by J A Raikes
If you haven’t been on a hike in a state park, let me draw you into the glory of state-protected mother nature: There are gorgeous views as far as the eye can see (as long as you don’t look back to where you drove in from) and relatively untouched nature everywhere. In the Catalinas, this means cacti blooming with orange and pink flowers, small plants covered in yellow-greens and browns and there is wildlife everywhere. As you enter, a few dirt trails branch off in several directions, depending on the type of hike you’re interested in and the level of intensity you’d prefer. I’ve been hiking most of my life and while I’m not especially in-shape from sitting at a desk every day answering phones, I have made it a priority to get to the gym a few times a week. So I chose a trail that I’ve taken a few times, knowing in about three miles I’d have a couple of options as to how far into the park I would like to go. I was looking for overnight camping, so I knew the general direction I would need to go to get away from the crowds of weekend-warriors trying their hand at being outdoorsy.
I set a good pace for a while, covering quite a bit of ground in a short amount of time. Being “lanky” helps when you want to get a move on quickly. The sun beat down on me and in no time, I worked up a healthy sweat. I kept up the pace for a while until the trail thinned and there was only the occasional other hiker that would pass by. Typically, I don’t like to rush through a hike. I feel like it defeats the purpose of enjoying nature if you’re just in it for the destination, but at the same time, I also like to make a quick break from the pack.
In about half an hour, I reached a trail marker placed by the rangers, detailing info about the different destinations ahead. The sign read, “Romero pools, 2.8 miles. Romero Pass 6.4 miles. Split Mt. Lemmon trail & West Fork Sabino Trail.” The most popular trail on this branch of the park was for the pools and I knew from experience that most hikers would stop there for a rest and then turn back to head home. It was about a two-hour hike just to the pools, and I decided I would head towards the Mt. Lemmon trail, which would take a few more hours beyond that. It was hot out and there would be more options for shade once I got past the pools.
As I trekked onward, I took occasional breaks for rest and refueling, breaking into the box of breakfast bars and taking occasional sips from my water. Most people surprisingly don’t realize that dehydration is your biggest enemy when you’re hiking in Arizona. There are a ton of poisonous creatures and scary predators like diamondback rattlesnakes and mountain lions but you’re less likely to be harmed by anything like that if you’re paying attention to where you’re going. Instead, it's the dehydration that ends up catching more people off guard because they don’t think to drink water until they’re thirsty. Take a tip from a Tucson native - if you’re thirsty, you’re already dehydrated and you’re fighting an uphill battle to replenish those fluids. The key to successful hiking in a hot climate is to drink even when you’re not thirsty so your body doesn’t start shutting down before you think to refuel it.
I continued onward for a few miles, enjoying the desert landscape and the occasional bird or small critter I came across. I passed Romero Pools and stopped to enjoy the strangest of sights you can see in Tucson: standing water. The pools aren’t large and by the summertime, they’re usually mostly dried up, but the mountains do get a light dusting of snow in the winter and the runoff is the chief source of water for these pools. A few young couples and a family with several kids were enjoying the pools today. The kids were splashing and playing in the water and the adults were eating a picnic lunch. I took a few minutes to enjoy the sights and rest under a palo verde tree and then I was up and going again, continuing through to Romero Pass for an hour or so.
Everything seemed to be going well. I was alone in nature and I could literally feel the tension in my shoulders and back seeping out of my muscles from sitting in that horrible desk chair. I could breathe easy, knowing there were no angry customers for miles. The only thing I had to think about was where I wanted to go next, and I couldn’t have been happier. I spent the bulk of the day meandering through the foothills of the mountain, enjoying the sights and being struck with whatever took my imagination.
Let me tell you, there are some simply incredibly beautiful flowers in the foothills of the Catalinas. Small purple lupines send shocks of color across the landscape, occasionally poking their heads out of bramble and thorns. California poppies force their way through the rocks with bright orange petals and palo verde trees spawn hundreds of beautiful (although allergy inducing) yellow buds that look like they’re rippling up the mountainside. Then there’s the cactus. Cacti, for all the spikes and thorns, can produce the most magnificent flowers with all sorts of colors and shapes. I often found myself blazing a trail through brush just to explore these beautiful sights. As I said, I think it’s a waste to simply rush through a hike - you miss all the joys and beauty of nature. After all, that's why I left in the first place. I just needed something beautiful to take my mind off the worries of work.
The day was slowly fading into late afternoon and I decided that I should start looking for where I was going to stop for the night. I was miles from any recognizable civilization and it had been a good six hours since I’d last seen anyone else picking their way through the trail, so I decided to branch off the main path. There were dozens of choices for places to stop - a clearing here, an oddly grown mess of brush over there. I wanted to find somewhere secluded so I could rest without the chance of a stray trailblazer (like myself) stumbling over me.
As I delved deeper into the wilderness looking for the perfect place to set up camp, I grabbed the tube at my shoulder, coming from the water canister in my backpack and popped it in my mouth. I as I sucked on the straw, bursts of air sputtered in the tube. I shifted the pack on my back and gave the tube another try. More air pockets pulled through.
Great Finn. Really great.
