Siphon Draw

Ever since moving to this part of Arizona over ten years ago I have had a certain fascination with the Superstitions. No, not because of the legend of the Lost Duchman, but just because it is such an imposing piece of granite rising quite dramatically off the desert floor.

Our target for this hike was the Flatiron, the prominence just right of center in the picture above. Named, no doubt, for its similarity to the old time iron, the cut of its jut also makes it seem like the bow of a proud and mighty warship.

The hike, somewhat unbelievably, is only three miles from the trailhead to the peak. But along with those miles is 2780 vertical feet (roughly another half mile of up). Compressing that vertical rise into the short trail (the first half mile of which is fairly flat) means that the climb is well over 1000 feet per mile. In other words, there are several sections where the climb is just that, a climb—all fours, pulling up on trees and rocks.

The trail takes its name from a particular piece of smooth granite that must be a terrifying place to be in a summer thunderstorm. This chute (shown in the photo to the right), a little better than half way up, is worn smooth from the water that courses over it. A similar (and perhaps even more imposing) chute feeds in from the left, and one can only imagine that during a good rain the combined force of all that water shoots out from its bottom (seen below) with pretty impressive results.

After two hours of vertical challenge we reached the summit, which is truly vertigo inducing, but the views can’t be matched. We were in no rush to leave, spending time enjoying the view and munching on our snacks. But finally it was time to go down, and here’s the thing—going down is really a lot harder than going up. Going up is hard on your lungs and heart, going down is hard on your legs, and in particular the top of your thighs. Our legs soon felt like they were made of rubber and I was actually getting a bit worried, knowing that we still had to get down Siphon Draw. We rested a bit at the top to let our legs recover, and then found that cutting back and forth across it (mini-switchbacks) took out most of the bite. Surprisingly it took almost as long to get down, again a testimony to how steep it is (and the fact that above the draw there is really not much in the way of a trail). All in all a good recommendation from Michael G. (thanks, Mike!) for a Grand Canyon training hike!

Usery Pass Mountain

We had planned to do at least 15 miles (twice around Usery on the Pass Mountain Trail) but a minor physical irritation limited us to only 10 miles (once around the mountain that then a quick trip up to Wind Cave). The hike around the mountain is pretty good—about three quarters of the trail is in decent condition (the remainder reminded us of the dreaded Lost Dutchman Trail). There are some great scenic views of the Valley off the northern end of the west side, and even better views back into the Goldfields from the east side. And of course the view from Wind Cave is always great!

Getting Ready

Some people have asked about the training regime we’re going through to get ready for the Canyon. If you’re thinking about doing this hike, or if you’re just morbidly curious, here it is:

First, if you are interested in doing the Canyon, and if you’re not already in pretty decent physical shape, I would recommend that about six months out from your hike date you start doing some regular exercise. Thirty minutes of cardio at least three times a week and some upper body weight training should do the trick. If you’re more than ten pounds overweight you may want to work on that as well. Three times a week for cardio and weights is my standard work out schedule so I didn’t do anything extra except to more consciously rotate more biking into the cardio mix (I’m usually on the elliptical most of the time) and to add a few minutes on the stair stepper once or twice a week to start building some extra leg strength.

The next thing I would recommend is that you buy your boots a good four months ahead of the hike date so that you can wear them throughout your training. I have been wearing mine now since the beginning of March but am still getting blisters when we change terrain and different parts of my feet get rubbed in different ways. It’s a lot easer to endure this on shorter hikes than to wait until it really matters (and by-the-way, I fully expect to have blisters after the Canyon as well).

Gray and I went on our first training walk on March 6^th but I had actually snuck out for a short walk the week before because starting with five miles sounded like a pretty robust challenge. From there we ramped it up pretty quick in a sequence like this:

Week Miles

Week 1 5

Week 2 10

Week 3 5

Week 4 11 (this was supposed to be 15 but we just couldn’t make it)

Week 5 5

Week 6 5

Week 7 15 (Pemberton Trail)

Week 8 9

Week 9 20 (our ill-fated Superstition adventure)

Week 10 5

About two thirds of this has been road work—literally—walking the roads around our house. This is pretty unsatisfying but allowed us a good way to control distances and build a base of leg strength. We’re done with “walking” as of this weekend, and from now on we will be hiking only. That is, we’ll only be on trails going forward, which is a different kind of exercise involving more subtle muscle movements and strains.

We are also done with five milers—from here on out the training schedule looks like this:

Week Miles

Week 11 15

Week 12 10

Week 13 10

Week 14 25

Week 15 10

Week 16 15

Week 17 15

Week 18 The Grand Canyon!

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes!

Lost Dutchman Trail

Eleven hours on the trail, hiking in the dark, and being found by Arizona Search and Rescue (even though we weren’t lost by then). What an adventure…just wish it had been a fun adventure!

The plan was to take Lost Dutchman Trail from the Peralta Trailhead, follow it about 13 miles, and then take the Peralta Trail where it intersects Dutchman and follow Peralta back to the trailhead, somewhere around 19 miles. This would be our first hike on serious mountain-esque trails, but we got very fortunate in that the temperatures were back down to around 70.

So, we’ve been training and are in pretty good shape; we have a pretty good idea (from the Pemberton Trail) that our effective hike speed is a bit better than three miles an hour. (Effective hike speed is how fast you go including rest breaks: most people can walk at three miles an hour but then loose time when they stop for a break. Our actual pace has been closer to three and a half miles an hour which means that we don’t loose time when we take a short break).

