About a month ago, I made another trip to the Table Top Wilderness, an area of really pristine, unspoiled desert. Heavy rains had fallen in the area the few days immediately preceding my visit, but I didn’t expect anything too dramatic out there. I could have started earlier than I did, so the day was already getting on by the time I left Interstate 8 at the Vekol interchange. I have driven south on the Vekol Valley road many times over the last two decades and have always found it to be eminently driveable – flat, smooth, effortless, a real no-brainer. It started out that way.
So here I am, motoring along and minding my own business, watching the scenery pass by, when I see something small moving on the road ahead. I swerved to avoid running it over, stopped, and walked back to have a closer look. Lo and behold, it was a tarantula.
It was a male Arizona blonde tarantula, about four inches across. I was tempted to pick it up, just because I’ve never done that before, but I chickened out. After his photo-op, he quickly walked over to the edge of the road and into the desert. I too moved on, and eight quick miles later I passed South Vekol well. That’s when things changed, for the worse.
This nice road I had known so well had been forever changed. Huge cloudbursts during the past few days had caused flash flooding which had run directly across the road. In places where the road had been flat before, I stared into deep gullies, deep enough to swallow up my truck. At one of them, I questioned whether or not it was wise to even attempt to cross the gully, choked with deep mud, in four-wheel drive. I decided to do it anyway, and I got through okay, but just barely. Somewhat rattled, I carried on, hoping I could get back across on the way out. Luckily for me, the rest of the erosion I came to was easier to cross.
Eight more miles brought me to my parking spot at just over 2,200 feet elevation. It was overcast and very humid. My goal was to do a big loop on foot, covering several miles and bagging three different peaks before returning to my truck. Due north of me was Black Mountain, its summit standing 1,100 vertical feet above the desert floor.
I started out by walking along an old road, nowadays reduced to a mere path. I appreciated that I could follow it for a mile, because it was a bit quicker than heading cross-country, but it petered out all too soon. Luckily, the desert was fairly open here and the next mile passed by easily enough. This brought me to the base of the east side of Black Mountain, where I found some lanes of volcanic talus to ascend, making it a pretty brush-free climb. By the way, the name “Black Mountain” can be found in 24 different places in the state of Arizona, and this wasn’t the first one I had climbed.
On the summit (3,306′) I found a large cairn and a register with entries dating back to 1992.
While I was sitting there signing in, I heard a loud swishing noise overhead. Looking up, I saw a turkey vulture circling me, then noticed several others – nine in all. They passed within ten feet of me at times, taking a good hard look, but somehow I must have convinced them that I wasn’t quite dead yet. They won’t touch anything that’s still alive.
More than an hour and a half had now passed since leaving the truck – time to move on. I descended the steep northeast ridge and reached a canyon bottom at 2,500 feet. The cloud cover was thinning out and it was getting hot! It was tiring, winding my way eastwards up another canyon, and it was starting to be not so much fun anymore. Rounding a corner, I came upon a bunch of discarded clothing and other gear, and realized that this had been a camp for undocumented border-crossers. It’s kind of creepy when you’re in a spot like this, because you wonder if someone is watching you from a nearby hiding-place.
Not wanting to linger, I left the camp and the canyon, deciding to make for the west ridge of my next goal, Peak 3217. Almost 3 1/2 hours had passed by the time I stumbled on to its summit. There, I found another register, this one left back in 1997 – four parties had signed in before me. And guess what – another bunch of turkey vultures was circling me on this peak!! Maybe they knew something I didn’t.
After eating a bit, I signed in and started down. Not a hundred feet later, I found a serape which must have been abandoned by some campesino far from home.
There was some really steep loose country on that southwest ridge of Peak 3217, so a lot of care had to be taken on the descent. Six hundred feet below, I entered a wash which I followed to the south, winding crazily for another half-mile. Feeling pretty good about only having one more peak to do today, I was walking along the sandy canyon bottom when I spotted something out of the ordinary just ahead. A desert tortoise – I hadn’t seen one in quite a while. We were facing each other, so I know it saw me first. By the time I walked up to it, slowly, so as not to scare it too badly, it had already partially retreated into its shell. This guy was pretty big, a good foot long, and probably weighed ten to twelve pounds. They can live to be 80 years old – to me, that’s amazing – there aren’t many animals that can live as long as a human. Yet, here we have one, living in one of the world’s harshest environments, and doing quite well, thank you very much!
I gave him a wide berth and continued down the wash a few minutes more, then started up the northeast side of Peak 2911. It was a quick climb to the summit, where I found my third register of the day. It had been left in 1995, and my entry was its fifth. The previous entry was my friend AZB and his very pregnant wife, four years earlier!
From this peak, I could see all the way back to my truck. I mean, I couldn’t actually see it, because it was too far away, but it was line-of-sight at least. Making my way down from the huge pile of blocks on the summit, I noticed how the vegetation clearly defined the drainage pattern on the desert floor.
Regaining the valley bottom was straightforward, as was the walk back to the truck. Six hours had passed. Thunderclouds were starting to build, so I got the heck out of there. My worries about driving back through the bad spots were unfounded. In fact, I made it to within five miles of the freeway before I got hit by a torrential downpour, which made me realize I needed new wiper blades! The only other incident was a bout of leg cramps while driving on I-8 – you’d think I would have figured out by now how much I need to drink on a day like this. I’m still working on it. In any case, it was another great day in the wilderness.
Please visit our Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Desert-Mountaineer/192730747542690