And it was the most beautiful foursome ever

Walk In The Park part 1

“Those who give up are those who die,” I screamed as I pushed through the pain shooting up my hip, through the tears running down my face, and through the hysteria that my mind was about enter. I knew if I did not make it to the ridge before sun down I would surely die on that mountain side.

It’s been a few days since what Robinson and I call our walk in the park. Looking back on it, and this sounds cliché, it seems like it did not even happen. It seems like it was just one 15 hour long dream. “You probably will not be able to fully comprehend what happened to us for a long time. It might be months before you come to that full realization.” He quipped on the long drive back to the cabin from Tuscon. I was staring out the window looking at the stars and thinking - trying to rationalize what I was feeling. “You know, I never feel a sense of accomplishment. I literally traveled around the world and I think to myself ‘anyone can do that,’ and now I am sitting here thinking about how we survived being stranded on that mountain, with everything going terribly wrong, and coming to the conclusion, ‘anyone could have done that.’ What I really should be saying is ‘we fucking did it! It was because of our training, and our strong will that we survived.’ You know not many people could have done that. Not many people would have come out the better.” I believed it then, and still now I have to remind myself I grazed by death and am here to tell you the tale.

Hunched over his lap top, staring at topological maps and ground cover, Robinson was formulating our day. We were on the lookout for potential habitats to sample for our bee population surveys. “It’ll be about 6 to 7 hours and 12 miles – with about a 2000ft elevation gain. Not that hard and not too steep.” He had designed our day to be considerate and not too strenuous due to the aggravating condition of my hip flexors.

A week ago, while we were searching for potential sites in the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, we climbed 3,000ft in elevation in 1.9 miles. The ligaments which help me move my leg up and down, also known as hip flexors, became strained. By the end of our 7 mile journey up and down the other side of the mountain I was unable to lift my foot more than a few inches above the ground. Knowing this Robinson had been overly considerate in allowing me to heal while still trying to achieve our objective.

We began to pack up for the day, “you have rain coat packed don’t you?” I asked him as I packed mine into my pack. Since teaching backpacking for 3 years I always make sure that I have the essentials packed with me. The saying goes to always bring something for if you get cold, if you get hungry, if you get lost, if you get thirsty, and if you get hurt. A proper day pack would have a rain coat/shell, head lamp, map/compass/gps unit, more food and water than you think you would need and a first aid kit. Between the two of us we had everything we would need for a simple day hike and sampling – each of our packs weighing between 25 and 30lbs.

As they say – it started off like any other hike. It was warm, clear, and the wind was an easy breeze. Soon after we started on the trail we ran into the birders, people who try to see all the birds on their bucket list. They tend to be in their late 60’s, silvered, and with binoculars around their necks. We said our pleasantries, “hello! See any good birds today,” and they would always respond with “oh, yes! Trying to see them all.”

It wasn’t too far into the trail we ran into our first obstacle. Robinson and I were chatting about elevation ecology of bees, you know this and that, when a rattle rang in the air. Robinson was leading and soon jumped back. Parked on a rock right in front of us was a coiled black tail rattlesnake. It was absolutely beautiful. I was enamored, taking a 1000 photos of it, while it soon relaxed and began to slither away. “You know what the saddest thing is? The rattlesnake round up that they have in Sweet Water. They kill them needlessly and for what?” Robinson agreed in one manner or another, and we were down the path again. “Thanks for the rattle!” I told the snake as we went around the bush and out of its’ way. We would run into 2 more juveniles before the day was through.

Sooner than later we left the dry creek bed and started to head up the mountain. At first the trail was relatively maintained. Through the pine-oak woodland the trail was easily identifiable, even with bunch grasses covering the way. The trail started out wide and soon tapered and became narrow. As soon as we were closer to the top of the ride the trail became a foot wide, hugged an exposed slope, with a drop of 500 ft on one side. “You know what they call them? Mule trails,” Robinson would explain later on our drive back from Tuscon.

These “Mule trails” were scary in themselves. The slope of the mountain wasn’t compact and hard like you would think a mountain should be, especially if you’re from the south where you call plateaus of the west mountains. It was a loose combination of duff, decaying pine leaves and top soil, and loose gravel. There was nothing keeping this trail in place, no barriers, nothing. It was just the relatively frequent use of the trail that compacted it and made it “stable”.

