I hate the smell of horse piss. This trail is full of it. I don't mind the horseshit for that's usually dried and petrified within hours of exiting the horse. It's this damn urine. I'll be out of it soon, for the horses are from a nearby resort and they only take the tourists on the loop part of this trail. The horses don't go up to Alice Peak. They couldn't go up if they wanted to. Mules would have a tough time of it. It's that steep. Makes Bright Angel trail at The Grand Canyon look like a dog run.
I leave the gently rising loop and the horse piss and shit and take a right turn past the old rusty sign that says nothing. The loop trail was flanked by numerous Prickly Pears with an abundance of purple fruit on their tops, but I'm leaving many of the cacti behind. Most of the mesquite too. Still Yucca and native grass and the occasional Saguaro. And lots of loose dirt and granite. This trail is not an official hiking trail on any map. Just a trail made by hikers over the years, looking for a way up to Alice Peak. No gentle switch backs. Just straight up the wash and then straight up the inner wall of Alice Ridge. The key is not to step on loose soil but the rocks that are firmly in the ground. Actually the descent down Alice Ridge is more dangerous that the ascent, for you're tired then and you slide and sliding hurts here.
This isn't the first time I've attempted to reach the summit of Alice Peak. The first two times I ran out of water. [I have a rule on the trail: turn around when I'm half out of water.] This time though, I have my yellow and black three liter Camelback on my back. In a pouch on the water pack are my Kodak 127 Brownie,a few rolls of film and a couple of sticks of sidewalk chalk. I tend not to eat much on the trail. Just drink a ton of water. The Brownie was a gift from Kathy and she still teases me when I call it her camera after all this time. The only company that makes film for it is in Croatia. I guess Eastern Europeans haven't gone digital yet.
Up ahead, I see a couple resting on a rock just up the first steep slope. I walk up and soon I'm level with them.
"You going to the top?" asks the man of the couple.
"Yep."
"Been up to the top before?" he asks.
"About half way up," I say.
"I used to come up here all the time, hike to the top all the time. I haven't for a while now," he says.
Judging from the large pot belly on this guy, it's probably been more than a while. I look at his companion, an attractive woman in her forties, who is obviously beat. Jeez, I think, they've just started and she's already tired. They had that look of a first or second date. May be the last date.
"I'll see you at the top perhaps," I say walking past them.
"You betcha. See you up top," he says.
I look into the woman's eyes briefly as I walked past. She had that 'please talk some sense into him' look. Sorry, honey. Not my place. You are going to have to take care of yourself on this one. Yep. Last date.
She continues to sit on the large rock and he begins to talk to her, after I've walked past. I can't hear what he's saying but he sounds enthusiastic. She says nothing.
I take this first pinch too fast and just below the first landing, I stop and remind myself how far I have to go. Up ahead is the west wall of Alice Ridge. The ridge here creates a tall steep horseshoe-shaped canyon before it reaches the summit. A long lazy 'S' that curves to the Southeast, then East, then North, then West, then back North and to the East again near the summit.
I reach the first big flat spot. Many just hike to the right and to the South to the first overlook that faces West, and many go to the right too, thinking that that is the way to the top. It's not. I turn left, to the East, and duck under a small arch of bushes and head down a bit and up again. I'm in good shape but it is the summer and it is about 2 p.m. It is hot. Yes, I prefer hiking in the afternoon in the heat instead of the morning. Less people on trails close to town and the light is so wonderfully intense. Not good for photography but good for me.
Slowly I go. Step. Step. Step. I pay close attention to the ground for the trail can be lost. Easily found yet lost just as easy. A small spring, just enough to wet the rocks, seeps from a wall. Other days, there will be puddles filed with hundreds of tadpoles. None today, yet there is green Native Grass and in the yellow and red of the rocks, it shines like a golf course's putting green. Step. Grab a boulder for balance. Step again. Up. Up. Up.
Suddenly I hear an odd rattling sound and before my conscience mind can figure out what it is, my body jumps back and to the left. At eye level, hidden under a flat rock, is a Diamondback Rattlesnake. Not a big one but enough of a snake to cause all of the available adrenaline in my glands to dump into my blood stream. I'm too tired to speak or yell but not too tired to bushwhack off to the left to leave the old boy alone. I place a rock in the trail above him, to remind me of where he is. I wonder what the woman below is going to think when she gets up here. I wonder what sound she'll make.
