Mt. Graham High Adventure

This awesome trip started off with borrowing a pack from Joel Gurvine and smashing as much comforts in it that I could possibly carry without killing myself. Most of my camping gear is up at Grandma's house in Utah so I had to scramble to put together my gear. My pack weighed in at 45 pounds on our home scale before we packed our food and supplies up on the mountain. They always seem light until you get about 2 miles into your hike and realize you might have brought too much stuff. When we got up on top of the mountain it was pretty cold and it started to briefly snow while we hiked that was fun to see. Most of the boys were excited to see the snow. It was good to be immersed in nature and behold the majesty of our Maker. The stars were amazing at night and it seemed we were a little closer to Heaven in the mountains.

There were many little pools of water that were very inviting as the day moved on and warmed up. I wanted to fish every one of them but I had to be a responsible adult and stay up with our group. :(

The mountain was very steep and beautiful. This was below a large waterfall that we could see from the trail but did not have time to hike down to. The pines trees smelled great and I always love to hear the wind blow through the pines. There were a lot of trees that fell across the trail that made it challenging to get through with a large pack.

We stopped a few times to rest and hiked about 4 miles the first day. Sam Wardell Thomas Laprevote and Aaron Adams on top of the world. That is the town of Pima in the background where Peter and Ruth McBride's families are from.

This was our Zion's Camp hiking group. 6 scouts and three leaders. We took a break during our Orienteering merit badge to put on our colors. Royce Sharp was the chief warrior.

Apache trout biting on my leftover fly from our Lee's Ferry trip. I caught about 20 fish overall and they all looked like this guy. White fins and a rainbow body.

I caught about 5 fish out of these two perfect holes and noticed Jesse Gurvine down stream. I asked Joel if he Jesse wanted to come over and give it a try. Jesse needed to catch some fish for his fishing merit badge. He had to catch two fish, let one go and eat one back at camp. We were able to hook two more fish out of this hole for Jesse.

This was our Wednesday and Thursday night campsite. I found a grassy area that made the ground a little softer but I still seemed to find the rocks about 2 in the morning under my ribs. We had a fireside every night that seemed to help balance out the trip and bring a spirit of unity to the camp. We all had MRE meals from the military that are light weight and perfect for camping. Everybody seemed to trade something in there packets. My favorite MRE was the tortellini with the red hots and lemonade drink mix.

This was the home at the bottom of the trail where we stayed Friday night and built some launchers to launch some stuff. We were all pretty tired at this point and happy to be off the trail. We hiked about 10 to 12 miles total.

The scouts using their lashing and knot tying skills they learned on the mountain to build some launchers.

We had a service project Saturday morning for the Fish and Game and afterwards the official took a few of us to some ancient Indian ruins. These are some grinding stones used by them. It was interesting to hear how they lived and the environment surrounding their site. There were numerous large holes dug around the site with a leftover screen to sift through the ruins. It reminded me of a Indiana Jones movie set.

Friday night dinner. Meatball sandwich and cheetos.

A view back at the mountain we conquered. Can you hear the harmonica playing and coyote howling?

Dutch oven apple cobbler and vanilla ice cream for dessert. Made by Jay Hoobler.

Tia's homemade sign on the front door. I missed my family and wished my sons were already scouts. Shower, shave, toilet, Ruth's excellent cookin and a soft bed. Home sweet home.