Deep in the Mazatal Mountains

Yesterday the trail crew got up early.  Driving into the Mazatal mountains is an undertaking.  The Forest Service provides us with a 3/4 ton Dodge Ram Truck.  The road into the Mazatal trail heads we wanted to reach is not much wider than the truck and a great deal of the road hangs on a cliff.  As Kadizzle drove the 20 miles into the mountian on the treachous road he thought " What in the hell happens if someone comes the ?".   Someone would have to back up. Going backwards on a cliff edge in a truck too large would not be good.  No one came, so we made it without incident.  The scenery was staggering.  It has taken Kadizzle years to realize just how rugged the Arizona mountains really are.  Kadizzle has traveled just about all of the U.S. including parts of Alaska.  There are many large mountains, but the ones in Arizona are vast and like saw teeth.  Last year when our crew tried to go back into the Mazatals the head of the fire crew quickly put an end to it.  Kadizzle understood why when we made the trip yesterday.  Yesterday the road was dry and the gate was open. Last year the gate was locked and we had to get the combination to go in.  Water or snow on that road would mean suicide.  So yesterday's lesson was never go there unless you have perfect conditions.

When we got to the trail head after a long scenic ride we found where someone cached water for the Arizona trail.  Back in this wilderness you quickly realize how brave and determined hikers on the Arizona trail are.  The people that hike that trail are by themselves miles and impossible miles from any kind of help. You cannot even land a helicopter in there.  At the trail head a flyer was posted about a man that disappeared in 2010.  The man's car was found, but the man has never been found. The flyer asked people to look for any remains of the man or his equipment.

Cliff and Kadizzle undertook the task of clearing some logs from the trail.  The first log was easy.  The second log required every kind of inventiveness we could muster.  Using only natural materials to make a lever, rocks and fallen trees were used to move the large tree that was over one hundred feet long.  After about an hour and a half we finally moved the tree from the trail.