5-27-09 Squaw Spring trail 196 in Pinals

Because I really don't enjoy the drive up the 651 road to Pinal Peak, I drove the much shorter route to Pioneer Pass with the intent to hike up the Squaw Spring trail #196 to Pinal Peak. It's a poor trade-off really, if time is any consideration, but the long, bumpy, and rutty 651 road just seems to take forever. I'd rather hike an extra couple miles powered by my own legs than waste a bunch of gas bouncing around on my hemorroids. (Ed. note: A week after writing this, the 651 road was bladed, thereby sparing the hemorroids but only decreasing the time by a fraction).

The Squaw Spring trail starts off steeply from the saddle of Pioneer Pass at the highest point of the 112 road before the road starts to descend down the other side of the mountain towards Pioneer Basin. Directly opposite of this trailhead on the east side is the East Mountain #214 trailhead which runs about 4 miles along the uppermost parts of East mountain. (
Ed note: As of 6-12-09, East mountain is on fire, the result of a lightning strike on May 30).

This was a spur of the moment hike and Bela and I didn't even reach the trailhead until 4:30 in the afternoon. There was just a slight breeze with marauding clouds that seemed like they could contain some rain, especially the one directly over our heads. I had rain gear and Bela wore her usual all-weather coat so we pushed on at a quick pace, hoping to finish the entire 4 mile round trip before the sun went down and before the crepuscular animals started to appear--I didn't want a repeat of our javelina experience from a few weeks ago.

The trail starts out in Ponderosa pine and within a quarter mile, it punches a hole through a thick tunnel of pure manzanita, Arctostaphylos pringlei (photo). This is the plant that covers entire mountain sides in the Pinals, all the way up to 7000 feet or so. Cowboys hate it, fire fighters fear it, and machetes are useless against it. Cowboys on horseback can take the long route around it but in case of fire, it can completely cut off the retreat of a fire crew. These are big, stout, ten to twelve feet high bushes with entangling woody branches that can be more than 3 or 4 inches in diameter. Plus, in the right conditions, they burn hot and fast. A relative of this plant is responsible for fanning the flames of many a southern California chaparral wildfire.

I had my trekking poles and I was digging them in pretty aggressively, hoping to break into the open at the top of Pinal Peak, take a quick peak at the communication towers, and then high tail it back to the bottom. I've done this hike several times before and it gains elevation quickly, from 6156 feet to 7800 feet in 2.1 miles. In fact, with the possible exception of the East Mountain trail, all of the trails in the Pinals are insanely steep, especially for the casual hiker who just doesn't want to work so hard to have fun. Personally, I enjoy the grunt of the uphill climb. I like to lean into a trail and maintain a nice moderate pace with plenty of time to stop and experience things of interest. I alway feel like a horse returning to the barn on the downhill, as if I'm telling myself, "The hike is over, if I missed anything going up then it's too late. Now let's get to the bottom as fast as humanly possible!" I feel as if gravity is pressing me involuntarily and changing my mindset unwillingly on the way down, whereas I'm more in control of my own destiny going up. I really don't like to be bullied by gravity.

Once clear of the jungle of manzanita, the vegetation turns lush and green, dominated by large Gambel oaks, minor emergents of pines, a smattering of New Mexico locusts (photo), and an unbroken ground cover of snowberry, Symphoricarpus sp. (photo). The snowberry stands waist high at best but literally covers the entire understory of the Gambel oaks, making it next to impossible to go off trail, even for my dog Bela, who generally doesn't like to take no for an answer. The machete would come in handy here-- for the snowberry, not the dog. Today, the snowberry is in full flower with long, pendulous white flowers that are unremarkable but worth remarking about anyway, mainly because they are flowering today and may not be tomorrow.

Just below Squaw Spring is the remains of a fast-moving , low-intensity fire that probably happened in the past year by the looks of the regrowing vegetation. The oaks are burned 10 or 12 feet up on the trunks but many of them are still alive at the tops. In general, the Gambel oaks along the trail are dense with branches that squeak eerily when a dead one rubs against a live one. It's the kind of sound that would keep my dog barking all night long if we had pitched a tent for the night.

Squaw Spring is about a third of a mile below the top and about 100 feet off the trail. It's fenced in but accessible, and reportedly safe to drink, but easy to miss in the shade of the oaks and the engulfing snowberries.

