Sheep Farm

After 19 glorious days on the South Island, I rode the Inter-Islander ferry back north and ended up in Wellington. My month in New Zealand had seen the lion’s share spent in the south, but that was fine by me. After a night in the capital at the home of friends, I caught a cab to the railway station. When on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, I had met a family who had taken me in. The lady of the house said I simply must pay a visit to her sister in NZ and I promised I would. I managed a call from a pay phone inside the station to them, and they said “Come on down!” Four hours ride on the train deposited me at the town of Waipukurau, where the husband met me. Elliot and Jean Peacock were gracious hosts, and she was the spitting image of her twin sister back in Oz.

They had a farm with 3,000 sheep, set in beautiful, hilly country. This picture is over-exposed, but it does show how hilly their land is.

The farm, east of Waipukarau

After lunch, they drove me around and gave me the grand tour of the place, in the process teaching me a lot about how a sheep farm works. I met their son Richard who worked the farm with them. We spent a lovely evening together, relaxing in the family home.

Richard, Elliot and Jean Peacock.

The next morning, I went up to the wool shed where Elliot and Richard were cleaning up daggy sheep. Dag means lumps of poopy wool around a sheep’s bum. It’s worth cleaning the wool, as it doesn’t fetch as good a price if it’s daggy. They even sheared a sheep while I watched. After an early lunch, Elliot drove me back to the station in Waipukarau where I caught the train to Hastings. How fortunate I was to have spent time with such a kind Kiwi family.

Unexpected Picnic

I had just come down from the summit of a peak in Argentina, whose summit was 14,600 feet. It was a beautiful day and I felt great after my climb. As I descended through a lovely meadow, at around 11,000 feet I met a family who was enjoying the day. They had hiked up a trail to a favorite spot for a picnic, and I stopped to say hello. They were curious who this norteamericano was, and we chatted. They insisted that I stay a spell and share their lunch. Well, the day was so fair, as was the company, that I couldn’t refuse. They fed me and plied me with excellent Mendoza wine as we enjoyed our time together. It made my descent of the final thousand feet all the nicer.

Family picnic.

Snowshoes

Back in the 1970s, I bought a pair of lightweight snowshoes called Sherpas. I did this because, well, if you intended to do much winter climbing in the Coast Range, it was pretty much de rigeur that you had to have a pair. They served me well for a number of climbs, but never better than one February when Ross Lillie and I headed out for an epic 5-day climb of an unknown peak. They served us well, and we used them for over 6,500 vertical feet before switching over to crampons as we neared our summit. There was so much bloody snow that winter that I doubt we’d have been able to do the climb in 5 days any other way. Skis wouldn’t have worked trying to climb up through the 3,000 vertical feet of bush we encountered lower down on the mountain, and just post-holing up in boots likely would have added another day to the trip and burned up a lot more energy. I think we made all the right choices on that trip, and when you consider that it took 26 years for anyone to make the second ascent, I’m sure of it.

Desert Spire

Hell was green, at least the part of hell I found myself in that day. In the midst of a world-class bushwhack, I was reduced to crawling on hands and knees when I came face to face with human remains. To say I was shocked was an understatement, there in that remote desert canyon. As if the thrash through the brush wasn’t bad enough, now I had the (what was to me, at least) trauma of finding these remains. As I sat there contemplating the situation, I happened to turn around and saw this:

A spectacular un-named spire, in an un-named canyon, reared up hundreds of feet. Those are mature saguaro cacti growing on the right-hand shoulder. So now a triple whammy – the bushwhack, the human remains and the spire – it felt like my head was about to explode! A day unlike any other, for sure.

Mules

My experiences with equines are very limited. My first was mounted on a horse owned by a neighbor in Tucson. He had promised a fun ride – hah! My steed took off running, branches of trees slapping me silly as the beast careened through the desert. After that, I swore I’d never ride again. Let them be pack animals, but you’d never find me astride one again. A few years passed, and I found myself in Argentina. Having way too much gear, I employed the services of an arriero, or muleteer, to put it on the back of one of his beasts and haul it the 26 miles to base camp, where he unceremoniously dumped it in the dirt. We did the same thing for the trip back out.

A year later, I was back, this time hoping to summit where I had failed before. Once again, a mule carried the bulk of my gear to base camp. I made it to the summit that trip, but when it came time to leave, the guy was fresh out of mules. Meaning, I wanted to leave the next day but all his mules were already booked. A young friend said he’d be my mule, offering to haul all my gear out on his back for the price I’d have paid the muleteer. Good deal, we’d leave the next day. I sold my double boots, and gave away a ton of food, fuel and whatever else I never wanted to see again. The following day, we were out of there. It was disconcerting to see dead mules along the trail – were they overworked, giving their last gasps in service of their masters? My young friend was a real trooper, carrying a load I’d never dare for those 26 miles.