I'm tired but wide awake now, from the adrenaline. Step. Step up. Step up and up. Suck on the tube of water from the Camelback. Step. Step. Below I see the roof of the posh resort, a ways to the West. Now I'm above the South side of the horseshoe and I can see the city below, and Panther Peak in the distance. Step. Step. Step. Shirt off. Head down. Step. Step. I stop for the second time about half way up to the summit. I'm in good shape, but this is hard. Really hard. The trail is a Trail of a Million Steps. I catch my breath and up the stairs I go again. Step. Step. Step. Head down. Sweat in my eyes. Wipe it with my shirt, that is loose in my hands. Step. Raise my head. Still a long way to go. Step. Step. Step.
Fifteen minutes. Half hour. Hour. Up and Up. I started at about 2,700 feet and I'm going to 5,300 feet. Another thousand to go or so. Straight up. Step. Step. Shin busters, small yuccas with very sharp hard spines, are to my left and right. I pass the last of the Saguaros. Few trees. Lots of native grass and loose rock and more shin busters.
I've traveled full round the horseshoe now and I'm at an overlook on the northern tip of the shoe. Rest. Water. More Water. Even more water. Rest. Breathe. One final pitch. I wonder what the summit is like. I look down below, looking for the couple I past. Can't see them. Maybe she talked him into going down after the first pinch. The water in the Camelback is warm now but still delicious. I take my pulse with my index finger on my jugular. Fast but strong. Burning the cholesterol away today, I think. I can make this. I can make this.
Up again. Step. Step. A strong wind begins to blow. A hot wind that cools me as it evaporates the sweat off my back . Step. Step. More Shin busters and now a red manzanita or two. I'm traveling up the west ridge, almost straight along the ridge line, maybe two hundred feet below the summit. I can make this.
The trail swings around to the North. And suddenly, all of the Catalina Mountains spreads out before me.
"Would you look at that?" I say out loud.
I drink a bit more water. I look to the right. Not far now. The shin busters are right up to the sides of the trail. Up. Up. Step. Step. More granite rock. A few less shin busters. A bit of grass. And more and bigger rocks.
And then I'm on the biggest rock, the summit rock. A long rough boulder about forty feet long and ten feet wide. I sit down and unsling the Camelback, gently placing it on the rock. I take a long hard draft off the water tube. Then another long draft. I then slowly walk to the north, and step down onto a smaller granite boulder. I sit down and grab my knees and look to the North. A view few see. A view I've never seen. A view, judging from the hike, I'll rarely see. I lay down on the rock and close my eyes and cat nap for five, ten minutes. Maybe longer.
When I awake and open my eyes, I notice that the light has changed. The sun is casting longer shadows. There is a bit more cloud to the East. No storm, just clouds. I take a stroll around the summit, over boulders, through crevasses, on the grass. A lone Ocotillo is here, its spines like hands praising the sky. I walk in a dreamy tired that only comes from hikes like this. My legs are grounded but wobbly. Relaxed with a fast pulse. Eyes seeing details and also the whole.
Then I notice a six foot granite rock rising from a miniature valley, between two larger groups of rock. It looks one of those prehistoric megaliths onthe British Isles. I walk up to it and place my right hand on it. This'll do, I think. I go back to my Camelback and retrieve the sidewalk chalk and my Brownie. I return to the Megalith and begin to draw three connecting spirals on its northern face. The wind is blowing harder now and almost as fast as I draw the spirals, the wind blows half of it away. I draw them three times to get them fully drawn just once.
I unpack the Brownie and look for the angle, look for the light. The light is great now, two hours from setting, hitting the rocks with drama. I find the angle. I raise the Brownie to my eye and shoot the Megalith. I carefully advance the film. Twisting my body on its vertical axis, I look through the Brownie's viewfinder, gauging the best time to click the shutter and create the beginning ofa blurry panoramic image. Back and forth, back and forth. Click. Slowly advance the film. Shift a bit to the right. Twist again. Back and forth, back and forth. Click.