At 2.1 miles, the trail abruptly ends and emerges into a broad open area full of steel gray towers and large communication dishes of all shapes and sizes. It's not the most idylic mountain-top setting but the trail does deliver you near the tip top of the Pinals without having to endure the extra 20 minute drive (each way) on the 651 road. Allow about 4 hours for a leisurely round trip; if you have plane to catch, you can do it in 3 1/2.

Memorial Day 2009 192 trail Pinals

Bela and I went for a quick one this morning on the 192 trail off of the Pioneer Pass 112 Road. It was clear and still, and lush from the unusual week of rain last week. I didn't take my camera but I did bring my binocs and saw curved bill thrashers, a western tanager, chaparral honeysuckle in flower, and what I think was a black-headed grosbeak. Birds are really tough to see in heavy chaparral and are best enjoyed by song alone.

Toll Road trail #200 Pinals

5-11-09
On the way down Six Shooter canyon road to the trailhead this morning, I was passed by a small black sedan with Oregon plates going at least 50 mph. I was traveling about 35 but on this twisty, curvy road, the 15 mph difference seemed entirely unreasonable, like the driver was on the lam with a half dozen pursuing sheriff's deputies not far behind. I dialed 911 and asked if there had been a reported bank robbery, kidnapping, or some murderous flight from the law, but the sheriff's dispatcher to whom I had been transferred said that all was quiet. So I continued on, doing my part to uphold the posted speed limit, and praying that I wouldn't meet the black sedan at the trailhead just as they were dumping the body.

What I did see about 50 feet from the turnoff was a three foot diamondback rattlesnake on the right side of the road. I didn't see it clearly at first and I had to backup to get a good look at it. The snake's instincts about the flattening power of a 3000 pound truck caused it do an about face and return to the shrubs on the same side of the road as it started. Bela (in the back of the truck) never got a good look at it so her interest was never stimulated enough to get excited. As far as I know, Bela has never had a run-in with a rattlesnake, which seems unlikely because of the number of times that we have been hiking in prime snake habitat. She has been vaccinated for the effects of rattlesnake venom but she has yet to learn anything about avoiding a potential bite.

This winter and spring, I was avoiding this trail because of the amount of cow pies and the cow traffic that generates them. I don't like to see cows during hikes and I really dislike seeing the trail littered with months of various age classes of cow dung. I'm not adverse to poop as a general principal, but the constant reminder that cows are either present or were present in the recent past takes away from the wildness that I am looking for. It no longer feels like a path into the rugged foothills of the Pinal mountains; instead, it wreaks of a public land feed lot for a bunch of stinking cows. With the oncoming heat and drought of the summer, it now appears that most of the cows have been moved up in elevation to defecate in greener pastures, so I have no doubt that we will be seeing more of each other as I climb higher as well.

The blue palo verdes have been spectacular this year in the lower and the higher elevations. I have seen them at elevations (up to 4500 feet) that until this year I didn't know that they reached. They were easy to spot as bright yellow accents high up on the more open, south-facing chaparral hillsides. The foothill palo verdes in the lower deserts have been equally spectacular though they are in the usual predictable locations.

Running with the javelinas

5-18-09
I got back from Show Low just before dusk with just enough daylight to take Bela for a quick, leash-less run behind Cobre Valley Community Hospital. It’s a hilly area with horrendous erosional damage from ATVs but it’s close to my house and allows Bela to run at full speed with relative safety in any direction that interests her. We’ve walked this area dozens of times and aside from an occasional contact with cottontails, quail, dirt bikes, or someone else walking their dog, our little treks are generally uneventful.

We started out in the typical fashion with Bela running a hundred feet ahead of me. She generally follows the road or trail on these hikes but she’s also easily lured by smells and other distractions in the surrounding vegetation. In this case, the plants were a dense cover of shrubby mesquites with plenty of catclaws, sotols, and prickly pears, all in flower except for the sotols. I generally give a quick whistle or “Let’s go!” when Bela moves too far out of my comfort zone and that usually brings her back to me at full gallop, or at least brings her out into the open, close enough for us to make eye contact that signals that all is well. Such is our typical hiking style that suits us both amicably.

Tonight, the light was going fast and Bela had disappeared into the brush on the left side of the road near the top of the second of a series of steep hills. After whistling three or four times for her, I heard a low pitched “hurumph, hurumph” sound and then I saw Bela in profile, leaping high through the prickly pears and catclaw and running as fast as the obstacles would let her. I could barely see the top of her back as she ran but behind her, I saw the tops of two other hairy humps more clearly, arching over the vegetation and right on her heels. At first I thought they were dogs but as all three of them burst into the middle of the road at nearly the same time, I realized that Bela’s two pursuers were javelinas.