The wind was picking up, and we were still on the mule trail. I had to pull the brim of my hat down to make it snug around my skull. I could not and would not advert my gaze at anything than the next foot in front of me. My pack was weighing down on me at this point, and I could feel my hip flexor start to ache. One false move and down the slope I would go.
We finally came to shaded area for lunch. It was a nice relief to sit down and take off my pack. “We are going to have to pick up speed if we want to get finished before sunset.” By this point we had gone 5 miles in about 2.5 hours. We had 7 more to go and 4 hours to do it in. I scarfed down my ultimate cookie and Robinson finished his energy bar. Resting for about 15 minutes we were on our way again.

About to round the other side of the mountain we stopped to take in the view. “This doesn’t suck,” Robinson jokingly scoffed. He was right, it didn’t. The view was absolutely breath taking – like all the views of the Chiricahuas. As Halka Chronic would describe in his book, “Roaside Geology of Arizona”, the Chiricahuas were a wild orgy of volcanic eruptions 30 to 25 millions years ago. Even orgies could have their own beauty – I thought.

As soon as we rounded the other side the trail became over grown with thick stands of madrone bushes. Madrones were characterized with smooth bark, soft leaves and are relatively pleasant to pass through. We were both pretty amazed at how thick they were over grown, to come from a part of the trail where you could relatively make out which direction you needed to go – to immediately having to push yourself through a thicket of Madrones seemed weird. “Are you sure this is the trail? It seems too over grown.” “Yeah, the GPS says its right here.”

That GPS would become our only life line to the reality that should be, but wasn’t happening. The federal government has various types of categories for the land that it owns, and with each category there is a type of management that comes with it. The most popular is the National Parks – the Guadalupe Mountains is one of them. National parks are relatively maintained and have clear trail heads. They keep information up to date about the state of the trails. Then comes the national forest – which the Chiricahuas are. They more rugged and inaccessible than the national parks. They tend to have less money allocated to them and less staff to main the trails. They also have more areas that have been denoted by congress to be classified as wild lands. Wild lands are tracts of land in which no development can occur – other than trail maintenance. The area that we had just entered, with the over grown Madrones was a wild area in a national forest.

“The trail should pick back up at any moment.” With the GPS unit in his hand, Robinson lead the way. We continued to fight our way through the Madrones. “Hey! At least these are nice trees. They don’t have any thorns on them!” Laughing we continued.

The slope of the mountain changed from the relatively solidified duff that we were walking on earlier to broken pieces of rock that was held in place by patches of plants. It was difficult to walk on, and try to transverse in a straight line. “Just lean into the slope and that should keep you relatively stable,” I told myself as the patches of vegetation became wider.

As we rounded the side to make it across the ridge there was a large gap between vegetation. Robinson foraged ahead with ease and I was soon to follow. “Lean into the mountain,” I thought. As I made it to the other side, and was about to put my foot on the next bunch of grasses, the slope went out from underneath me. My heart stated to race, I screamed, and shouted, “no, no, no, no!!!!” My knee took the brunt of my fall as my backpack pulled me down. As I slid I grabbed for anything that would stop my fall, while everything slipped through my fingers. My heart clinched because I absolutely had no control. 50ft I fell, it seemed like an eternity and a passage through time. There was 1000ft in front of me to the end of the road.

Robinson heard me scream, and he came rushing back. I was able to stop because a bunch of grass slowed me down. I was cradling my knee, which now throbbed with pain. “Are you okay?!” Fighting back my tears I looked up at him, “as okay as I am ever going to be.” “Here let me help you up,” he said as he extended the end handle of my insect net that had fell out of my pack as I fell. When I got up to where he stood, he asked me again and I assured him. “I am okay, we need to keep going.” He turned back around and continued forward. I wanted to cry. I wanted to sob, but I know I couldn’t. I had to move.

From this point forward I became internally focused. I was only processing things from the way they felt from me and for the most part I couldn’t process Robinson. At the time I thought he was keeping it strict and collected, pushing forward into the brush. Later he would tell me from Tuscon that he was freaking out, he had his own internal struggles, he was also terrified.