After I shoot a few panoramics, I pack up the Brownie and the chalk and go back to my Camelback. I take another long drink of water. I see the three spiral megalith from 50 feet away and think, Good. This is good. I walk down to the large stone one more time and place my hand in one of the spirals. I close my eyes, breathe in the hard wind, and say a small private prayer.
The sun is going down. Looks like 4 or 5 o'clock. Best get ready to leave. I shoulder the Camelback, and bend over and retie my boot laces. Now. Time to go.
Going down is tough. The key is to stay in the moment and to step on big rocks whenever I can. Down now, but slow. Slow. No thinking. No daydreaming. Look at each rock. Step on each rock. One at a time.
After having only descended a couple hundred feet, I see the couple from before, coming up the trail. The man is in the lead and the woman is a good fifty feet behind him.
"How's it going?" says the man with a happy voice.
"Good. Almost there" I say.
"Yep, I know. Great day, isn't it?" he says.
"Yes it is." I say.
"Well, see ya later," he says, bounding up the trail.
"See ya." Not bad for a fat man.
A minute later I reach the woman. She looks beat and a little angry.
"You're almost there. Really. The top is just up there," I say, pointing to the peak.
"Thank God," she says.
"Take care of yourself," I say as I pass her.
"Thanks," she says weakly. "You, too."
Boy, he better take her to a very nice restaurant tonight, I think, or he's done. He may already be done. And I wonder what they're going to think of the three spiral rock? If they touch it, they'll know.
I continue my descent of the trail of A Million Steps.
A half hour later, I see my snake stone in the trail. I take a long arch to the right off the trail and down. I look up at the rock for the Diamondback. He's gone.
"Take care, old boy," I say aloud.
A little while later, I'm back in the land of Horse Piss and Shit. I didn't fall on the way down, but I did slide a couple times on the steep first pitch and was lucky to stay on my feet. My abdominal muscles are tight and hard from the steep descent. Still have plenty of water, but I just want to back at the truck, and go to a Circle K and get a huge Big Gulp made with ice, Diet Coke and Gatorade.
A few minutes later, I see a group of seven horses and riders coming up the trail. The trail guide is in the lead, going on and on about something. His voice is carrying. The other riders are quiet, slowing being jostled by the rhythm of the slow walking horses. When I'm fifty feet away, I step off the trail, and allow them by. The trail guide say "Hi" much louder than is necessary. I nod at him. As the string of riders goes by, an Oriental man near the back, smiles and asks of me, in very rough English.
"You climb big mountain?"
I smile and say "Yes I did."
"Big mountain," he says again.
I laugh out loud.
"Yep. Big Mountain."
A year has passed and I'm back on the summit of Alice Peak. July. Hot. Storms in the distance but none near by. Tired. Really Tired. I got off trail once on the way up and had to bushwhack a bit, but nothing too terrible. No snakes. No couples. Just me and me.
Memory is fluid and flexible it seems, exaggerating the positive and minimizing the negative. The Red Megalith is much smaller than I remembered, much like my childhood house in Richmond, Virginia was smaller when I visited it as an grownup. And the hike up Alice Ridge was much tougher that I recalled, protecting me from the pain of hiking to this peak. The Ocotillo that is featured in the photograph "West of the Fire" is also much smaller too. Funny how that is.
Suddenly, a Harris Hawk flies twenty feet from my head, as it strafes the peak. I heard his wings before I saw him, the air making a low note around his body. He accelerates and makes some altitude above me, and I swear he looked back at me. Yea, he's looking at me now. Then the hawk makes a wide circle around me. I, looking at him. Him, looking at me. A full 360. And then he makes another circle. No fear on either of our parts. Just checking each other out. Earlier in the hike up, I saw three Harrises fighting in mid air. Yelling at each other with a cry, that sounded like a human baby. Dive bombing each other, hundreds of feet above the ridge. I watched them then and I'm watch him now. I have a lot of respect for this guy. He soon flies away.
I lay down on a flat rock, and cover my eyes with my Krispy Kreme baseball cap.
"Make my soul bigger," I say aloud.
"Make my spirit bigger."
I don't sleep but rest well and hard. I still have that slippery descent down rock and gravel ahead of me, but I'll think about that later.
Right now, I'm looking at a narrow slit of light, under my bill of my cap. Watching the clouds east of Alice Ridge. Waiting for the Harris Hawks to return.