She ran down the hill towards me as fast as I have ever seen her run with both javelinas coming straight towards me at the same speed. My first and only reaction was to get “large” and threatening and run straight towards them, the same technique used to scare off a bear. I ran at them with total abandon, yelling “aaaaaggggghhhhh” as loud as I could, wildly moving my arms over my head and down to my sides, up and down, up and down, like an animated Vitriolic man. It wasn’t a well thought-out maneuver, but it was all I could come up with in the nano seconds I still had to survive.

Both javelinas stopped in mid step, ran a few feet away from us, and then turned towards us again. I quickly grabbed Bela’s collar, just in case she might be thinking that these animals were only interested in a little play time. I had heard too many stories about encounters with javelina that included negatively motivating words like disembowelment and evisceration to vividly illustrate the outcomes of interactions with dogs and other domestic animals. The stories involving humans were more intestinally retentive but still spoke of shredded tendons, torn ligaments, and long muscle tears below the knees.

I turned and started to run down the steep, loose gravel trail with Bela well ahead of me. I looked quickly over my shoulder and saw that one of the javelinas had stayed behind but the other was running after us again. Since my Vitriolic wild man had worked so well the first time, I stopped and charged towards it again, screaming even louder than before. I was running at him uphill and I probably looked a little smaller and less threatening, but he stopped nevertheless. This time though, he didn’t retreat, he just stopped and looked down at me. I was struck by how skinny he was when looked at straight-on. Javelinas' heads are so thin that their eyes don’t appear to be capable of binocular vision. Their bodies have a certain ferocious daintiness and vulnerability with tiny little hooves and the body thickness and roundish shape of a bluegill. They look unbalanced too, as if they would just fall over on their side like a bicycle if they ever stopped their forward momentum.

Bela had trotted tentatively back to me and I sensed that she was now well aware of the urgency of the situation. We both started running again, a little faster now that we were on more level ground with ruts that weren’t so deep and treacherous. The javelina was still chasing us but not as aggressively. I stopped and ran towards it a third time, with the same crazy screaming and waving, and it stopped again, but then immediately started towards us, walking slowly as if considering its next move. It was thirty or forty feet away and closing slowly which gave me time to start picking up some nearby rocks to use as dissuading projectiles. I used the underhand bowling technique, hoping that the rocks would skip along the ground and then, at just the right time, get deflected airborne directly under the javelina’s chin. None of this worked of course, but it bought us enough time to get down to the bottom of the last hill nearer to my parked truck.

As the chances of our survival increased, I started to laugh at the absurdity of the situation as I ran: here was a grown man and his dog, fleeing for their lives, alternately running in two different directions and yelling, all while a large, hairy bluegill with dainty feet raced after them.

The rocks had slowed it down but it never stopped following us. Bela and I were walking now but each time I looked back, I saw it. It just seemed to want to keep tabs on us—it had run us off and it just wanted to make sure that we were safely away. For an animal with such reportedly poor eyesight, it didn’t seem to have any difficulty seeing us. We may have just been large blobs to him but threatening blobs we were.

There was a patient from the hospital with an open, loose fitting print gown walking in the parking lot near where my truck was parked. She was being lead around by a nurse or a family member, just below where Bela and I had made our escape; there was no question that she had been close enough to have heard every nuance of my panic, including at least three primal screams that I let out during our retreat. She took tiny baby steps, with the heel of one foot barely passing the toes of the other with each step. For all I knew, the poor woman had just had her spleen removed and was out for a little post-op exercise but now had to face the probable maniac whose screaming had already terrified her from up on the hill. I wanted to apologize and explain what had just ocurred but somehow I didn’t think that she would buy it. She and her companion avoided all eye contact, probably thinking that if the surgery didn’t kill her, the crazed man and his dog walking towards her just might.

I’ve retold this story several times and most of the people that I’ve told it to, particularly those that have spent considerable time in the desert, have similar stories. Those less fortunate than me have been chased into trees or into the backs of pickup trucks, or have had to pay $1500 veterinarian bills to have their dogs sewn back together. Other than the few dozen prickly pear spines that I had to remove from Bela’s legs and belly, we came out relatively unscathed. I loaded her into the truck, and we started home along the far edge of the parking lot, just in time to see a woman in a print grown make her way through an automatic sliding door, towards the safety of her hospital bed.

