Baboquivari Peak

Scenes from the Mexican Border: Baboquivari Peak and Kino Peak
5 April 2015

Scene I: Baboquivari

Tohono O’odham Nation Reservation. A high-mileage Hyundai Elantra. 85 miles per hour. Arizona State Trooper. Four hikers. And a dream – Baboquivari Peak.

‘You boys have any guns in the vehicle?’

‘No we’re hikers! We’re from California here to see your great state and Baboquivari Peak. We love the desert. Sorry if we were going a little fast, officer. We’ve been out driving for hours and looking to get some shuteye.’

‘Easy there sir, I’m going to need to see some ID for everyone in the vehicle.’

A nervous stir came over me and Craig, the backseaters. We’re busted for sure, man. John was going like 90 miles an hour back there, I swear we hit Back to the Future speeds!

Back to the future, indeed. Things move a little slower out here in the desert. As I prepared to be booked off to jail on the grounds of simply being goddamn hippies from California, I could not help but become entranced by the stillness of the desert highway. The moon drifted behind the clouds as coyotes howled in the distance. The ground looked to be hard packed, and dusty. The outline of a great monolith shone on the horizon.

The officer returned methodically from his patrol car.

‘All right I’m going to let you boys off with a warning this time. Slow down, get some rest, and if I catch you chasing trains again your ass is grass!’

‘Thank you officer, we’ll slow down, 60 miles per hour you got it!’

I couldn’t believe it, John of all people had mustered the gift of gab and somehow gotten out of the ticket. This was a good sign. Vibrations were exclusively positive as we pulled into the campground before Baboquivari Peak. The Sierra Club Desert Peaks Section (DPS) had delivered once again.

Scene II: Kino

‘Fuck these goddamn cholla! Fucking cactus can fucking jump! Bitch!!’ The curses of a first-time would-be desert adventurer. I would return home badly bruised, with a slight limp and laden with cactus needles. The barbs ripped my flesh upon removal, the process of which took many weeks to complete. John could only laugh as I lost my desert virginity. ‘Not so easy is it dude?! Welcome to the desert Sierra man!’

This was the first and only hike where I pretty much completely lost my cool. The cholla needles may have unleashed a mind-altering chemical cocktail into my decision making centers as our team sat perched on a notch beneath the intimidating final face of Kino Peak.

‘No way we can climb that. Look at those ledges. They’re covered in loose rock. One jumping cholla straight to the leg and you’re done. You think I’m going to hike up that thing? That is Class Four at best, man. No fucking way. It’s already 1 in the afternoon, it’s hot as hell, and did I mention I am covered in goddamn cholla?!’

‘Hold up, Jeff. It’s on the DPS List so it can’t be that hard.’ Craig, the voice of reason.

‘If old ladies can do this shitty list, I can do it.’ John, the desert hard man, aka THE TRUNDLER.

‘Aghherr fine I’ll fucking do it.’ As Bill and Harlan are already climbing the face, apparently having had enough of my mini meltdown.

The second day of our DPS peakbagging extravaganza took us right to the border. Through this highly-trafficked migrant corridor we walked among the lost possessions of past journeys to America and hopefully a better life. The stories that these torn and tired rucksacks could tell, let me tell you I would be a ready and willing listener. The previous evening we had run into a drunken local man, spraying carelessly about the plague of migrants in the region. Say what you will about the issues, I will not say much of anything here as the world would be a better place if less people vomited their asinine political opinions onto the internet. I am a proponent of dignity and I’m not sure we found it out here under the blazing sun.

For the record there was a well-ducked trail leading diagonally right up the face. I couldn’t believe it. The first intrepid traveler to scale this route had some kind of vision! The face went at a prickly Class One!

Thank you to John, Craig, Bill, and Harlan for a very memorable trip to the Sonoran Desert.

Postscript. Some explanation is warranted regarding John’s hiking name du jour, THE TRUNDLER. During the perilous descent of Kino Peak, John came to a large boulder, resembling the shape of one of those old school mammoth projection televisions, the kind that college kids toss off their balconies the things are so hard to move, I mean jeez. He comes to the boulder, Craig is behind him, and I’m ahead, in all likelihood picking cholla out of my ass. Bill and Harlan are way ahead, very skilled scramblers those two. Long legs and all. So John comes to the 2-ton boulder and realizes with what I can only assume a certain amount of fear that it moves. Remember this: size does not equal stability! Always slap before you pull! In no short time and before I had any idea what was going on John trundled the thing. It thundered down the hillside and took out a huge cactus. If any conservationists are reading this the part about the cactus getting wrecked is completely sensationalized. We waited for the dust to settle and walked out of the desert with the sun on our backs and a long road ahead.