Jim and Shauna's Excellent Adventure, Part III

We got to Roger's Trough Thursday afternoon at about 5:30.  It was much later than we planned to get there.  We hurried and set up the tent and put all of the sleeping things in so it would be ready when we got back.  We intended to to hike to the Indian ruins which is about 5 miles round trip. We weren't too worried about it getting dark because it was almost a full moon that night.  Jim had been to the ruins before when he was a scout and they hiked most of it by moonlight.

So we started out and got about a mile down the trail.  We stopped and looked at some cactus and at some mistletoe.  We got talking and for some reason we decided to go back.  We didn't feel good about going in the dark, especially with Kristine having knee problems.  She was wearing her brace, but the terrain was much rougher than we expected.

So we stopped here and there and checked out the cactus, including the prickly pear apples.  We cut one open and tasted it.  Jim's mom used to make jelly out of the fruit when he was younger.  I think it would have made great jelly.  The fruit was quite tasty.  We also saw several growths of mistletoe.  Mistletoe is a parasite and attaches itself to trees and bushes and uses them for its nourishment.  (I think it was Janae who commented that mistletoe was appropriate for lovers if it was a parasite.)  We were going to pick some the next day on our way back to camp.  We wanted it as fresh as we could get it.

The girls liked the sweat patterns on Jim's back, caused from his pack.

We went back to the tent and settled in.  Party-pooper that I am, I went to sleep at 8:30.  The others weren't up much later than I was.  We wanted to get an early start.  We decided to go to the Reavis Ranch and then see if we still wanted to go to the ruins.  We were so funny.  We had no idea what was in store for us on the Reavis Ranch hike.

We started off around 8:00 am.  We had a little bit to eat, filled our water bottles and packed our cold powerade into Jim's backpack.  The hike starts off going downhill for almost 2 miles.  We went a little further than that and stopped to have some energy snacks.  We passed by the trail to the ruins and the place that leads to old man Reavis' grave.  The trail was so rocky that it was difficult for us to walk on it.  I had left my pain meds back at camp.  I could have really used them many times over by the time we got back.

The 2 miles down hill are followed by an uphill climb.  This was mostly switchbacks that led us further and further back into the mountains.  We passed around several mountains while going up and up.  The trail was on the southward face of the mountains and it was hot.  We finally got to the top which is called Reavis Saddle.

Looking back from Reavis Saddle to all the mountains we had hiked up and around.  Camp was behind the furtherest mountain and to the right, out of the picture.

We were feeling pretty good at this time, thinking that we were almost there.  We started down into the valley and walked and walked and walked and walked.  It was supposed to be about 2.5 miles from the saddle to the ranch, but it was much further.

We came to this tree, an old alligator juniper.  It's the biggest one in the world, about 7 ft in diameter.  We thought that the tree we near the ranch ruins, so we kept walking.  The tree wasn't near the ranch.  The area was very pretty and we saw lots of interesting things, but no ruins or apple trees.  According to our pedometer we should have been there, but we weren't.  We sat down in the shade to rest.  We decided that we would go just a little further and if we didn't find it, we would go back.  We hated to go back without seeing the ruins and apples.  We had come so far and I didn't want to have to do the hike again.  We were getting pretty tired.  Kristine's knees were both really hurting her.  My knee hurt.  Our feet were beginning to hurt.  Then, we heard some horses whinnying.  Just around the bend was an open field and the ruins were just past that.

The floor of the ranch house.

The old well.

Some old farm equipment.

And the apples.

The trees were loaded, but only high up.  The animals had eaten everything on the lower branches.

Jim with his beloved apples.

We didn't stay as long as we would have liked because it was almost 2:00.  We wanted to get back and drive down the awful road before it was dark.  We were already hurting when we left.  We had gone more than a mile farther than we had planned and the trail was rocky and harder to walk on than we wanted.  But what can you do?  We just kept walking.  The girls are not complainers, but Kristine did voice some concern when we found bear tracks on top of our inbound tracks.  A bear had passed within an hour of us.  Luckily we didn't see him. 

I didn't take any pictures on the way back.  We needed all of our energy just to get back.  That last 2 miles uphill was almost the end of us.  Even Janae was having a hard time. We didn't pick the mistletoe.  Jim figures that we hiked about 15 miles that day.  I later read in our book that it's supposed to be a 2 or 3 day hike.   I didn't cry when I saw the truck, but I thought about it.  We had packed up camp before we left that morning.  We also had cold drinks in a cooler that were the best tasting drinks I've ever had.  We did get down the bad road before it got dark, but just barely.  The rest of the trip was made in the dark.

We stopped at McDonalds because they have the best coke and we were too smelly and tired so we needed a drive thru.  Jim and I ended up getting out anyway and both got charlie-horses in our legs.  We drove to Max and Lynne's house, where a hot shower and the princess bed were waiting for us.  By the next morning, Jim and I were feeling pretty good.  The girls said never to ask them to go with us again.

We wanted to listen to Conference as we drove home, but there wasn't a single station in Mesa/Phoenix that carried it.  Part way between Phoenix and Flagstaff is an Indian ruin called Montezuma's Castle.  It's just off the freeway and there was no hiking involved.  We stopped there to make up for not getting to see the other ruins.

This is high on the wall face.  The only way up was a series of ladders.  The public isn't allowed up anymore.  If I had lived there, I would never have come down after I got up there.

 Another view.

On the way back to camp from Reavis Ranch,  we all said that we were never doing that hike again.  But time has a habit of helping us forget pain.  Now Jim and I are saying that maybe we would go back.  I do want to go back to the Indian ruins that we didn't get to see.  There is another road that we can take to get to that so I won't have to go back on the scary road.  We are planning trips to Lehman Caves and to Grand Gulch in the near future.  Don't ask me what we are thinking.