Mountain bikes on the Toll Road trail in Pinals

5-10-09
Connor and I finally un-mothballed the mountain bikes and made attempt number 2 at riding down the Toll Road trail, #200 in the Pinals. We would have done this sooner but we had to give the disappointing memories of our first try time to heal. On our first attempt, about this time last year, we had barely ridden for 5 minutes down the Toll Road trail from Pioneer Pass when Mr. “Go-for-it” laid all 250 muscular pounds of his 17 year old body into his pedals while going over a log and broke his chain. Rather than pitching his entire bike down the embankment in anger as I would have done, he chose instead to throw the chain, a poor choice because the chain disappeared beautifully into the heavy pine and oak duff near the creek at the bottom. Even frustrated golfers are smart enough to throw their bagful of clubs in the lake rather than a handful of unsatisfying Titleists that do nothing more for your attitude than to sink irretrievably into the muck.

I needed the old chain in order to get the right measurement for the new one, so I ticked off about 20 minutes of my life walking a tight grid pattern through the leaves at the base of the ravine, while Connor cussed and kicked Ponderosa pine cones in all directions from above. I finally found the broken chain partially wrapped around a pine sapling, so we regrouped and silently pushed our bikes up a steep embankment to the Ice House Canyon road (#112) and began a slow, pitiful coast back towards Globe. I suppose we could have coasted all the way if it was our only choice, but it reeked of failure and impotence; it seemed better to lick our wounds and try it again at full strength. Ann had barely started down the mountain from dropping us off in the Land Cruiser when she received our cell phone request to turn around and pick us up.

Now, almost exactly a year later, we decided to sally forth one more time. I put a new chain on Connor’s bike and I bought spare chains for my bike and his, along with several new tubes, a chain breaker tool, tire repair kit, Allen wrenches, tire removal tools, and toilet paper—everything that we might need to get ourselves out of another jam without having to subject ourselves once again to the humiliation of having to fall back on Mama’s sag wagon.

In order to further stack the deck in our favor, we started below Pioneer Pass on a slightly lower part of the Toll Road trail by starting at the steep Uña de Oso trail #201 and riding it down to Pinal Creek where it intersected with the Toll Road trail. It cut off a mile or so, but even better, it cut off some of the difficult sections that would have been hard to navigate with a bike. It also bypassed that fateful area over the log and down the ravine that grounded us last year.

The Uña de Oso trail is a steep, half mile connector trail from the trailhead at the 112 road that runs steeply all the way down to the creek. In terms of driving time, this trailhead cuts off a mile or two of the drive to Pioneer Pass making it the quickest route to get down to this section of Pinal Creek.

It’s even quicker on a mountain bike and as Mr. “No Fear” raced down ahead of me, he managed to drive a banana yucca leaf into this shin. When I reached him, there wasn’t much bleeding and he claimed no pain, but he did confer that he brushed against something wet on the way down. I had felt the same thing—it felt like dew, like the leaves were still wet at 12 noon, with clear blue skies, and close to 90 degrees of temperature. It just didn’t add up so we walked back a few hundred feet searching for the source and found that the Arizona white oak leaves that we had brushed by as we road were covered with tiny, tan-colored larvae suspended in a viscous liquid at the base of the bottom side of many of the leaves. The liquid had the familiar look and consistency of spit; each ½” wide translucent wad was filled with tiny air bubbles and four or five squirming larvae about one eighth inch long. Our bare arms had picked up some of this slime as we road past and, as it evaporated, we felt the effects of the evaporative cooling, like a nurse had just prepped us with an alcohol swab for a tetanus shot.

When we weren’t carrying our bikes through and across Pinal Creek or up impossibly steep and rocky sections of the trail, Mr. “Better Dead than Late” was riding well ahead of me, allowing me to catch up only to make sure that I hadn’t wrecked and to chide me for riding my brakes too much. The only time that I was ahead of him was when he decided to use that toilet paper that I had brought along—even he had to slow down to pull that off that little operation. It’s the democracy of elimination at work.

As an old guy, I like to convince myself that experience trumps the raw energy of youth, but that self-assurance only lasts as long as there is no youthfulness around to shove it back in my face. On the parts of the trail where I was able to keep up with Connor, his reaction time and pure gut instincts were impossible for me to replicate. I may have been able to follow the S-shaped turns that he used to ride up the steeply-sloped right hand side of the trail and swing around the boulder on the left, but had anyone been watching, there would be no doubt about his fluidity and my slow and shaky imitations.