My heart sank as I realized I had made a grievous error. I had packed food and a light blanket and made my way out into the middle of nowhere several hours away from anyone or anything. What dawned on me now was that I had failed to pack was extra water for the hike back.
It’s okay, I reasoned with myself. I’ll just conserve what I have left and I’ll leave in the early morning when it’s coolest so I can get out before the heat of the day. Logic, Finn. Sure, people have died out here because they didn’t bring enough water. Sure, you’ve always made fun of them to yourself because you would never be so foolish as to be that unprepared. But you’ve been hiking for years! You’ll be just fine. Your body is used to this and who knows, maybe you’ll find some usable water out here.
Daylight was dwindling and the sky was lit up with the colorful array of purples, pinks and oranges of those classic Tucson sunsets. Lost in my thoughts trying to piece together a plan of action for the morning, I didn’t take notice of the small ravine I was headed straight toward. The ground beneath me sloped dramatically and was covered in loose bits of shale rock. My foot hit a piece of the loose stone and went sailing out from under me and I slipped down the ravine. My heart lurched in my chest as I floundered and my body teetered for a few moments as I began practically rock surfing down the hill. Thankfully I was able to regain my balance before I fell and broke something, like an arm or my brain. I froze with my arms out at my sides for balance and let my heartbeat come back from mimicking the Kentucky Derby.
Good going, Finn. Now you’re at the bottom of a cliff.
That’ll teach me to be distracted. I quickly scanned the edge I’d just slid down for anything I could use to scramble back up. Given my current streak of personal victories, it came as no surprise that there didn’t seem to be anything at the ready.
It doesn’t look like you’re getting up there any time soon, either. Thanks, brain.
I’ve learned over the years that one of the worst things you can do when something unexpected happens during a hike, or any kind of outdoor adventure for that matter, is to panic. So I steadied my balance, made sure I found purchase on
a solid bit of ground and stopped to focus. My heart was beating in my ears and sweat trickled down the side of my face. Even though the sun was setting, heat still emanated from the ground and my body reacted in kind.
Breathing in my nose and out of my mouth, I worked to hone in on my surroundings. Apparently, I slid down into a small gulch surrounded on all sides by sheer rock walls, save for the small area I had slid down. There was little chance that I was going to be able to climb back out any direction except the way I had entered. The issue with that, though, was the way out was completely covered with loose rock and would be incredibly challenging to clamber up in the darkness of the early morning if I was hoping to leave before the sun was up.
It was just at this moment that the reality of my entire situation dawned on me. Either I try to climb out of this pit in the dark and risk injuring myself, leaving me unable to hike out at all, or wait until it’s light outside and risk dehydration, heat exhaustion and an unfortunate end to my vacation. To top it all off, as a way to try to calm down, I took another quick pull from my water tube holstered on the side of my backpack and was greeted with the wheezing sound of air bursting in between tiny sips of water, letting me know I was basically out of water at this point.
Great.
Remember how I mentioned that panicking is one of the worst ideas in this situation? A calm, level-headed focus is what gets you out of a tough situation. Well, it is a lot easier said than done. My pulse took off as I realized I was in very real danger. You might be lucky enough to survive out in the desert for a few days without food if you’re well nourished first. Lacking water is a different situation entirely. The moment you run out of water, a countdown begins and you need to make a change quickly or you won’t make it out at all.
I tried breathing to slow my pulse but reality comes for us all at some point. I looked around in the fading twilight to find something, anything, that might help me. Through the haze of my increasingly frantic state, I spotted a small opening in the side of the rock face in the back edge of the ravine. Something near the opening caught my eye, but I couldn’t make it out in the fading light.
The ground at the bottom of the ravine was flat and sandy - probably the location of a small pool which had dried up in the summer heat. I had likely followed the path that the water would take and found myself at a similar dead end. I jogged toward the small opening in the rock and pulled up short when I noticed a piece of metal sticking out of the ground near the hole. I bent down and tried to pull it out of the sand, but met with too much resistance to actually move it. The metal must’ve been bigger than I thought or it was buried under a lot of sand. Either way, it was stuck and I wasn’t going to make it budge. I’m not sure what I had hoped to accomplish, but I was pretty much going off of impulse at this point. I gave up on the metal and peered into the small opening in the rock. It was completely black inside and the fading sunlight wasn’t helping.
I unslung one shoulder strap of my backpack, shifted the pack around to my chest and unzipped the front pouch. I dug through leftover wrappers from a previous hike, a few napkins and tissues and finally, my hand hit what I was looking for: my small LED flashlight. I pulled it out, depressed the button on the top and was met with a nearly imperceptibly dim glow from the bulbs. Thank goodness it still worked, if barely.
I dropped to my hands and knees and shined the light into the hole. I didn't really care what was in there, as long as it wasn’t a hungry animal. Most creatures in the desert start to come out at night when it’s cool so they can hunt and I didn’t want to be a tasty treat for whatever took up residence at the bottom of this ravine. One problem at a time, right?
