Abort

Breaking in my birthday boots.

This week I tried to go on not one, not two, but three hikes that failed.

In general, this week was mixed. In the beginning of the week, it felt like I was doing a lot - seeing tons of things, taking advantage of all of the state and national parks, getting from one place to another while still managing to do fun stuff. I camped for two nights in a row, and camping always feels like an accomplishment. But then the last few days have been dud after dud.

My first hike of the week was mostly successful. It’s not quite fair to call it a failure, but I did not get to where I was supposed to be at the end, so it wasn’t perfect either. This hike was at the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, where I camped out on Monday night. I arrived there in the afternoon, set up my tent and then immediately went off on a hike. I was so excited! I hadn’t even broken in my brand-new birthday hiking boots yet! (Thanks, Aunt Lisa!)

I kind of wanted to do a summit hike, because when I looked at those beautiful mountains I yearned to climb them. But the summit trail would have taken 8-9 hours, and I obviously didn’t have that much time. So I settled for the Devil’s Hall trail, 4ish miles in and back through a “narrow, scenic canyon.”

The first mile or so wound through this very scenic, deserty/woodsy area with lots of cool trees and cacti. I loved it. The weather was perfect, the landscape exotic, the views of the surrounding mountains spectacular. And the trail, though unmarked save for a few signs at junctions, was easy enough to follow.

Then the trail dove down into a dry wash, or creek bed, which was full of huge boulders and, generally, rocks of all sizes. It required a lot of clambering and climbing, which I generally like.

The wash.

The only problem was that there were literally no trail markers whatsoever. Other than a sign that helpfully instructed, “Devil’s Hall continues through wash”, there were no indicators of the best way to get down it. And you might think well it’s pretty obvious, right? There’s one creek bed and you’re going in one direction, so how can you get lost? But actually it was really confusing at times. The wash wasn’t narrow, and it split a bunch of times. The only way I knew I was on the right path were these helpful cairns - small piles of stones - that I assume were put there by previous hikers.

A signpost.

They certainly weren’t official parks trail markers. Because there WERE none of those, and I really don’t get it. I don’t understand why the NPS would make the conscious decision not to mark a really confusing trail. How hard is it to swipe some paint on a few rocks . . . ? I asked myself this question often, especially on my way back.

I assumed there would be another sign at the end, when the trail transitioned into something called the Devil’s Staircase, which would lead to the Devil’s Hall. But when I reached what I was pretty sure was the end of the wash, there was no sign. Obviously. So I looked around and made what I thought was a pretty solid assumption that this was the Devil’s Staircase:

Right?!

I mean, what else could it have been? And if that wasn’t it, then I had no idea where it could be. So I climbed it.

After the staircase, according to a tiny map I found online, there was supposed to be a short walk to the Devil’s Hall. I didn’t know what that was, but I assumed I’d know when I found it. And I naively assumed that the path would be clear. But after I climbed the staircase, NOTHING became clear. There was no path. I kept walking, but there were just a bunch of huge boulders. That’s it. There wasn’t any obvious continuation. There were no cairns, no signs, no markers. Nothing that was obviously a Devil’s Hall. So I went back to the staircase to see if I had missed something, if it was possible that I had the wrong staircase. No way! There were no other climbable options, period.

I sat on a boulder for a while, trying to puzzle it out. I attempted to search online for a more detailed description of the trail, but as I was in a canyon surrounded by enormous rocky mountains, I did not, predictably, have much of a signal.

Well, there was nothing else I could do. I had no idea where to go. So I headed back. And going back was way more difficult than going in. The trail was virtually invisible, and all of the rocks in the wash looked the same. It was so freaking frustrating! I went off-trail at least three or four times before realizing the area didn’t look familiar and turning back. I relied on those rare, friendly cairns to signal I was in the right place, but there weren’t many of them.

At one point, I surprised a deer, which cantered wildly up out of the wash as it heard me coming. It ran up the hill, stopped in the trees and froze, staring down at me. I stopped too, and looked kindly up at it before moving very quietly and slowly forward to indicate I meant no harm. It was so cute. It watched me the entire time I was in view.

Can you spot it in this photo I took?

Hey buddy.

I have to say that I LOVE seeing wildlife. Plants and trees are cool, but they don’t excite me nearly as much as glimpsing a large wild animal. I really love animals. And whenever I see one in the wild, I feel so blessed and lucky. Remember the bear??

Anyway, apart from the deer sighting the walk back was really annoying. I just kept missing and losing the trail. Which isn’t surprising as, like I said, IT WASN’T MARKED!