Another time, a group of soldiers using a team of mules offered me a ride into a mountain range. Their captain had befriended me, and said we could put my gear on an empty mule and I could ride on another. That creature astonished me how easily it seemed to climb up 5,000 vertical feet with me on its back, giving me a new respect for its ilk.

My last adventure with equines was 5 years later in Bolivia. Brian Rundle and I employed the services of a fellow to haul our gear up to a campsite at 15,370 feet on a couple of his donkeys. They performed admirably with the smaller loads we had on that trip. End of story. I can safely say that I will not be requiring any further use of such beasts, but I have made my peace with them and they have earned my respect.

Celebrities

Starting back in 1983, I was in the business of buying, fixing and re-selling properties. These took the form of condos, townhouses, patio homes and detached single-family homes, and by the time I got out of that enterprise, the final tally was almost 200. In early 1987, I sold a condo in Goodyear, Arizona to a man who was the bass player of the R&B group The Drifters. Later that year, I moved to Tucson, where I continued in the same line of work. A few years later, I sold a patio home to best-selling author Mark Bego. He was a nice guy and I enjoyed attending parties at his new home (he was quite the entertainer). Before long, he introduced me to his friend Jimmy Greenspoon, the keyboard player of Three Dog Night. Jimmy and his wife Karen were looking to move to Tucson, and I ended up selling them a nice patio home in the same development. Once they were settled in their new home, I was really impressed with Jimmy’s collection of gold records he had displayed on his walls.

Mountain Lions

In 60 years of climbing, over the thousands of miles I’ve walked and thousands of peaks climbed, I have never seen a single mountain lion in the wild. My first 20 years of climbing were in British Columbia, which is thick with lions. Hell, they come wandering into the town I lived in for many years, but did I ever see one – nope, not a one. In over 35 years of living in Arizona, I’ve never seen one, yet they are plentiful here. You might say I’ve come close. One time, by a puddle of water deep in a canyon in the Baboquivari Mountains, I saw lion tracks in the wet sand. Another time, my wife and I had camped in the Summit Mountains near the Arizona border with New Mexico. I left early to go climb a peak, and when I returned, my wife and I saw lion tracks in the fresh snow. The cat had walked all around the tent where my wife was sleeping, but thankfully hadn’t bothered her. So here I am, to this day never having seen a mountain lion in the wild.

Childs

It had been a day from hell, at least a type of hell as had registered in my brain. In the morning, I had come face to face with 4 smugglers carrying heavy loads of drugs. Backing away from a very bad situation, I had been forced to skulk through the desert and 2 summits before escaping them. By nightfall, I was miles away and feeling more secure. Having barely crawled into my bag, though, voices came in the dark, too close for comfort. Glad I hadn’t made a fire! They moved away, but I still spent the night of the paranoid. Poorly rested, I awoke to blue skies and hopeful of solitude.

One more peak awaited me, forcing me to follow what I’m sure was their path across the desert. I felt certain they had walked all night, as Cartel bosses don’t brook tardiness, so they should be far away by now. Straight as an arrow, I set out across a truly untouched expanse, roadless and trackless, until I finally arrived at the very northernmost tip of Childs Mountain. A tiny scrap of a peak stood there, rearing its head above the quiet, miles and miles from the main uplift that gave the peak its name. On its summit, as I gnawed on a bit of what still passed for food, a terrific explosion rent the air. To the north, an A-10 had just dropped a bomb, scaring the shit out of me. I watched in awe as it swooped low, firing its guns at unseen targets, my tax dollars hard at work. As much as I wanted to stay for the rest of the show, miles of unknown desert had my name on them and I had to leave.

Back I went, finally arriving at the spot I’d hidden my gear at the edge of Daniels Arroyo. There was nothing for it now but to head south, to spin out the miles. As the day wore on, AM became PM and the sun beat down. It could have been much worse, as this was winter, but still there was a bite to it. My path swerved east around the bulge of the Growler Mountains, then back again, until at last I reached Jacks Well. Cool, clear water, all I wanted, just what the doctor ordered. Hoisting my pack one last time, I put in the last miles until I caught a glimpse of my truck waiting in the distance. Once arrived, I gave thanks that it still stood in one piece and unmolested by passing Bad Guys over the days unguarded.