The Windiest Day

What goes up must come down.  But this was ridiculous.  Standing atop Humphreys Peak in Flagstaff, AZ I had only a moment to snap a few quick pictures.  At that very moment the top of my head was the very highest point in Arizona at 12,642 feet and 7 inches.  Ten seconds later the wind knocked me down on my butt.  This did not bode well for our impending descent along the treacherous tundra ridge line.

There were five or six other people sharing the shelter at the top.  Three of them reached into their packs and popped the tabs on their victory beers.  I tried not to raise my eyebrows.  The hard part was still to come; the part where we had to fight the elements along a trail with steep slopes of rocky shale falling away on either side.  Footing was sketchy and balance sure to be difficult enough in the wind without the help of a few units of alcohol.  To each his own though; maybe they were all part mountain goat.

“We’ve got to get going before we get stuck up here.”  I knew Gabi was right but at that moment I was quite content to hunker down in the short walled shelter and bask in my triumph of the ascent.  The journey down would undoubtedly lack grace and poise and right then I just wanted to pretend to be a confident and skilled peak bagger.  But there was no way we could risk the gusts increasing in strength as we dawdled at the top and so we stuck our shoulders to the wind and with one foot in front of the other powered our way back to the saddle.  At least that is what Gabi did.  I stood up, took a step and got knocked down, crab walked a few feet, tried to stand back up and once again got knocked down and crab walked some more.  This scene was repeated five or six more times with Gabi watching me, hunkered down behind a boulder.  I finally figured out the technique.  Stick one shoulder into the wind and keep my body sideways so that the wind had less purchase to literally sweep me off my feet.

I am already a big wimp when it comes to climbing downhill, in part thanks to a spill I took on Camelback in March and the resultant still-not-quite-healed sprained ankle.  I was so focused on my feet and on staying upright that when we followed a couple of women down the side of the mountain, I had no clue we had left the trail.  ”I don’t think this is right.  It wasn’t this steep,” Gabi called.  ”Oh no, I remember this part because I remember thinking ‘oh shit, I have to go down this.’”  A few steps later it became very clear that I did not, in fact, remember it because we were quite a bit off the trail.  ”There’s the sign by the trail.  The trail we are definitely not on,” Gabi said, pointing to a sign post a hundred feet above us up the slope.  ”Shit.”

We scrambled back up the side of the mountain towards the sign.  Going up is no problem for me.  The mistake, in fact, afforded me a moment’s respite from the stress of going down.  We got to the sign and back on track.  Before heading on, I took a moment to muse over the message etched into the wooden sign: “Delicate tundra. No hiking off the trail.”  Or something to that effect.  A $500 fine might have been mentioned.  We were back on track, though, with no intentions of allowing ourselves to be once again led astray.

Finally the saddle came into view and with it the blissful sanctuary of the tree line.  By this time my face and hands were completely frozen and my mind was fried from concentrating so hard on not being blown off the side of the mountain.  And I was all smiles.

I truly believe that the best trips are the ones involving some sort of struggle.  In the moment it might feel overwhelming, inconvenient, maybe even painful or at least uncomfortable, but afterwards the experience and the story is well worth it.  How boring would the story be in which we faced nothing unexpected, difficult or ridiculous?

The Humphreys Peak trip was the hair of the dog for Gabi and I, the dose of trail to cure our hiking hang over from the Grand Canyon trip.  And what a stiff dose it was.  The trail is amazing, taking you first through meadow and then up into the pine forest.  If you love switchbacks, you’ll love this trail because there are plenty of them to be had.  After all, how else do you reach the highest peak in Arizona in a mere 4.5 miles?

We hiked the trail in early June and other than the wind, the weather was quite nice.  A windbreaker, gloves and beanie were definite assets.  Speaking now from experience, I would have brought a scarf as well to wrap around my face once we got above the tree line.  As we hiked through the forest we found ourselves climbing over several piles of packed snow.  Later, as we came down the trail, the warm mid-day sun had turned at least some of this snow to mud.  I quickly learned to be careful of the shady bits where icy patches lurked.  Despite the perils, I managed to make my way up and down without any new cuts or bruises.

I have to admit that by the end of the hike I was absolutely exhausted physically and mentally.  What a way to go about curing that hiking hang over!  But as always I had no regrets as I peeled off my sweat soaked shirt to replace it with a blissfully fresh one.  There was really only one thing left to do: eat!  Gabi and I made our way to The Beaver Street Brewery for a post-hike chow down.  After months of threatening to eat my first burger in almost 4 years I finally did.  Half of a scrumptious bacon cheeseburger and sweet potato fries out on the patio under a beautiful blue sky: the perfect way to end the day’s adventures!