Only the upper part of Pinal Creek had water still trickling through the rocks. The entire lower section was bone dry. Even the large earthen cattle tank just north of the trail junction with the Ice House Canyon and Check Dam trail had nothing in it but a crusty layer of dried and checked mud. This was the same tank that Paul, Natalie, and I had five dogs swimming in just a few months earlier this year.

I had abandoned this trail in the last month because of the number of disgusting cows and cow shit that was everywhere along the trail. It was tough to keep Bela focused on the good wholesome fun of chasing smells and away from the tasty green slime of the ever present cow pies. She had a tendency to want to chase the cow pie generators too, especially the calves. I remember one time this winter where a strong back kick by a mother cow just missed breaking Bela’s jaw by a few millimeters. I was anxious to teach her the evils of chasing cows myself, rather than having to feed her blenderized dog food through a straw for the next 6 months.

Though it’s still early May, it feels like summer with the buzzing of insects in the ears and the schizophrenic songs of Mockingbirds perched high in the surrounding mesquites. Though the creek is dry, there are at least a dozen species of butterflies and several dragonflies darting around. Arctostaphylos pungens (the smaller, greener Manzanita) already has its blueberry size and shaped fruits fully formed and well on their way to being ripe and Rhus trilobata (Lemonade berry) is completely full of its fruits, all red-ripe and sticky to the touch. There are still the blue flowers of Eriastrum growing low along the tread of the trail.

Most of the mesquites are in full flower with the typical golden 3 inch long catkins that appear like skewered caterpillars sticking out in all directions from the branches. Native prickly pears are in nearly full bloom with chiffon yellow flowers that have an incredible back-lit transparency that makes them look electric. It’s a color that lends itself to be captured far more accurately with water colors than oils.

Mourning doves are flying from tree to tree in their typical groupings of three or four. Quail are everywhere, as are sooty colored flycatchers that dash from a strategic exposed branch, grab their target insect, and return to the exact same spot, like someone might retrieve a ball that had rolled into the middle of a street in the path of an oncoming car. I also saw a Scott’s Oriole with its striking contrast of black on pure yellow, a color combination worthy of a high school letter jacket and matching cheerleader pom poms.

Yerba Santa is at its peak with crisp white flowers but the last Penstemon pseudospectabilis flowers are beginning to fade. What Connor calls Indian toilet paper and I call mullein(Verbascum sp.) is 8” to 18” tall in the creek bottom, growing amongst the rapidly fading Verbenas. Monkey flowers are still flowering in the moister parts of the creek bottom.

Connor and I made it back to the car in about 40 minutes with no broken bones, flat tires, or broken chains. Other than Connor’s small yucca puncture wound, we collectively only had the drying blood from the scratches of trailside catclaws to prove that we actually did anything substantial. If it were up to Connor, he would have made it to the bottom in 15 minutes and walked away wallowing in youthful satisfaction, most likely bragging to his friends that he had beat his old man to the bottom by almost a half hour. I’d like to think that I used those extra 30 minutes for some extended father son contact time, something that has become rarer and rarer in the past year or two. Those extra minutes of braking also helped to guarantee me a place in the next adventure, complete with sound ribs, a full set of teeth, and functional knees that can pedal safely past logs and yuccas, and help carry my bike over creek boulders where even Connor can’t ride.

Six Shooter Creek trail #197 creek section Pinals

8:30am, warm, nearly calm, plenty of running water with the attendant water sounds coming from the creek, very high and very thin clouds.

Saw a black-headed grosbeak with its robin-like song. It appeared to be sucking on the nectar of (still) actively flowering Arctostaphylos pringlei, but I had left my binoculars at home and I only had my small 8 x 24 monocular with me which requires the eye of an army sharpshooter to lock onto a bird and the hand of surgeon to hold steady. This is a very fragrant plant and has been flowering actively, non-stop for over a month. I was also able to see a hepatic tananger and hear numerous canyon wrens and what I think were bewick’s wrens.

There are curious monochromatic bees all over the trail that look like they are searching for something. The grayish, translucent gray wings are held perpendicular to the darker, black body, and each bee has a hair thin snout, extended straight and about 3/16ths of an inch long. They are alternating between hovering just inches above the dirt trail surface and landing for short periods without any evidence of accomplishing anything in the process. From directly above, they look like tiny hummingbirds but with the familiar buzzing that you expect from a group of bees. I assumed that they were ground nesting bees but I have no basis for thinking that except for memory of seeing the emergence of similar bees from holes along a similar dirt path at BTA several years ago. I have video of it.

