on the Arizona Diamondbacks in Game One of the World Series, in which they spanked the New York Yankees 9-1! What a game! The next morning, John and I awoke at 5:30 a.m. and got ourselves ready to go. On the way out of town, we picked Mary up from Grandma and Grandpa's house and announced to her, "We're going hiking!" She was very excited to hear that - Mary loves being in the outdoors, even though she hates the car ride to get there! Once we had Mary in the car seat, it was time to go. We took SR 51 south to the Loop 202, then took the Loop 101 south to US 60. From US 60, we exited on Idaho Road, or SR 88 - a windy, twisty road that goes past Canyon Lake to Tortilla Flat. From Tortilla Flat, after the pavement ended, we kept going another six miles until we reached Forest Road 213, a three-mile, four-wheel drive road that would take us to the Tortilla Trailhead…if we could get there! The first quarter-mile of the FR 213 certainly put the Jeep to the test. Parts of the road were a series of "stair steps" going up at a very steep angle. Some of these steps were about a foot high, which made it very difficult even for the Jeep to climb uphill. The tires were spinning, dirt was flying, and I could even smell the rubber burning as John gunned the engine in a last ditch effort to get the Jeep up the hill. And the Jeep climbed up the stair steps, up the hill, over the rocks and through the ruts, jostling all of us in the process (good thing Mary was asleep). I held onto the "oh shit!" handle and clenched my teeth, just hoping that the Jeep wouldn't overturn or blow a tire or something else devastating like that. But, of course, John's daddy taught him how to drive like that. John's skillful driving got us up the hill and over the obstacles without any damage to us or to the Jeep. Then, once we passed the last of the major challenges, he said to me, "You realize now, if we break down, we're going to have to call Janice and Danny to come and rescue us." (They had just bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee, too.) I replied to him, "No, what you would have to do is call your father and tell him to go get Janice's Jeep to come and get us! He's the only one who would be able to drive on that road to rescue us!" The next 2.5 miles of FR 213 were not bad at all - it was super-slab compared to what we had just been through! Along the way, we had some great views of the Superstition Mountains. A mile before we arrived at the trailhead, we were able to see what was left of the Tortilla Ranch: a corral, a water tank, a windmill, and a concrete slab where the ranch house used to be. (That was the beginning of the Peter's Trail #105- another trail named for an old-time rancher of the Superstitions.) Just beyond the ranch, we came to the Tortilla Trailhead, where we would begin our hike of the day. After parking the Jeep at the fence, we took a few moments to prepare for our hike and to let Mary play around to work off some of her pent-up energy. At 9:00 a.m., we were finally ready to start hiking. The first tenth of a mile of our hike began on the J.F. Trail #106 - a 10.2-mile long trail that ends at the Woodbury Trailhead. (That is the trailhead to go to if you want to hike to the Indian ruins in Angel Basin, as we did in December 1998. Part of that route falls on the J.F. Trail, too.) At the trail junction, then, we took the route to the right - the Hoolie Bacon Trail - and followed that uphill for a little ways. The climb here was not steep, and we handled it with great ease. Along the way, we passed right by a rattlesnake, which was coiled up on the right side of the trail. John walked right next to him without even seeing him - I'm surprised that he didn't step on him! I, too, went right past him and did a double take when I realized what I had just seen out of the corner of my eye! "Holy crap!" I called out to John. "We just went right past a rattlesnake…and he didn't even rattle at us!" Without disturbing our friend, I used the zoom lens on the camera to take a picture of him. He still didn't move or rattle his tail, for which I was grateful - there's nothing like the sound of a rattlesnake to send shivers up and down the spine! I'm not at all afraid of snakes, but I do take the rattle of a rattlesnake very seriously. After taking my picture, we left the scene as quickly as we could, so as not to give our friend a reason to shake his tail. As we continued along the trail, we learned a valuable lesson about trail descriptions. If the trail description says that the trail may be overgrown in some places, plan on bushwhacking. After we crested the hill and started downhill towards Tortilla Creek, we began hiking through a series of thorny plants that scratched us up without mercy. Not only were there scrub oak and other plants that were native to the region, but there was one non-native plant that had completely taken over: the cat-claw mimosa, a thorny bush that had been brought over from Thailand. Otherwise known as the "Wait-a-Minute", the cat-claw mimosas have thorns resembling the claws of a cat, and they catch onto your clothing, forcing you to call out to your partners "wait a minute!" while you get yourself unhooked. The scratches that they leave behind on your legs and arms are quite painful and burn after a while. It wasn't long before John and I were covered with scratches. And yet, we kept going. After crossing the dry Tortilla Creek a few times, the trail soon began to climb up to a small pass. Along the way, John spotted a concrete tank, about a hundred feet off of the trail, next to a tree. By the time he saw it, though, we had already started climbing the hill - I couldn't even see it from where I was standing - so we decided to visit it on the way back down. The trail going uphill was just as bad - if not worse - than the rest of the route. The short but slightly steep hike uphill was very unpleasant, because the thorns of the cat-claw mimosas slowed our pace and made us quite miserable. Upon reaching the pass, we decided to take a break to assess the damage to our legs and arms. "Okay, this sucks," I said. And John