Mount Lemmon

Ryan and I decided to go to Mount Lemmon on a whim. By whim, I mean 4am--"Hey Karla, let's go to Mount Lemmon". I say, "ok". By 6am we're out the door with the dogs and all the stuff we need (which is ironic, since we didn't have a knife....) into the back of the newly lifted pickup.

Ryan grew up in San Manuel, so he has the type of knowledge about back roads in that area, as I do on the 'Mountain'. He drove up the back road. It was dirty, curvy fun. We got to the top and decided that I wanted to see the 'town' at the end of the road. Not much there really. A store that sells only cookies...I would have thought that if you were an entrepreneur, and felt like the location location location for your dream business was at the top of a mountain, you might sell something people NEED. But whatever right, I cant sell boats to drowning people. Anyhow. We found a hike that sounded good. It was called the "Butterfly Hike". I'm thinking, great, butterflys. Jillian will be so happy. I WAS WRONG. Not only did I not see 1 stinking butterfly, I didn't see anything pretty. 10:30a.m.---I ended up doing this strange lurching, jerking, quasi-bouncy, slide-ey, longest fall down the hill. While being pulled by a 120 pound Malamute. He had no idea I was there, but I was. Following his farty ass down a hill. Straight down. For about 1.9 miles. 1.9 miles down the hill, into the burned out valley. There was a cryptic sign, it said: 3.9 miles ---> to insert vague trail name or 4.6 miles <----- to repeat. When I said that Ryan had knowledge of the area, I meant general--. He hadn't been to the exact area in over 20 years. (Did I mention that I was wearing amphibious Teva sandals?) Ryan : "Karla, I believe a hike should go somewhere." Karla: "I agree, where should we go now?" Ryan: "That way, towards the towers."
Karla: "Ok, my feet hurt."

And off we went. The dogs were wearing their packs with 4 liters of water each. I had the foresight (thanks for the training mom) to grab two granola bars and some fruit leather. I cannot measure how far uphill we hiked. Much more than the beginning downhill, that's for sure.

We got to a couple cool looking places, there was a HUGE rock...

There was an awesome view looking out over the valley....

I finally got a picture of me with the dogs, so that it doesn't seem like I'm stalking them. It's easier to prove that I do know them now.

We hiked up and up and over and around. In several meanings. It felt like we were literally only going up. Each time we turned and curved out from going towards the towers--I got discouraged. Not only did we not know where we were actually going, but we did not know how the trail was supposed to lead us there. Then next really neat area we ended up at was a waterfall. Which was WELCOME since I NEEDED to put my feet in the water. They were on fire.

The waterfall was a nice reprieve, the dogs enjoyed it--I fell on my padded behind only one time, albeit a rough fall straight onto boulders covered in primordial ooze--slime.

We hiked up and down, cursed the skies and the blazers of such a crappy trail. When we finally got to somewhere that people had seen before, we realized that the 'trail' had dumped us out on the road, about 3 miles from the truck. So my dusty, grimy, disgusting body had to hitch-hike until someone would pick me up and take me to the truck. (5:30p.m.) The dogs were done, Ryan had blown out his knee again, and I as the woman was the most likely to get a ride. So I walked, I walked and hung my arm out the way I've seen in movies. I watched so many rich turds speed by, I made eye contact pleadingly with so many travelers. Finally, after 2.5 miles, a little red rental car stopped.
A very nice man from Wyoming stopped and was astonished that nobody would give me a ride. He asked if I was with "that guy with the dogs". I said yes, and that I had been sent on a mission from god (minus the dry white toast). I clearly wasn't hiding any weapons, I was at the point of exhaustion--therefore not much of a physical threat. He was so nice, I offered him beer in lieu of cash, he said "thank you, but you don't owe me anything". I wished him a happy visit.
I got back to Ryan and the dogs and we set out to find a campsite. How naive we are. We were looking for a campground in the spring, on a Saturday night? They were all taken. We found a clearing that could once upon a time have been called a road. Ryan in his "badass truck" decided we should try it out. We did, we found a site and (remember how we didn't have a knife?) there was a hatchet laying aside the stump. I prayed that the hatchet hadn't been used to murder anyone, and went to work to get some wood. Ryan got the dogs set up and we made fire. Haha.
This was Oberon's first camping trip. He was a trooper, he made it and was sore but happy at the end.

This was also the first trip in the dirt for Truck.
Truck had gotten a lift the day before, and was
rearing to go.

So, after a while of no sleep
in a cold hard truck bed. I moved into the front of the truck. Where I continued to not sleep.

At 8a.m. down the mountain we went. We stopped at a couple campgrounds to see the sites, we stopped to see the Vistas---- and we stopped for about 250 crazy cyclists riding their road bikes up, that's right UP the mountain. I presume that was so there was the down part afterwards, but I think that if I wanted the down part, I'd have someone drive me for the UP part.




Anyway, once in Tucson, we visited Ryan's stepdads grave where we told the dogs to be respectful...





We went to Eegees, since there is no reason to be in Tucson without Eegees. Then we went home and went back to the dirty, dusty, poinkey, scratchy, dark, dank, depressing, pressed for time--real world. Where we couldn't move for 3 days. 11 miles without any preparation is tough.


It was the perfect escape.