My Journey

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

PNWY.....there's no doubt about it. Dogs open closed doors.....

Ace.....no need to worry.....Trapper does it all the time. When I said "for some reason unbeknownst to me", I was referring to the location she picked to fall over. She hates the heat and is constantly stopping to lie down in the shade. It drives me nuts.....



We drove east passing by & through Tucson, Arizona.....the plan now was head south into the same general area that we'd been before. I was caught daydreaming and drove right on by my planned exit. So we drove further east and finally got off the interstate in Benson, Arizona. That wrong turn was to be the blame for our newest plan.....



That night was spent along the side of a rural road just outside of town. The following morning we drove south
along Highway 80, hung a left onto Middlemarch Road.....



.....and drove down 10 miles of mostly washboard roads.....



We passed by a peaceful road.....loved that name.....



.....eventually once again ending up in the Coronado National Forest.....



We set up camp at a trailhead (which I'll be talking about soon enough.....it was amazing).....the day was still young so we jumped into the Jeep.....



.....to explore more of these desert roads.....



When we left our campsite I really had no idea where we were going.....just getting up into those mountains was about all that was on my mind.....



Well, we ended up at this place called Middlemarch Pass (5,924').....it was beautiful there.....you could see this entire valley to the east (we'd come from the west). Now it probably won't surprise you that as I looked around and saw this higher point that I couldn't help but think "what's it look like from way up there ?".....



So we parked the Jeep and began to climb.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Tanner led the way.....as he always does.....into the Dragoon Mountains.....



I'll be posting quite a bit about these mountains in the next week or so.....this range is majical and we felt so blessed to have stumbled upon them.....



The hike to the highpoint was rather short actually.....



Tanner kept providing me with these great photo shots (at least in my mind).....



Working our way through that boulder field was so much fun.....it was easy.....no right route and no wrong route.....



Once we made it to the highpoint, we kicked back in the shade cause it was pretty hot out that afternoon.....



The views from way up there were so much better than the views were way down there.....



We ended up hiking along the ridgeline that was up there just admiring everything that there was to see.....



.....and that was how we spent Day One in the Dragoon Mountains.....



Oh yeah.....the drive back to the campsite....that was just fine too.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Day 82.....yep.....82 days on the road and yesterday was the first day that I yanked out my Cabelas canvas lawn chair and kicked back and read my book under the blazing desert sun. Why ? Cause I hurt my knee in the Dragoon Mountains and I chose not to rest it. Yesterday it caught up with me and I could barely walk. Like seriously bad. Painkiller bad. So I've decided to try to catch up on our adventures this week while I recuperate in that Cabelas canvas chair.....


Our reason for coming to the Dragoon Mountains was never to climb.....we came here to explore an abandoned copper & gold mine. But once we arrived, things changed quickly.....



Our campsite was at the trailhead to Sheepshead Peak (6,545').....and what I quickly learned was that this mountain range was a climbers' paradise.....



At the trailhead I met carloads of guys loaded with climbing gear getting ready to climb on that wall.....




It didn't take long to get an invitation to climb with a few of the guys. But I can't rope up.....I've got 2 dogs and honestly, after having had a hip replacement, the thought of wearing a climbing harness again scares me to death.....I passed.....



Fortunately for the dogs and I, there is a way to climb this peak without ropes.....it ain't easy.....especially with 2 dogs.....

Check out the big grey beard on that climber in the first picture below.....that guy is 71 years old.....you have to love & respect him (at least I do).....




Our route was just a bit different from theirs as we hugged the bottom of the steepest walls and worked our way to the summit.....it wasn't easy.....please believe me when I say that.....

 

[YukonMontanaTannerTrapper]

Occasionally we'd come across these flat spots on our route which were so welcomed.....



.....and we rested up and watched the roped guys on the wall.....




Eventually our route departed the wall and swung around to the saddle which was to the left of the peak.....in the picture below, the peak is behind us and this is looking to the northwest.....



At this point, our route crossed the saddle to the other side and we started to climb rock along the backside of the peak.....some of this stuff was really steep.....quite the challenge to get Trapper up it.....




There were several almost crevasse like crossings where we'd have to cross maybe a 2 to 3 foot wide void.....these were especially difficult for Trapper.....she was kind of freaking out.....



Stone cairns were hit or miss.....I felt lucky when we occasionally encountered one.....




I can't even count the number of times that I thought about turning back. As a team, this was undoubtedly the most difficult climb that we'd done together. Seeing that tiny stone cairn on the summit felt so incredible.....