Monday, May 16, 1994

We all slept well that night. The morning sun woke us to the sight of an antelope herd cavorting in the valley below. They were apparently on the way to some watering hole. Happy hour comes early to those white- rumped gazelles. Then they spend the rest of the day recycling grass. Speaking of which, it's always amazed me the way sheep can turn grass into wool.  

It took us several hours to organize all the food and camping paraphernalia, and to figure out who was going to carry what. Thank goodness, Jason can carry a lot of weight. I tried to avoid carrying my camera, at least 5 pounds of camera and lenses, but Jason's point and shoot wasn't working right, so in went my obese constant companion, and all its accompanying devices.

After a couple of traditional self-timed pictures by the bus, we were off! Ready to accept anychallenges the Gila had to offer. Or so we thought.

It was only 10:00, but already hot. The trail started out deceptively easy. A descent of about a mile and 800 feet to Rain Creek. The trail information hadn't mentioned any trout fishing in Rain Creek, and it was so dry we thought there might be no water. Maybe Rain Creek was a creek only when it rained. We were very reassured on making the decent to find not only cool, clear water, but some trout feeding in the larger pools. Fishing was one of the objectives here, in addition to the 50-mile extravaganza. A mile a year for me, and 2 miles for Jason. What a way to celebrate - or maybe pay penance for - my first half-century of living. Anyway, it was great to see some fishable water with at least some small trout.

The creek was lined with pines and oaks, and was a cool oasis in the heat. But there was no time for dilly- dallying, as we had over 8 miles to make for the day. We headed right up the climb from Rain Creek, over a ridge to the West Fork of the Mogollon River. The climb up didn't seem particularly difficult at first. We were a little surprised, as the map indicated that this section of the trail was not recommended for livestock. I had picked this route with that in mind, as it meant no horse shit to walk through, and no worry about spooking horses on a steep trail.

Suddenly the trail became much more difficult. Aha!, we thought, this is where it gets tough. After a few minutes, it not only became tough, it was virtually impossible and we realized we had made a really foolish error and had gone off on a game trail. Not realizing how long we had been off the trail, the question was whether to continue on and try to intersect the trail ahead, or double back and find where we had lost it. Not being one to double back, I decided that we should go on. Bad decision. The "trail" got worse, and worse. We got into some small, loose rocks on a steep slope. It took all my strength to move one foot 12 inches ahead of the other, and then I slid back 6 inches in the rocks. Twice I felt like my pack was literally going to pull me over backwards and I was going to slide backwards down the mountain like a helpless turtle. That would be a Kodak moment for sure.

Finally we made it to the top of the ridge. We found an old fire ring and thought we must be on the trail. Even though it was quite faint, that was what we expected. We followed that trail across an open mesa, which fortunately intersected with the real thing. Surprise, surprise, however. We had not made the required altitude yet. We were already exhausted from the lost trail incident, but the real trail headed up towards a big rock outcropping at least 400 feet above us. At least we were relieved to be on the real trail again, and headed up. It was very steep and very rocky. Hard on a tenderfoot like me. The rocks slipped so much that my feet were writhing around like two nematodes mating with themselves. This would take a toll on my feet and slow me down for the remainder of the trip.

We finally made the summit, and stopped for a drink of water and a rest. The ascent had been much more difficult than we anticipated. Losing the trail had cost of lots of time, and even worse, lots of energy. We were already starting to doubt if we could do the entire 50 miles. Even Jason was wondering.

So we began the descent to the Mogollon's west fork. The trail was the same - steep and rocky. For years some of my hiking companions had complained that going down was as hard as going up, because of the pressure on the knees and ankles. The constant banging of the 50-pound pack on knees that weren't built to take the shock. This was the first time I ever experienced that wonderful sensation. One that I could live without. I couldn't make any better time downhill than up.

When we finally made the creek, it was already late. Even though we'd made only 6 of the 8.5 miles we were scheduled for, I was too tired to go on. We still had to climb out of that canyon and had 2.5 miles to go before we reached the Mogollon. Even Jason was too tired to go on. He even threw up, apparently from exhaustion.

We found a nice campsite and got everything set up. We talked for a while about what to do. We talked about possibly using this as a base camp for day hikes instead of carrying our packs. A particularly wimpish option. But it would allow us to do a lot of fishing. We might do 50 miles that way. No packs. Neither of us could believe that we were talking about wimping out. We decided to sleep on it and see how we felt in the morning.

I lay down and rested. Jason went fishing. After an hour or so, I got up and fished a while, too. The pools in that part of the creek were shallow and the fish were very small. I actually caught one that was about 2 inches long. The largest was about 5 inches. A trout dinner would have been nice, but my policy is not to keep any fish smaller than my pecker, so it was freeze-dried food for dinner, instead.

We went to bed as soon as it was dark. About 8:00 or so. I slept like a log that night. Woke up in the fireplace. Ha! Ha! Only a joke. I usually don't sleep well on backpacking trips. Something to do with the hard, bumpy ground, I think. We do sleep on insulating pads that are about a half-inch thick, but they don't provide much comfort.