“You know we can turn back, we can go down the other way.” He told me as I stood there slightly shaking from what just happened. Looking back, and knowing that it was bad, and we had been at this for a few hours I thought that it would eventually get better. At the time I thought we were more than half way through. We had only an hour and a half of sun light and we were on this exposed surface of the mountain. “No, let’s get moving.”

What was Manzenta covering the mountain was now a bush called buck bush. As the name might allude it was filled with thorns. Robinson kept on following the GPS map of the trail, “see that ridge? We just need to make it over, and we can make it to the canyon before dark.” I believed him, and I know he believed himself. We kept on pushing forward.
My hip flexors began to wane. In combination with my now busted knee, I was moving slowly. Robinson was quick on his feet. “Are you with me?” He would say ever so often, and I would call out if I was or not. He’d wave his stick in the air, and wait til I met him there. Then we would move onward again.

Robinson was a good ways ahead of me when I came another wide gape of vegetation. I knew I couldn’t go up and if I went down I would have to go through the thick of buck thorn. What I had to do was to jump up higher than a small yucca plant. With a large inhale I jumped forward, my legs spread as far as I could to connect the two patches of vegetation. Again, like last time, as my foot landed I started to slip. I was slowly falling downward onto towards the yucca.

A yucca is a type of succulent plant that is known as these parts as the apache dagger. It stabs, it digs, and it impales. With my stance as it was I slowly going to be impaled by the yucca through my groin. With my insect net I plowed it into the ground above me. I scrambled for anything to grab onto and there again nothing. My net sank into the ground and I was able to pull myself up. I let out a deep yell and mustered all that I could to pull myself up right. First I got onto my knees, the pain shot through me. Then I tried to stand up and my hips almost gave out. That’s when I started to realize the gravity of everything.

A sense of panic sat in, and a fire started to burn inside. My eyes began to strain and shift rapidly and all I wanted to do was sit down and cry. I wanted to let out the hollow scream that was engulfing me. I could feel myself starting to hyperventilate. I knew that was the hysteria setting in and I knew I couldn’t let it happen. “You can do this,” I would say out loud to myself, in between sobs, as I stabbed my insect net pole into the ground and pushed myself forward, “you can do this. We can do this.” Over and over I said this as my body shook in exhaustion.

Soon I was able to regain exposure and Robinson heard some of the commotion. “Are you okay?” He yelled back at me, “I am okay. I am okay. We need to keep going.” He waited for me again to meet up with him to go through the buck thorn bush. I started to laugh, “this is all ridiculous. This is the most ridiculous thing ever.” “I know, tell me about it.” “Where Is the trail? Where the fuck is it?” “It must have been washed out during the flood, it must have been eroded away.” I laughed some more, because there was nothing else I could do. “We need to get moving we only have an hour of day light left.”
“We’re going to have to go through there. It’s the only way.” It was a big patch of buck brush – waist high. I laughed. “okay, I suppose.” Robinson went through, “you’re going to have to step on it to get through.” He escaped, and as soon as I went in I fell over. I fell right on the buck bush. “This is exactly what I didn’t want to happen!” “Did you fall into the bush?” “Oh god, yeah. I did, I fucking did.” Robinson couldn’t see me nor me him. At this point I didn’t cry – the pain was incredible. Pushing myself, pressing into the thorns I moved myself upwards. With my legs bleeding I pushed myself to meet Robinson once more.

By the time I escaped the bush tears were streaming down my face. He asked me again, “are you okay?” I laughed hysterically, “I am not sure what I can be at this point. Can you do me a favor though? Can you get my water bottle out of my pack?” “Sure thing.” Before I had left I had filled one of my waters with electrolyte packets, and this was the one that he was pulling out for me. As he did I looked out towards the valley out to Rodeo, NM. There was low hanging clouds and rain falling on the other ranges. It was beautiful. “Hey, despite this being terrible, that’s incredible.” Robinson turned around and looked at how the sun was turning the cliffs shades of orange and purple. “Yeah, it sure is.” I sipped my water, gave back to him to put back into my pack and we were on our way again.

