It’s been hot lately. I mean really hot. But, as we’re fond of saying here in the desert, it’s a dry heat. On a recent day, the weatherman on the Tucson evening news said that the relative humidity was zero per cent, with a dew point of twenty degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I didn’t know you could have zero per cent relative humidity!

So, being a glutton for punishment, I decided to go out and climb something. Jake was going to suffer along with me, but at the last minute he hurt his back and had to bow out. Climbing anything in the low desert in June in Arizona is always an adventure. To top it off, my sights were set on a group of small peaks near the town of Gila Bend, one of the hottest places in the country. It’s funny how, as a peakbagger, you start thinking about climbing a certain peak and can’t get it out of your head. Such was the case here.

It was a bit of a drive to get out there, so I left my house by 2:45 AM and drove on through the night. By the time I found the proper turn off the paved highway, the faintest bit of a dawn was breaking in the east. A few miles on a good dirt road brought me to my parking spot. As I readied my pack, I thought how warm it felt already – not a good sign. The goal for the day was to climb a tightly-knit group of four peaks. Four quarts of Vitalyte should do it.

At 4:45 there was light enough to travel on foot, but I wasn’t able to leave until 5:15. That was a drag, already having lost half an hour. As is my wont, I parked the truck in a prominent spot where I’d be able to see it from miles away. You need to use every trick in the book out here in the desert. You never know if, your brain addled from the heat, you’ll need extra help getting back to your vehicle. Here was my view as I set out, looking east towards my first peak, on the right.

Today’s high temperature for this part of the desert was to be a warmish 110 degrees. Now, I’ve climbed plenty of times when it hit a hundred, but 110 was over the top. I had to get it done and over with as early as possible, and do it safely. One false move out here and the buzzards would be picking your bones clean before you knew it. When I left my truck, it was 85 degrees, plenty warm for a pre-dawn start. As I marched eastward, a valley formed around me and, before I knew it, I was climbing up the slopes of my first peak. Interesting rock always catches my eye, as did this highly-folded cliff on the west shoulder.

A few hundred more feet of climbing put me on the summit. It was 6:20 AM. I love this time of the day in the desert.

This was Peak 1990, and here was the summit register I found. I knew these peaks had been visited in the past, and similar entries were on all four summits.

From this peak, I headed steeply downslope to a saddle, where my next summit could be seen.

The day was warming up, and I could feel it. By the time I stood on top of Peak 1820, it was 7:08 AM. From this perspective, there were some interesting views. To the southwest stood Hat Mountain, 20 miles distant in this telephoto shot. Between my position and Hat sat the bulk of the air-to-ground bombing range.

And here’s the best thing I saw from Peak 1820, a view south to the ultimate stealth peak, Dragon’s Tooth. It is 18 miles away and on the left in the background. If you look up stealth climbing in the dictionary, you’ll see a picture of Dragon’s Tooth. It is the ne plus ultra of stealths. Someday, maybe.

I didn’t stick around – too much ground still to cover. Here’s my next summit, to the west, down into a canyon and then up the sunlit slope. That’s exactly what I did, and at 8:00 AM there I was, on Peak 1885. Three down, one to go.

Getting the next one, though, would take me farther from my truck, just as the heat was really building. After signing in to the register, I dropped off the summit ridge and down the north side to the desert floor.

How wonderful it was to not see any trash in these mountains. The many miles of active bombing range must act as a sort of barrier to border-crossers; at least I’d like to think they have sense enough to avoid it.

Before long, I was at the base of my last peak. It was a simple enough matter to climb its southern slope, and there I was on top of Peak 1514. Whew, all four done, and it was only ten after nine. Here is a look back to the others I had already visited that morning.

Now all I had to do was high-tail it back to the safety of my vehicle. It was the work of fifteen minutes to descend back to the desert floor. In the distance, I could plainly see the whitish speck that was the truck. My GPS unit was on the fritz that day so I couldn’t rely on it. So instead, I lined up my goal with a background peak and moved ahead. Man, it really felt hot now, and traveling across the grain didn’t help any. The heat on the desert floor was intense, making distant images shimmer – it wraps you up and steams you like a dumpling. All I wanted now was to be done. Man, the truck looked good as I crossed the final hundred yards.

What the hell! As I walked up to it, the tire was flat! That’s all I needed. Well, nothing for it but to get to work and change it. Not having had to change a flat for several years, I hoped I had all the tools with me and that the spare still had enough air in it. You never think much about those things until shit happens.

I took out the thermometer I carry in my first aid kit and set it in the shade. It was just after 10:00 AM. I had drunk all four of my quarts, and had a burning thirst. Hmmm, 101 degrees – not too bad, but it was only ten o’clock. It was gonna get a whole lot worse. Falling back on my secret weapon, a cooler with ice and drinks, I downed a couple of V-8s, then an icy cold Harp lager for good luck. Normally, I don’t drink beer while changing a tire, but today I felt like making an exception.

My theory about changing a tire is that it never goes as well as you’d like, and this was no exception. The small bottle jack wouldn’t lift the truck high enough to allow me to remove the flat. I needed to set the jack on something to raise it up off the ground so I could get a running start. Scouring the area, I found a flattish rock that looked like it could do the job, set it on the ground, put the jack on top of it and tried again. This time it gave me the lift I needed.

It was easy to see why the tire went flat. As I was parking the truck many hours earlier, in the half-light I had run over some brush and a small branch had punctured the sidewall. Anyway, to make a long story even longer, by the time everything was done, another hour had passed. In the hot sun, wrestling with that big tire felt like more work than the climbing, and I was ready to go home. I was overheated, and even in the closed cab of the truck, with the ice-cold AC blasting, it took a long while to stop sweating. As I sit here in the comfort of my home writing this, I’m getting thirsty all over again – I need a cold drink.

Once I had driven the dirt road back out, I was getting ready to turn on to the paved highway when a vehicle drove right up and parked beside me. It was a large Dodge pickup, un-marked. I started talking to the driver, and I soon realized he must be law enforcement. Sure enough, he was with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and was part of their Drug Suppression Task Force. He was under cover, and told me he worked in concert with the Border Patrol and other agencies to fight the never-ending and ever-worsening battle with the Bad Guys. He said that drugs were smuggled into the country from Mexico through that area no matter what the temperature or season, that what had once been a trickle had now become a flood. I thanked him for his efforts, for laying it all on the line to keep us safe. When I told him about my flat tire, he said to never hesitate to call 911. Doing so would connect me to the sheriff’s department and they would be happy to come out and render assistance, even going so far as to carry things like plugs to make an emergency flat repair. Finally, he had to leave, as they were tracking some guys on quads who were smuggling loads of drugs in the area. Thanks again to him and all of the hard-working men and women of his and other departments who work so tirelessly, behind the scenes and under adverse conditions, to keep us secure. Another example of how freedom isn’t free.

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