Leaving the Desert

The day we hiked around the southern end of the Growlers was our last day looking for Abbey. And we didn’t find him. I think we got close, but even being able to narrow the location down still meant a huge amount of ground to cover, and since it’s in the desert, we can’t hike through and camp for more than a day or two at a time, because the only available water is what you can carry, and we can’t drive through because it’s a wilderness area.

So we hiked a few miles in and looked around for a couple hours, and then hiked a few miles out and had dinner. We camped, and the next day drove back into the Cabeza Prieta, this time to check out a “ghost town.”

It’s called Chico Shunie, and as far as we can tell it’s an abandoned ranch. It was interesting to walk around — these types of places are great for the imagination, because they give you clues about what happened there, but never any answers. It makes me respect archeologists that much more.

After we left Chico Shunie, we started the long drive home. We left Ajo and camped just north, on the Barry M. Goldwater Range, a testing range for military aircraft shared by the Air Force and Marines. There is a portion of the range that is not used for target practice that is open to camping as long as you have a permit and let the military know you’re there. So we camped there, and woke up early because we were buzzed by a couple fighter jets. Eric left to drive back to LA that morning, and we drove up to Flagstaff to have dinner with one of Dave’s friends … and go to the Grand Canyon!

(I know my eyes are closed, but it’s the only picture of both of us at the Grand Canyon)

Anyway, the Grand Canyon is awesome. WAY bigger that you would ever imagine, unless you’ve seen it. And really pretty — all different colors, from all the different layers of rock that make up the walls. We drove along the south rim, stopping in a couple places to look and take pictures. We’ll go back another time to actually hike around, and maybe even go to the bottom.

After the Grand Canyon, we headed up to Page, AZ next to Lake Powell, where we had to stop and stay the night because of car trouble. But I fixed the car! Meaning i figured out the problem. Dave actually replaced the part. We just needed a new air filter, which is good because Dave was starting to have nightmares about needing an engine rebuild. Once the car was fixed we went up to Salt Lake City and had dinner with Dad, who was finishing a ski vacation in Park City. And then we went home.

Overall, it was a really good trip. I got to see a bunch of things I’ve never seen before, like Vegas, the Hoover Dam, the desert, Shannon’s house, and the Grand Canyon. We didn’t find Edward Abbey, but I’m ok with that. Dave still wants to find him, so we may go back sometime in the future for another trip. I started to read one of his books, Desert Solitaire, which is apparently the book that made him famous as a writer, and one of Dave’s favorites (by him). I don’t know; he seems like an ok writer, but from what i know about him, from the little of his book that i read, and from what i’ve gleaned from the other books written by his friends, i don’t care too much for Edward Abbey. He’s an environmental writer, but his brand of environmentalism leaves people entirely out of the picture, except for (surprise surprise) himself and a few of his friends. It’s hard to judge, especially since he was writing in a different time, and i don’t know him.

Anyway, that was our spring break trip. You can see more photos here on facebook.

In the Desert

(sorry i left everyone hanging … I’m sure the suspense was terrible …)

So, when we got into Ajo we met Dave’s brother Eric, who helped with the filming in the Cabeza Prieta.

In a nutshell, the Cabeza Prieta is a weird place, I’m sure partly to do with it’s location in Arizona. And by that i mean, it sits squarely on the fence between “national wilderness treasure” and “pipeline for illegal immigration and (purportedly) drugs from Mexico” with a little “live miltary training” thrown in for good measure.

The Cabeza Prieta is designated wilderness, meaning that in addition to all the other protections found in places like National Parks, there’s usually no motorized anything. ANYTHING. Which definitely includes cars. However, somehow, anyone can drive in certain parts of the Cabeza Prieta. Our first few days there, we drove in and camped at Charlie Bell Pass.

And in addition, the Border Patrol and arms of the state and federal Fish and Wildlife Service can drive in more places that the public can’t drive. So it was weird. At Charlie Bell, we didn’t run into any illegal immigrants or Border Patrol. We just hiked around, and realized almost as soon as we got there that we were too far north to find Edward Abbey.

Even though the men who buried Abbey haven’t told anyone where he is buried, a couple have alluded to the location in books they’ve published. So we made an attempt to correlate the two accounts and figure out where the grave is. Clue 1, he’s buried in the Cabeza Prieta, in a volcanic mountain range. The Growler Mountains, where we were looking, is the only volcanic range in the Cabeza Prieta.

(the tiny range in the middle is actually much bigger — i put these photos together in photoshop, and it gave it a major fisheye perspective.)

Clue 2, he’s buried at the south end of the range. We started at Charlie Bell Pass to the north, then realized it was too far, and started heading south. After leaving Charlie Bell, we headed to Temporal Pass, which is near the middle of the range. We had to hike about 8 or 9 miles, first down a dirt road and then into the desert some, to get to the pass where we stayed one night.

We had to carry all our water, so we couldn’t stay longer. But by that point we figured the grave was probably farther south even than Temporal, so we weren’t too concerned. However, Temporal Pass, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, is a main thoroughfare for the illegal immigrants who are coming into Ajo. And they weren’t kidding. We never saw anyone, but we definitely heard a group, and the pass up there is littered with stuff that people drop on their way into Ajo.

The people crossing the desert, if they’re lucky, are driven across in the dead of night in trucks and vans. You can hear them sometimes depending on where you’re camping. The less lucky ones walk across, and Temporal Pass into Ajo is the final leg of that trip. The pass is covered in empty cans of food, empty plastic water bottles (the ones you buy at the grocery store), plastic bottles of juice and mexican soda, and even things like shoes and pants. Having hiked in that desert fully equipped, I don’t know how they do it. I feel like if they can hack it across that desert, maybe they deserve automatic citizenship.

Also, sidenote, i saved us from utter starvation. We had packed everything we needed for dinner after a 9 mile hike, but someone (not me) forgot the pot to boil the water in to cook everything. I happened to carry my tin cup that Dad got me for camping years ago, so we were able to jury rig dinner by cooking it in tiny parts in the cup, and then mixing it all together in a makeshift bowl we cut from a plastic water jug. Otherwise, we would have been doomed to a dinner of Clif Bars, and no one wants that.

Anyway, we hiked out of Temporal Pass that next morning and drove into Ajo to spend a night at the motel taking showers and charging phones, went out to breakfast, and then drove into Organ Pipe National Monument, which butts up against the Cabeza Prieta at the southernmost end of the Growler range.