I couldn’t make out much of what was in the hole, but there didn’t seem to be anything starting back at me, so I figured I was relatively safe. I only got a brief moment to check because the flashlight petered out almost as soon as I finished glancing around. I stood up and dusted off my pants and turned off the dead flashlight, simply out of habit. The best I could hope for at this point was to get a little rest and get out of this ravine without breaking my ankle and dying.
I zipped up my bag and tried to find a comfortable spot near the ravine wall to set up camp for the night. I scanned the ground around me for any more metal chunks poking out of the sand to make sure I didn’t need a tetanus shot in addition to an IV of fluids. As I looked, caught a glint of something reflecting the light of the fading sun up off to my right. I turned to see, and that’s when I saw the menacing reflective eyes of a mountain lion staring me down from the ledge above.
CHAPTER THREE
I wish that I could say I stayed calm, having been a “seasoned hiker” and spent a good deal of time in the outdoors. But I didn’t. No, instead, I freaked out like a groupie at a rock concert. To be fair, I was already on edge because of my own stupidity. I wasn’t exactly primed for success when being stared down by a mountain lion with its teeth bared. So I let out a quick scream and scrambled for options.
I don’t know what compelled me to do what I did next - Bravery? Luck? Stupidity? A primal instinct which drives us humans to avoid being eaten alive by hungry wild animals?
Likely, it was a combination of all of the above. Well, except maybe bravery.
A second after I noticed the beast, the mountain lion bounded down the steep walls of the ravine directly toward me. I wasted no time. I sloughed off my backpack, dropped to my belly and wiggled my way through the small opening in the rock wall. I was really hoping that I hadn’t missed something when I looked earlier, otherwise this was going to be a very short-lived plan of escape.
Once inside, I was surprised to find it was a lot bigger than I had originally thought. I couldn’t really see much of anything, but I didn’t care. I turned around, squatted and grabbed one of the straps of my backpack that was closest to the opening and yanked. As I did, the mountain lion couldn’t have been more than a yard away. The backpack was bulky and awkward with the box of breakfast bars and all the other things I had stuffed in it. It got stuck in the opening of the hole and I tried yanking again and again to free it.
Turns out, this was a blessing in disguise. If I couldn’t yank my pack into the cave, that meant the cat couldn’t get me in here either. I wasn’t going to bank on my pathetic canvas bag protecting me for very long and, while the lion outside was probably a good three or four times larger in bulk than me, I would guess that if it really wanted to get me for an evening snack, it would try to wiggle its way in here too. I pulled on the backpack one more time and managed to wedge it into the hold more tightly.
By sheer luck, though, I thankfully still had the flashlight clenched in my white-knuckled fist. Hoping beyond hope, I clicked the top button.
Nothing.
You’d think I would’ve remembered to check my flashlight batteries and, oh I don’t know, pack enough water for an overnight hike? Forget that I ever mentioned that I was a smart and savvy hiker. I’m certain that at this point, I lost any boy scout badges I might have earned. I’d blame it on the crappy desk job messing with my sense of adventure, but it’s more likely just my stupidity and not thinking ahead. I’ve been known to act or speak before thinking for most of my life. Perhaps I should reevaluate some of my life choices once I’m out of this mess…
I smacked the back of the flashlight against the palm of my hand several times and jiggled the edge of the bulb to make the connectors line up. I clicked the button again and this time, that dim white light pierced the dark cave once again. Thank god for Alkaline predictability. I knew that I probably only had moments before the light died again so as soon as it clicked on, I was on alert to figure out what I could use to hopefully make it out of here in one piece.
First things first, I found a stone resting near the hole I had crawled through. I grabbed at it and with a forceful heave, moved it just next to the entrance. I knew I needed to time the next part just right or I was going to be a kitty snack. I reached down, yanked hard on the strap of my backpack and using the
momentum, rocked to one side and forced the rock through the sand in front of the opening so it blocked the entrance.
With relative safety secured for the moment, it was time to figure out the next steps. A glance around the small cavern revealed that it was not small at all. As a matter of fact, it was downright huge.
The walls of the cave were smooth stone. The sand under my feet near the opening transitioned a yard or so from where I stood to a smooth rock, as though someone had carved a room into the middle of this mountainside. It was a deep cavern which seemed to delve far into the mountain. More astounding than the surprising room-like nature of this cave was what was in the cave. In the center of the otherwise empty cavern stood a roughly one-story tall circular metal ring, overlaid with gemstones of various colors, resting on a solid metal base.
Um...what?
As I panned my flashlight over the contraption, the LED light faded, flickered and died once more. Of course.
I sighed with frustration and tried again in vain to get the flashlight to work. I clicked the button on the top again and again and smacked the flashlight against my hand, but it was no use. It was just me, darkness and a giant freaky alien contraption in here. Since the rock I moved in front of the entry seemed to be deterring the mountain lion for the moment and there didn’t seem to be anything posing any immediate danger inside the cave, I decided to wait a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the darkness before I continued to venture forward. The light outside the cave at this point was pretty much gone, as nighttime had settled into the Catalina mountainside. Hopefully, the hungry cat outside would likely give up on me and find some other delicious prey.
After a few minutes, I felt as though I could see well enough to make it around the cave without tripping and breaking something important. Like my leg. Or my neck, for that matter.