The sun was disappearing behind the dark clouds. I could sense the moisture in the air and knew it was about to rain on us. As we reached the edge of the ridge, we had to climb upwards. What seemed like the trail populated itself. At the top I felt the cold sensation of precipitation. “You know that’s not rain, right? It’s sleet.” “Fucking great, now we are going to have deal with hyperthermia.” We both took off our packs and quickly took out our raincoats. “See! Told ya that this might come in handy. Always be prepared!” He looked at me with a half grin, “okay, see that ridge? If we make it over to that one the canyon is on the other side. We can make it.” I looked across the winding mountain side and saw the same shitty substrate that we had been walking on. I held my breath and exhaled, “looks like we have no other choice. Sun sets in 30 minutes and then we have only 30 minutes of ambient light.”

Onward we went.

This side of the mountain was no better than the other side. If anything it was worst in some aspects. The slope was steeper and there was more buck bush than anything. My legs were becoming more and more useless. My right hip flexor was the one that would usually go out, and now with all the extra strain I was starting to not be able to lift my left leg as high as any more.
Robinson kept quick with the pace and I was soon behind him. Occasionally I would become entangled with various vines or plants and I would scream, “get off me plant,” in frustration. On the drive back from Tuscon I asked him if he heard me screaming that, “oh yeah, I heard most of what was going on.” At that moment I felt that the mountain was out to get me, that everything that I did was going to have me end up dying on the side of the mountain. I felt doomed.

Waiting at a washed part of the mountain Robinson was assessing the situation. “We’re going to have to jump across.” I looked at it and knew that I wouldn’t make it, but I had no other choice. Robinson jumped across and slipped, but he was able to catch himself. I looked at him dead straight in the eyes and took a deep breath. I leaped as far as I could, I made it and just as soon I did the slope gave out from underneath me. I slipped into the draw, slamming my arm between two rough sticks – cutting up my wrist. Robinson reached out and pulled me up once more. I sat there crying, and he asked me those fatal words, “are you okay?” I looked up at him and started to laugh through my tears. “This is so fucked. I am so tired of this orgy. I am so over it.” “Orgies are dangerous!” Laughing he helped me up back onto my feet and we continued.

At this point I was simply exhausted. Mentally I was a fragile mess and physically my whole body was shaking. I knew I couldn’t stop. I knew I couldn’t slow down. I knew I had to push forward. No sooner than we had started again I was stabbed in the leg by an apache dagger. I screamed, I started to cry and I started to lose my mind. I fell down to the ground and grabbed my leg. I was hyperventilating. Robinson rushed over, “come here, come here.” He helped me stand up, and gave me a hug. “It’s going to be okay, we going to get off this mountain.” That hug brought me back to reality. “We got to keep on moving.”

As we came to the other side, closer to the next ridge, the rocks became larger. I started to fall even more. My slips became more frequent as I became more fatigued. Robinson was way ahead of me at this point, and my muscles shook. The rocks became boulders and I was unable to actively push myself up on them. I had to pull myself. I slipped again and started to slide down the mountain once more. I grabbed, scrapped to catch onto the boulder next to me. Hysteria sat in again, the fog returned and I couldn’t keep it together. I started to sob, I started to let out all the angst. I looked up at the sky and the sun was already setting – we had only 30 minutes to get off this side of the mountain, to climb these rocks, and to find safety. To be stuck on an exposed surface with no shelter or fire was a death sentence.

“Those who give up are those who die,” I screamed as I pushed through the pain shooting up my hip, through the tears running down my face, and through the hysteria that my mind was about enter. I knew if I did not make it to the ridge before sun down I would surely die on that mountain side. “Those who give up are those who die,” I screamed as I threw my soon to be useless legs over one rock onto the other. “Those who give up are those who die,” as I pushed through my chest pounding. “We are not going to die, not this way.” I screamed as I over came one obstacle over another. I picked up a stick laying on the ground next to me and plowed it into the earth above me, pulling myself upwards, pulling my legs behind me. “You can do this. We can do this. We are going to survive.” I kept on repeating it over and over and over and over as the tears choked me.

Robinson waited for me as he saw me struggling to come forward. He saw the streams of tears down my face. I was so mottled in my feelings that I am not even sure what was said at that moment. I saw the look in his eyes, I saw the same look of desperation that was in mine. Knew what we had to do. “Where’s the trail? What does the GPS say?” “We’ve been following it for some time – its just not here. We just need to get up on this ridge and that will be the way to the canyon.”