First in a series:
You could call us the three amigos, but that isn’t quite accurate because two of us are brothers. “Tres hombres” may be better — Spanish for three men or, better yet, three guys.
My brother Robert, our lifelong friend Dan Banks and I converged at the Tucson airport for a weeklong road trip one recent Friday — the latest in a long line of backcountry journeys the three of us have taken over the decades.
The plan was to rent an SUV and made a big loop through southeast Arizona, staying in cabins in the Coronado National Forest, also known as Sky Islands.
The terrain of southeastern Arizona consists of vast, flat plains interspersed by steep mountain ranges rising like islands from a prairie-desert sea. Each of those islands lies within separate blocks of the 1.78 million-acre Coronado National Forest — though there’s not much “forest” as we think of it here in the Deep South.
Cabins, not tents
We originally planned to tent-camp — until we started thinking of all the extra gear we would have to carry on the plane. Plus, airlines now charge for every piece of checked baggage.
So we decided to rent Forest Service cabins instead. And since Robert and Dan are in their early 70s and I’m in my mid-60s, why not?
As best I can determine, it had been 20 years since our last excursion (canoeing in Alaska), and Robert suggested at the outset that this might be our last.
Not to say we’re ready for a nursing home. Dan, who has a small farm outside Hilo, Hawaii, competed in Ironman triathlons into his 50s. Robert, who calls San Marcos, Texas, home, hiked hundreds if not thousands of miles on the Appalachian Trail and elsewhere. Both have kept in good shape, despite the occasional health setback.
For Dan, one of those setbacks was Guillain-Barre’ Syndrome, a terrifying condition that causes partial paralysis. By sheer grit he overcame it enough to hike and ride his bicycle.
Robert has asthma and I have heart stents, but that’s all just par for the course.
Into the high country
In Tucson we stocked up on supplies and headed north. The temperature was 100 degrees.
When the road left town, it angled sharply upward into saguaro forest, where the giant cacti grew like trees. Signs marked our rapid gain in altitude — 4,000 feet, 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 and rising. The car thermometer dropped accordingly, from the 90s all the way down to 70.
We passed hoodoos, vertical formations with one rock stacked on another by the inscrutable forces of nature or the whimsical hand of God. Then came some actual forest, pine trees at high elevation.
At last we reached our cabin, known as the Palisades Ranger Residence, though no one lives there now. We settled in, then Robert and I played guitar outside in the cool mountain air.
We had rented the cabin for one night — which we discovered is not enough. The next morning we loaded up and headed back down the mountain, realizing in hindsight we should have budgeted time to hike one of those cool piney trails.
Cactus spines
Back on the plain we detoured into Saguaro National Park, which features a loop drive through the desert. This wasn’t the barren, sandy wasteland we had envisioned, though, as it was chockfull of vegetation, including lots of wildflowers swarming with butterflies.
Purple blossoms recalled Zane Grey’s great western novel, “Riders of the Purple Sage.”
East of Tucson we spotted a chile pepper festival underway and stopped for some fresh Mexican food for lunch. Then we made another detour, to Kartchner Caverns State Park. Such detours are part of the appeal of road trips.
We hiked a loop trail through the mountains, with sweeping views all around. At one point I noticed a chafing sensation on my knee and looked down to see my jeans studded with cactus spines. That night I found needles in my knee. Fortunately my first aid kit contained tweezers.
Worse dangers than this lay ahead.
n n n
Next week: Red on yellow, kill a fellow.