agreed. Normally, John would not have cared so much about the thorns ripping into his legs, but this time, he was just as miserable as I was. His legs were burning from the little scratches, and he was now debating on whether or not we should continue. In fact, we didn't go any further than a tenth of a mile from the pass before John stopped hiking. He stood in his tracks, assessing the trail and the tangle of cat-claw mimosas ahead of us, and he said something that I did not expect him to say: "Let's go back. This just isn't fun anymore." I love you, John! Instead of taking the same route back to the Tortilla Trailhead, John suggested that we do a little off-trail hiking. In The Hiker's Guide to the Superstitions (by Carlson), the Hoolie Bacon trail description suggested an alternate route through Tortilla Creek to the Peter's Trail. It would add less than a mile to the trip, and we would have to walk FR 213 for a little ways back to the Jeep. Furthermore, it would not be as overgrown as the Hoolie Bacon Trail - that was definitely a plus! Although I knew that it would involve a lot of boulder-hopping, I was up for the idea, because anything would be better than getting ripped up by the cat-claw mimosas! As we reached the bottom of the hill, I was finally able to see the tank that John had pointed out earlier. We decided to check it out, to see if there was any water to be found inside of it. Getting there, though, was more trouble than it was worth, because there were too many thorns to contend with. John made it all of the way there, despite the thorns, only to discover that the tank was bone dry. Upon coming to the last creek crossing, John instructed me to stay in the creek. Just as I had anticipated, it was indeed a much easier hike than the Hoolie Bacon Trail. There was some boulder-hopping involved, but for the most part, we had to walk on river rock. That slowed my pace slightly, but as I said before, it certainly beat walking through the thorns! It was also much more scenic than the trail - we both enjoyed it a lot. Mary, on the other hand, decided that it was time to throw a temper tantrum (ah, toddlers!). As we reached the junction with the Peter's Trail, we were forced to stop briefly to calm Mary down. When we tried to give her something to drink, though, she insisted on throwing her tippy cup onto the ground while she screamed her head off. Then, just as we got her calm enough to put her back into the carrier, she began to scream again. Fortunately, this fit was short-lived, and she was soon quiet again as soon as we started hiking. Once we were on the Peter's Trail, it was only an easy half of a mile to the trailhead. We got lost once after missing a cairn at a creek crossing, but we quickly found it again. The trail itself was not much different from the Hoolie Bacon Trail in that it was a bit overgrown, but we only had to suffer through the thorns for about fifteen minutes. We soon arrived at the trailhead, where we found the windmill and the water tank at Tortilla Ranch. Here, we spread out a blanket and put Mary down on it so that she could eat her lunch; then, John left us to go get the Jeep. He anticipated that it would be a half an hour or so, but only five minutes had passed before he returned with the Jeep. It turned out that we were closer to the Tortilla Trailhead than we had originally thought. After lunch, it was time to go - we still had to get out of there, and rest assured, I was a little bit nervous about going down those stair steps at the end of FR 213. (I wasn't worried about John's ability to maneuver over those obstacles, but mistakes do happen.) "How about if you take some pictures of the Jeep going down those steps?" John suggested. "That way, we can show everyone what it was like." "Sure!" I said. So, when we came to the first big obstacle, a quarter of a mile from SR 88, I jumped out and took a few pictures of the Jeep, crawling in its lowest gear down the hillside. Then, I got back inside to drive to the next one. Finally, we came to the last and most challenging part of the road: going down the foot-high stair steps. I jumped out of the Jeep and took pictures as I watched the front tires slip down one step and come to a rest on the next one. My heart leapt as I watched the body of the Jeep jolt slightly from one side to another, like it was going to tip over, but it remained steady. Then, John called me back to the Jeep. "Why?" I called out, walking towards him. "Just get in!" he shouted. "You'll see why!" I dashed over to the passenger side of the Jeep and climbed up the stairs to get to the door. That was when I saw that the rear tire was three or four inches off of the ground! "Holy shit!" I shouted, and with that, I reached up to open the door to the Jeep. (Keep in mind that the passenger door was chest-high now!) I jumped inside, quickly buckled myself in, and grabbed onto the "Oh Shit" handle. With my teeth clenched, I could only watch as John let his foot off of the brake and allowed the Jeep to roll down off of the last step, onto the road. We both gasped when the front end nearly touched the ground, but soon thereafter, the rear wheels came off of the step and we were level again. Whew! At that point, I started laughing hysterically and shouting "holy crap!" over and over again. "That was so cool!" I said. "I can't believe that!" And in the backseat, buckled safely into her car seat, Mary continued her running commentary about "Dada", just as happy as could be, as though nothing had happened. As soon as we were back on pavement, John pulled into a pull-out so that we could switch drivers - it was my turn to drive the Jeep, so that he could rest. (Not that he has to twist my arm to get me to drive the Jeep…) I drove the Jeep the rest of the way home. We arrived at home around 3:00 p.m. that afternoon, with plenty of time to spare before game two of the World Series. We spent the rest of the evening nursing our cuts and scrapes while we watched Randy Johnson pitch a shut-out game against the New York Yankees - what a great way to end an adventurous day!

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