Only after you hike an unmarked trail do you realize how much you appreciate a really well-marked one. All of the hikes I did in the Smoky Mountains and in the Hudson Valley were marked with paint, and super easy to follow. Out here, NOTHING is marked and I don’t understand. Why? Is it like, an environmental thing, the parks people don’t want to damage the nature with paint? How damaging can paint on a rock be? Or are they understaffed and just don’t have the resources to mark the trails? Or do they assume everyone hiking the trails has a really detailed map and killer instincts? Or is it just a weird coincidence that the hikes I’ve done weren’t marked, but others are?

At any rate. It was a good hike, a solid two hours, with varying terrain and cool things to see, but when I got back I looked up the trail and saw that I hadn’t made it to the real end, wherever that was, and I still don’t know where I went wrong. So, all in all, not a complete success. Maybe 90% there, but not full-term.

I’m not counting my exploration of the Carlsbad Caverns on Tuesday as a true hike, even though I was walking for an hour and a half down long, winding paths. This “hike” leads from the caverns’ natural entrance down 80 or so stories into the massive Big Room, which you can also reach by elevator. But it’s not really a hike, it’s just a steeply downhill walk along a carefully constructed concrete path that zigzags back and forth on the way down into the gaping mouth of the cave and then winds in and out of various insanely weird and cool rock and mineral formations deep, deep underground.

Into the mines of Moria!

Just one example of the weird shit in there.

It was one of the coolest things I’ve seen for sure, and I recommend it. But it wasn’t a hike.

My second aborted real hike was over before it even began. I had planned to do a 4-5 mile hike to these hot springs in the Gila National Forest in New Mexico on Wednesday. Unfortunately, I hadn’t consulted the weather forecast beforehand. You guessed it - rain. Rain, thunderstorms, rain and more rain.

I had to turn to Plan B, which was really disappointing. I stubbornly refused to give up on the idea of a hike, any hike - so in a brief clear spell I did the Catwalk instead, a short, stupid, lame walk along vaulted iron walkways through a canyon to a washed-out riverbed.

Yawn.

I did it because it’s one of the most popular hikes in the area, and it’s supposed to be iconic, history, engineering, blah blah blah. It was very lame, and to top it off it started pouring as I was walking back, and I got soaked.

At that point I had to decide what to do next. The rain interfered with both my plan to hike in the forest and my plan to camp out in the Cosmic Campground, a Dark Sky sanctuary where the views of the stars are supposed to be unreal. Rain and storms were predicted for the entire rest of the day in that area. I realized that camping there wasn’t going to be a realistic option, so I decided to find some random town between there and Phoenix, my next stop, where I could get a motel room. But then as I drove from New Mexico into Arizona, which was one of the most gorgeous, stunning sections of road I’ve driven so far - through crazy mountains and soaring rocky formations and beautiful forests - the sky cleared up and the scenery was so pretty that I thought about finding a campground in Arizona instead of going to a motel, which I didn’t really want to do, because that would mean hotels three nights in a row. I pulled over and researched campgrounds in Arizona, but in the end I decided to go to a motel after all, because I could hear the thunderstorms coming and it started raining again and I realized I couldn’t escape the weather here either. So camping got aborted, too, and I spent a boring but dry night in Safford, Arizona.

My latest and worst hike failure occurred just this morning. I drove from Safford to a trail outside Phoenix called Tom’s Thumb. I chose it because it had desert views, as opposed to urban views of Phoenix, and it was a summit hike. At only 5 or so miles, it would just take a few hours, and I’d finally get to do something after a disappointing day of doing nothing. Plus I’d get to see Arizona’s nature up close.

Take lots of water, all the website advised. And don’t go in the middle of the day when it’s hot. Well, I didn’t have a lot of choice on the timing, so of course I did go in the middle of the day. But I brought plenty of water - or so I thought. I didn’t fill up my Camelbak to the max, because I figured two liters plus my water bottle would be fine. I laced up my boots and stepped out into the 95 degree heat.

It was hot, but not intolerable. There was a slight breeze, and unlike Nashville and Mississippi, the air didn’t feel like gelatin. But yeah, it was still really hot. I layered on the sunscreen and set off.

Within just a few minutes I was suffering. And sweating. And drinking a lot of water. It was so hot, and it was uphill - not drastically uphill, but uphill enough to be really difficult when there was absolutely no shade. NO SHADE! I had read that there was “very little shade”, but I figured, I can handle it. I have a hat.

One uphill, shadeless trail.

Pretty early on in the hike I ran into a couple coming down. They were seniors, and they had made it all the way to the Thumb. So obviously I could. Right? I panted along for a little while, desperately seeking even the tiniest bit of shade. I only had a baseball cap, rather than a hiking-style cap with a wide brim (I lost mine. MUST get a new one), and I felt so exposed. I fashioned my UV-protected sweatshirt into a sort of cape-roof, draping it over my hat and stretching it out over my head to form a portable shelter as I walked. It was VERY fashionable. I had to stop every few hundred yards to take deep breaths and drink water. I was pouring sweat.