Around 5500 feet, the native hedgehogs are flowering, as are Indian Paintbrush, New Mexico groundsel, Senecio neomexicana (photo), Fleabane daisy, and small groups of the white Sago lily,Calochortus ambiguus (photo). Some of the flowering Agave chrysanthas are already 8 to 10 feet tall; I also photographed another Agave chrysantha along the trail that got a late start and was barely 3 feet high. This one is not far from the iron gate and might be worth photographing regularly.

All trees and shrubs are completely leafed out now, even up by the 4th creek crossing. The evergreen oaks have just lost their leaves (fall is spring) and have upward growing new leaves on top of the branches and pendulous, wind pollinated flowers below. On one shady north facing slope that appeared to be fed by a spring, I found New Mexico raspberry, Rubus neomexicanus, False Solomon’s Seal, Smilacina racemosa (photo), Wallflower, Erysimum asperrum (photo), and many white-flowered Canada violets.

Just above the trail from this little wet spot is an even wetter spot, easily heard from above as the creek pours down a series of 30 or 40 feet of vertical steps into a dark pool. It’s easy to get to from the trail and just hidden enough from above to engage in a clothing optional dip with a friend. In my case, the friend is my dog Bela who, though still afraid to put her head under the water, is always ready to splash around up to her neck. The pool is about 20 feet across and as deep as 3 or 4 feet in places with a rounded, cobble stone bottom.

There are a total of four creek crossing and the waterfall and swimming pool are just below the third crossing.

4-23-09 201 trailhead in Pinals

Bela and I got a late start today but by about 4pm, we had reached the parking area for the 201 trail, just off of the Pioneer Pass road 112. The trailhead is about a mile past the trailhead for the 197 Six Shooter Canyon trail.

I had spotted someone camping here earlier in the week. It was a neat camp from a distance with no obvious humans in the vicinity. There was an older, 1970's Ford pickup parked in front of a blue, 4 person dome tent. Off to the side were two comfortable camp chairs, sitting side by side, allowing a long view of the opposite hillside and Pinal Creek below. It looked like an ideal setting, almost romantic, with perfect weather in a relatively isolated location.

Today, the spot was empty and from the moment I let Bela out of the truck, I knew something was up. There was the remains of a small fire, conservatively built and cold to the touch, built in front of where the two chairs had been placed. She ignored the fire completely and headed straight for the shrubby perimeter of the area where she quickly located her favorite food--maybe every dog's favorite-- human shit. The campers had made no effort to dig a hole or a trench, they just wandered 20 or 30 feet from their tent and let it loose under the cover of a couple large manzanitas.

Bela will go after fox, coyote, bobcat, or domestic dog crap wherever she finds it, despite my loud prostrations to the contrary. "Leave it! Drop it! Jesus, Bela, that's disgusting." There is no telling what more she eats when I'm not right on top of her watching her every move. She will step over dry cow pies to find the fresh ones that have just barely formed a thin crust, easily breaking through the air-dried barrier with her tongue, exposing the fresh, green custard inside. But human shit is her personal gold standard and it's always surprising how often she finds it in what you would think are civilized surroundings. I find it everywhere I go to run Bela. Sometimes it's hidden behind a large boulder or tree in what approaches a conscientious (but still predictable) attempt at waste management, but more often than not, it's right out in the open, oftentimes marked with the univeral white flag: four or five still connected sheets flapping in the wind.

True to form, she zeroed in on these scattered human defecants within seconds. She never gobbles fresh human feces, any more than I would gulp down a soft serve ice cream cone, and when I caught up with her, she was licking away, happy as a clam. I grabbed her by the collar and yanked her away, her tongue still lapping, and put her in the back of the truck until I put on my pack, pulled out my bincoculars and strapped my camera through my belt loop.

The trail head was about 50 feet away, and well before we reached it, Bela had found the heel of a loaf of white bread within throwing distance of the small fire. I never went back to look, but as we walked down the trail towards the distant sound of Pinal Creek below, I suspected that anything that wasn't burnable had probably been pitched over the hill. The glass bottles probably made it to the ground, shattering in coarse brown shards beneath the dense shrub canopy; everything else was probably caught by the tangle of branches, suspended, waiting for wind or rain-- or another dog-- to clean it up.