the world has turned and left me here

mt. humphreys

Sunday I drove up to Flagstaff and hiked up Mt. Humphreys, Arizona's tallest peak at 12,633 feet. The trail guide I read classified it as a "strenuous" hike but I dismissed this as written by and for the elderly. It was in fact strenuous. Never take these ratings lightly especially in a place like Arizona where average joe six pack is a tanned mountain biker who runs a couple marathons a year.

All told it took 6 hours to hike 9 miles of trail. I was also coming from 1,500 feet above sea level. At about 11,000 I started feeling the difference, and had to stop constantly because of light-headedness. It probably didn't help that the wind was so cold and hard at this point that I somehow got brain freeze externally.

The trail starts off by winding up through beautiful pine and aspen forests. I didn't suspect there were places like this in America; it was comparable to the forests I loved in Bavaria. Along the way knobby roots are worn smooth as your neighbor's coffee table by the endless rock polisher combination of trail dust and hiking boots.

In places the trail yields to scree slopes like this one, evidence of Mt. Humphreys' volcanic past.

Once above the treeline things change suddenly from balmy forest to bleak tundra. You hear a lot of tundra-hugging these days, but it really is a fragile, exotic sort of environment with lots of weird flora and fauna. Take this one for example, looks like something you'd find at the bottom of the ocean.

Nope, this isn't actually the top. It's a false summit. Beyond it there is still about an hour of hiking left before one reaches the top.

Yup, it's pretty windy at the top. There are a few man-made rock shelters up there but they still aren't much protection. When I made it up there were about six other hikers in one, all huddled together. One of them was nice enough to roll me a cigarette from my pipe tobacco when I couldn't get the pipe lit, and we sat around joking and laughing at one of the hiker's little dogs who were fighting. It was a mother-and-son brawl with lots of growling, teeth-baring, and ear-biting. Though the son was at least as big he got his butt kicked decisively.

And here's the sign. After taking this picture I got blown over, and decided that was about enough of that, so I headed back down.