Slavin Gulch, Take Two (12-14-14)

Slavin Gulch Trail is a hiking trail in the Dragoon Mountains of Arizona…..but I guess I am getting a little ahead of myself, since my last blog post was a couple of weeks ago, and we were in Texas.



Well, after leaving Big Bend, we stopped for a few days in El Paso to spend some time with Paul’s mom.  Julie and Mike came with us for a day or so and we showed them around town a little.

While in El Paso I usually get some exercise by having Paul drop me at the bottom of the hill on the way to his mom’s.  Its two miles up the hill with an elevation gain of 800 feet.  Not bad. If we really wanted to hike, all we have to do is step out her back door.  Her house backs up to the wilderness.

  

After leaving El Paso, we stopped in Benson AZ.  We are working our way towards the Palm Springs area of California, where we will park the rig for Christmas.

In Benson we caught back up with Nancy and Dave, and Mike and Julie.  We had time to go out to dinner and some of us went to the town craft fair.  No pictures though.  On my list of things to do in Benson, is to hike Slavin Gulch.  We attempted this trail almost exactly 3 years ago, but a mile or so into the hike I fell and broke my wrist.  (the link to that post: 1st attempt at Slavin Gulch )

A mile or so into the hike, we came upon the “scene of the crime” so to speak.  Yup, I fell going over that little itty bitty barbed wire fence.  It was a less squished down back then, but still, the height wasn't the issue, the instability of the rocks was.  A boulder shifted, my foot rolled, and down I went.  This time Paul made sure he was hanging on to me, haha.

No broken bones this time, so we continued on the 7.5 mile hike.  It has 1400 feet of elevation gain and ends at the ruins of an old mine. The trail, in some spots, could barely be called a trail, and was very difficult to navigate.

We stopped for lunch along the way and discussed the fact that it didn't seem like we were going to be gaining that much elevation, since we hadn't been going up too steep of an incline.  But, of course, we should have known better and that situation changed very soon after lunch. 

One of the perks to elevation gain is the view from the top.

 

Once we reached the end of the trail, Paul wanted to do some exploring of the mine, as usual, and I didn't, so I plopped myself down on a very convenient nearby bench and dozed in the sun while he scrambled up the rocks to the mine.

 

The trip back down wasn't very much fun because it’s hard to control your speed and easy to roll on the rocks when you are going too fast, but we made it down with no injuries.  We had been hoping we’d have enough time to do the short hike to the historic Council Rocks, an area used years ago by the Chiricahua Apache Chief, Cochise, but with a 12 mile drive down a dirt “road” ahead of us, we thought we’d lose daylight too quickly. Maybe next time.


We have now moved on from Benson and are getting closer to Palm Springs.

It Could Have Been Worse…(12-30-11)

Well, we've left El Paso and have moved on to Benson AZ, where we'll  stay for New Years.
       This morning, while we were discussing the hike we intended to take today, Paul asked me if there was anything to see along the route we were going to take. That led to a short discussion of what we would see, etc. It also gave me the idea for the title for my next blog post:     The Difference Between Hiking and Walking. See, the reason he asked that is because yesterday we walked 6 miles, but it wasn't hiking. What are the differences?                                                                                                  
  Well, when I walk, I get bored, when I hike, I don't.  When I walk, I look at my watch every five minutes and wonder why an hour hasn't passed yet.  When I walk, I look at the ground ahead of me, and wish I had brought my Ipod.  When I hike, I look all around me, and not at the ground (which, in retrospect, can be a problem sometimes).  When I hike, I bring my hiking stick, both to help me with my footing, and also to use on any wild animals that might attack.   When I walk, I don't bother with the hiking stick. It just adds unnecessary weight.  When I hike, I happily pack up a lunch, and carry a lot of water in my pack. When I walk I just carry one or two bottles of water and maybe a snack. When I hike, my camera is out quite often and I take lots of pictures. When I walk, I bring the camera, but I am not sure why, because I don't take any pictures.

     The point to all this is that yesterday Paul and I went for a 6 mile walk on the San  Pedro River Trail.  There are no pictures, because nothing seemed picture worthy.  We thought we would actually be walking along the river, but the trail was too far away from it to see anything interesting. That's ok because that hike was just to get us "warmed up" for all the hiking we plan to do in the next few weeks, but we did buy a book of nearby hiking trails yesterday, so we would get to see something of interest while we are here.

    

 Today we were supposed to go on a 7.5 mile hike in Slavin Gulch in the Dragoon Mountains, about 30 miles from Benson.  This is an area that was frequented by Cochise, one of the most well known Apache Chiefs. Fascinating history around these parts. In fact, nearby is the area where Cochise met with the US government to hammer out a treaty.   We were hoping to see that area, Council Rocks, tomorrow.

   To get to the trailhead, we had to drive 10 miles down one of the roughest "roads" we've been on.  The guidebook recommends high clearance 4x4 vehicles, and they aren't kidding!  I tried to get a picture but it was too rough for that.  After finally reaching the end of the road, we started hiking to the gulch. Mentally I was comparing how much fun I was having today, compared to yesterday.
And that's when the day took a turn for the worse.

I screwed up.  I was going over a short barbed wire fence and didn't check well enough to see if the boulder I put my foot on was secure.  It wasn't.   I knew the minute I fell that I had broken my wrist.  Paul immediately took off my rings and watch, before my arm could swell too much.  After downing 3 Advil, we turned back and slowly made our way back to the truck, and back down that lovely road that seemed even worse on the way back! 

We drove a little further than the nearest town because we wanted one big enough to have a decent hospital.  We landed in the ER in Sierra Vista, and they did a great job of checking me out.  After confirming that I do indeed have a radial fracture, we discussed options.  Apparently the bone appears to be broken in two places.  They suggested that we head up to Tucson and see a orthopedic surgeon there, to determine our best course of action.

Tuesday we'll head up for the day since its only 45 miles from us.
Anyway, it could of been worse.  If I had broken a leg, it would have been a lot harder to hike the 2 miles back to the truck!