BUT it turns out the Lost Dutchman Trail is a remarkably difficult trail. The Search and Rescue guy told Karen that our planned route would take ten hours (we had budgeted six and a half). The trail is strewn with boulders, and where it’s not rocky it is overgrown with brush and low hanging trees. Not only that, but the trail crosses numerous creek beds and is sometimes difficult to find on the other side if the creek is wide. No chatty conversations, no listening to I-pods on this hike: every ounce of concentration focused on putting down the next boot, dodging the next cactus, and just following the doggone trail! Bottom line, our effective pace was close to two miles an hour, which means we didn’t get to the Peralta Trail intersection until about 6:00pm (13 miles down, 6 to go—“Hey Gray, what time does the sun set…?”)

Not only that, but because we knew we were behind within two hours of starting we really busted our butts to keep up as fast a pace as possible. (I am soooo thankful that some friends loaned me a pair of walking poles—wow, what a great invention. Helped keep me balanced on the rough terrain, and really help take the strain off your knees when you’re going downhill.) (Going fast also had the additional unfortunate effect of keeping us from taking in the amazing scenery of the Superstitions…honestly, we had to keep our eye on the trail at virtually all times or risk injury.)

Not only that, but the total elevation change when doing the trails this way is something like 2600 feet (mostly in two long climbs of 1300’ and 900’ respectively, the rest in various ups and downs along the way). (Note: we’ll face about 4600’ when we make our ascent of the South Rim, so it’s good we get in this kind of work. The challenge faced by Grand Canyon hikers, of course, is that you finish at 7000’ which is a bit thinner air than most of us are used to. That’s the one challenge we’ll not be too successful in training for…).

So, when it finally did get dark (about 8:00 was last light) we were sore, tired, and a bit discouraged. We had only one small flashlight (because we weren’t expecting to be out after dark—lesson learned!), minimal warm clothing (ditto), and worst of all, we were sure that my wife was freaking out! We were desperate to reach Fremont Saddle, the top of the ridge, where we could only pray that we would have cell phone service returned and that she would then get the text message I had written about six hours earlier. Of course at that moment we completely lost the trail as it crossed a granite face. Ten to fifteen minutes lost. The trail continued to be extremely hard to find (in the dark) over the top of Fremont Saddle, which slowed progress even further. All told we guess that we spent up to an hour looking for the trail during the course of the day, most of that, of course, after dark.

Our lowest moment came when we got off on a ridiculous little side trail, I mean, with rock cairns and everything, but that seemed to lead nowhere. Loosing the trail was becoming very demoralizing, in addition to which Gray was starting to become mildly hypothermic (early symptoms include being cold, apathy, and unsteadiness in walking). I quickly put my rain poncho on him (the only other piece of clothing we had with us) and attempted to find the trail.

That’s when God came and met us.

Believe me I had been praying fervently (since the late afternoon!). But out loud I said, “Jesus, help us.” That help came in the form of two hikers who were making their way up the trail. Now you have to understand, we hadn’t seen too many people on the trail at all, and sure didn’t expect to see any after dark, but here they came with their headlights on. I decided the best thing to do was to sit and wait until they came by, which would allow us to find the trail.

But they didn’t come by. They sort of just disappeared into the night. “Hmmm,” I said to Gray, “I wonder if we’ve gotten onto some kind of side trail.” We got out the topo map (at least we’d done that part right!) and sure enough, found the ridiculous side trail that goes no where, and determined the general direction we needed to go to get back on the main trail.

But if those two hikers hadn’t gone by us, I’m not sure that any of that would have happened, which is a truly chilling thought. Because I’m stubborn I would have continued to wander around in the area of the two (!) rock cairns that some helpful person had put up, until I ran out of energy and hope. In the meantime Gray would have gotten colder and colder (since he was just sitting at this point), and I guess we would have then tried to start a fire, which I doubt would have been very warm (for lack of much burnable fuel). Had that all played out then we very much would have needed rescue. Thank you, Jesus, for answering the prayers of desperate, lost, and helpless people.

But, by God’s grace we found the trail and began again to slowly make our way (effective pace from Fremont Saddle back to the car: about two-thirds of a mile per hour). About thirty minutes later my phone rang! It was my wife! And then the message flashed on the screen: “Low battery, turning off in 15 seconds…” We were unable to connect the call, and my only hope was that the text message had gone out, prompting her to call me. No such luck…

About an hour later we ran into another couple (never realized this night hiking was so popular!). They asked who we were and announced that the Search and Rescue people would be along in about ten minutes. Great! Of course my wife would have called by then, but you hate to have caused so many people so much worry and inconvenience. No fewer then ten S&R personnel were gathering at the trailhead parking lot: three to come up the trail we were coming down, three to go up the trail we had started on ten hours earlier (in case we had turned around), three coming up a connecting trail we might have decided to take, and one staying back at base camp to coordinate!

The group that found us did so when we were no more than ten minutes away from the trailhead. I’m not sure if it counts as a “rescue” or even a “find” when we weren’t lost at the time. In any case, they were quite nice about the whole thing and I’m sure we’ll make a donation when they come a-callin’ for that!

All in all not a fun adventure, but as Gray pointed out, we’ve got a story to tell, and more to the point, my son and I have a memory to share forever!