Wilderness Adventure

Lord Kadizzle, and Jasper Littlebottom, AKA, The Commander took off yesterday on an off trail hike. After the Kadizzlites know an area pretty well we often like to strike out on our own into unexplored territory away from the trails.

Our choice was up a creek bed toward the Superstition Mountains. Obviously going back the way we came is the simple solution, but it is no fun. As usual the two people who can never agree on anything cannot decide how to bush whack our way back.

The Commander insist she knows a simple short way back. Kadizzle had a different plan in mind. Navigating is fun in the desert and if you play your cards right it is almost a certainty you can get to a known trail. One big if is the unknown factor of hitting a canyon or cliff you cannot cross.

As often happens when two stubborn mules butt heads each of the Kadizzlites struck off in different directions for a brief period. Fortunately The Commanders route did no yield any good prospects very quickly for the direction we needed to go. We needed to go NW, but Kadizzle's stream bed seemed to head NE. Kadizzle thought the stream bed would bend to the NW, but was not sure. Either by luck or good navigating Kadizzle turned out to be correct and the route back was not too difficult. However, The Commander insist that given a little more effort her route was much quicker.

The argument has not been settled by official documentation, but Kadizzle realized as the crew hiked back that we would have got back eventually on The Commanders route, but it would have been a long hard arduous hike.

The Commander likes to hike in shorts, and she tried to persuade Kadizzle to hike bare legged. Back at the Earth Module The Commander's legs looked as if she had been clawed by a mountain lion from the cactus scratches. Had the crew taken The Commanders route we could have used her legs for hamburger.

It is always an adventure. Make sure you take a GPS, some matches, a flashlight, and a beacon. It would also be very wise to let someone know what you are up to and when you should be back. Someday Kadizzle suspects The Commander and Kadizzle will spend a cold night huddled under a space blanket, because of an adventure gone aery.

One last important word of advice. Most of the time we start hiking about 9 O'Clock. Kadizzles rule is to turn around and head back between one and two in the afternoon. Many times The Commander insist we keep going, but that rule has worked well for us. Running out of daylight and being lost is not good. On occasions when it looked as if we were in a bind, we started hiking faster to get back before dare. This leads to several bad possibilities. Going too fast leads to injuries, and if you are going in the wrong direction, you are going the wrong way faster.