The latest look in Paris and Milan.

Finally (and by “finally” I mean 20 minutes into my hike) I found a sliver of shade that, if I huddled backwards against the rock, I could JUST fit within. Oh, sweet relief. I cowered in my little haven, breathing heavily and wiping sweat out of my eyes, for ten minutes or so. It was sooooooooo hot.

Eventually I found the strength to stand again, and when I set off I felt better. I could do this, I would make it. I would have to take a lot of breaks but that was okay. It was really hot; so what? I’d known it would be. I continued the ascent. Ten minutes later I collapsed into another wedge of shadow.

I took a long draw on my Camelbak. And then something happened.

Suddenly, abruptly, instead of water, I was sucking up air. No way. Surely the bladder was just bunched up in my backpack, preventing proper water flow? But when I checked, I made a very unpleasant discovery. Yes. The Camelbak was EMPTY.

I could not BELIEVE it! How had I consumed two(ish) liters of water after hiking a SINGLE MILE?! I had been on the trail for 45 minutes, tops.

This was baaaad. I poured what remained in my water bottle into the Camelbak; it formed an unimpressive little puddle at the bottom. I knew, without a doubt, that I didn’t have nearly enough water for the punishing mile it would take to get to the summit, let alone for the walk back down.

I sat there hopelessly in the shade. I had completed a mere one-fourth of the hike. I had consumed nearly all of my water, and I hadn’t gotten anywhere close to the top.

Abort! Abort!

I ate some snacks. I sighed. I got up. I rearranged my cape-roof. And I started back the way I came. Not long after this I encountered another hiker, also on his way down. He was shirtless. And hatless. He had earbuds in. All of these things boggled me. He passed me by and was gone.

I stumbled my way back down, stopping to snap a few photos (hey, at least the scenery was pretty) and somehow made it to my steaming car.

Now I’m in a Phoenix motel for the night. I’m disgruntled by three nights of hotels in a row. It’s expensive and feels like cheating, somehow. And I miss camping! I think it’s because my tent feels like my personal space, my own little home, whereas a hotel is so anonymous, so impersonal, and very much not mine. I really value having my own space - not just in a privacy kind of way, but a physical space that is comfortable and familiar to me, that feels safe and cozy and homey. And my tent is all mine!

Plus I miss being outside, to be honest. I miss having nothing more than a piece of nylon fabric between me and the beautiful, glorious world. I like falling asleep to the sounds of nature, I like tripping in and out of my tent on the way to the bathroom, I like waking up to the sky and sun. Here, I’m so protected, so locked into this room, in the middle of a grungy city, all concrete and cars. (To be honest I haven’t really explored Phoenix; it might be super nice. This street, however, certainly isn’t.)

And staying in a hotel doesn’t . . . doesn’t challenge me, I guess. It doesn’t make me reach outside the known bounds of myself. This is boring, this has been done. This might have been revelatory back in February, when I was doing it for the first time, when the possibilities of living a free, ecstatic life were just opening to me, but now it just feels like a cop-out. It feels like a rut, like nothing new. It’s a boring road trip where every night I just sit in a hotel room instead of going out and doing something. Because going out at night in a city by yourself is not actually that fun, and sometimes it’s even creepy.

Whereas if I’m camping, there’s no pressure to go out and do something lively at night, or be among other people. The only thing to do is watch the sky get darker. I like that ease, that simplicity.

I don’t know why I’m complaining. According to my itinerary, I am going to be doing a LOT of camping over the next few weeks. I’m sure I’ll get my fill.

This was just a week when not everything worked the way I wanted it to. Yet it was still such a busy week, and I did do so many things. I went to downtown Austin and to the Longhorn Caverns State Park, I hiked in the Guadalupe Mountains, I visited the Carlsbad Caverns and the White Sands National Monument in the same day, I took gorgeous drives through the southwest, I did a mini-hike in the desert. Yet look at me, beating myself up over stuff I can’t control. Come on, Abra! This is the old you. Get out of it!

This trip has been very different from my first one, back in February. For a lot of reasons and in a lot of ways, and I hope to discuss them in another post at some point. One of the ways in which it’s different is that it’s just not as intense, not as illuminating. I’m not often finding my thoughts running in joyous, thrilling new patterns, I’m not really discovering new truths, not overcome with moments of wonder and rhapsody. I don’t know why. I mean, I have some ideas, but they’re half-baked at this point. Guess you’ll have to stay tuned.