Here’s how the last installment of “Drug Smugglers” ended:

All of a sudden, I heard voices, men’s voices, speaking Spanish. Maybe a hundred feet ahead of me, standing in the shade of a large mesquite tree, but plainly visible, were four men, not just the two I had seen earlier. My heart was pounding, and I didn’t know what to do. A part of me wanted to keep walking up to them and greet them with “Hola!”, since I had pretty much reached them and was sure they had already seen me. But for some reason I didn’t. I was terrified, feeling a fear unlike anything I had felt in a long time.

And now here’s the continuation:

A split second, that’s all it took. I turned on my heel and started back the way I had come, retracing my steps back up the wash. At any moment, I expected them to holler at me, or come running after me, or shoot me in the back. I had gone maybe a hundred feet – still nothing from them, so I quickly scrambled ten feet up the bank of the wash on its south side, still hoping they hadn’t spotted me. Once out of the wash, I ducked into a thicket of brush and took off my pack. Breathing hard, I waited there for the axe to fall, but nothing, not a sound. After several minutes, I dared to poke my head up a bit from my hiding-place.

I could see all the way back to the tree under which the men had been talking, but couldn’t tell if anyone was still there. Bit by bit, I was calming down, but my heart was still racing. Something was moving on the hillside beyond the tree where I had seen the men. There they were – two, three, four – they were all there. Moving up the hill at a brisk pace, they reached the top and disappeared from sight over the crest. Here is a blow-up of a photo I took of them as they climbed up the hillside.

Now what? At all costs, I wanted to avoid those guys. Thinking back to my original plan, from here I would have gone a bit farther west to climb my next mountain. Maybe that was what I should do – that would take me a bit farther away from them, and that seemed like a good thing to do for starters. Using the vegetation as cover, I kept moving, hoping to stay out of sight of anyone who might be watching from the hilltop. However, being as paranoid as I was by then, I couldn’t help but wonder if they were watching my every move.

Just for a moment, I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be funny if, while they were up on the hill, I went to their tree and snatched one of their bundles of drugs and made off with it, hiding it in the desert. Boy, would they be pissed off. It’s a big desert, and I bet they’d never be able to find it. I can just imagine their trying to explain that to their bosses! Wait a minute, am I out of my mind? Talk about playing with fire – that must have been the most insane thought I’d ever had. These are bad men who wouldn’t take kindly to such things.

After two-thirds of a mile and 15 minutes, I reached a spot behind a large outcrop, well-hidden from prying eyes, where I hid my pack. It was now about 11:30 a.m. Quickly moving up-slope and trying to stay out of their line-of-sight, I made it up the 600 vertical feet to the summit of Peak 1690 in twenty-five minutes.

Although I was still very nervous about my situation, the enjoyable summit ridge of this peak reminded me while I was out here – to climb! My summit was 4,000 feet from the smugglers’ hilltop position in a straight line. Here is a shot looking back to where I had run into them. The route they took up the hill is shown in red; my route away from them is in yellow.

It was a beautiful summit, and since there was little else I could do at the moment, I took pictures and prepared my register. I had a great bird’s-eye view of the surrounding area, and a plan started to hatch in my mind.

With me were all of my maps and my GPS. As I studied the terrain below, I figured out a way I might stay hidden for a while longer – it wouldn’t be perfect, but it just might work. By the time I got back down, it was twenty minutes to one. Hoisting my pack, I headed northeast across the many channels of a large wash. Soon, I gained the shelter of a small hill, and from there I followed a shallow gully east and stayed in it for a while. Before long, I had nearly gained the top of the same hill the smugglers had climbed earlier, but now I was almost half a mile northwest of the place I had last seen them. I did the best job I could to hide my pack once again, praying they hadn’t seen me and that they wouldn’t come over there after me, where they might find my pack on the fairly open hillside.

Something you might be asking yourself right about now is this: why didn’t I just go in a direction away from the smugglers, rather than coming back so close to where I had last seen them? It was pretty simple, actually – water! At this point, I had about five quarts left. The easiest way back to my truck was to try to gain the east side of the range, then head back south to my truck. Unfortunately, that way took me dangerously close to those guys, where I was right now, actually. There just weren’t any other good options as far as getting out of there and back to my truck. Going west farther into the bombing range was a fool’s errand – to gain Child’s Valley, then head east to eventually gain the highway was 30 miles. To head over to the Granite Mountains and beyond in the hope of running into a Border Patrol agent for help could consume easily 40 miles. Both of those ways would take me farther away from my truck instead of towards it.

So, back to me and my pack on the hillside. My main goal was to never see those guys again. It was now a quarter of two, and I just happened to be in a perfect position to climb another peak. Rising steeply above me was 700 feet of mountainside, but I thought I spotted a way through all the cliffs. My level of paranoia was rising quickly again, though, because all that climbing would have to be done in full view of the smugglers.

I set out, trying very hard to not set any rocks sliding down the steep slope, as I feared any such noise would attract their attention and then they’d have me in their sights. One good thing about Peak 2147 is that once you reach the top of the cliffs, you are on a nearly-flat plateau for over half a mile and hidden from view to anyone down below. I wove my way through an endless sea of cholla cactus and soon arrived at the gentle bump that was the high point.

As on every other peak of the day, there was absolutely no trace of any other human ever having stood there before me. I took my time, enjoying a snack as I completed another register.

After I had enclosed it in a cairn, I set off south across the plateau and arrived back at the top of the cliffs. Carefully picking my way down, I kept thinking that those guys must be able to see me – I was in plain view of both their tree and their hilltop position where I had seen them over four hours earlier. When I returned to my pack, it was half past three. So far, so good!

Shouldering my pack, I headed east – if those guys were going to catch me, it was going to be now. There was little vegetation, so I was in plain sight as I headed northeast down this new valley. The sun was sinking lower as I followed a faint footpath which could only have been left by the passage of feet owned by those in the country illegally. Still no sight of anyone.

I felt if I could exit this valley and get out of the mountains on to the huge expanse of open desert to the east of the range, I’d have it made. I really didn’t think the smugglers would risk being caught out in the open, where they could be easily picked up by the Border Patrol’s infared technology aboard their aircraft (boy, was I naive!). I really hustled, and covered the next three miles in a hurry. Still no sign of anyone. I breathed a sigh of relief as I left the valley and swung south on to the open desert, coming to a stop on the east side of a small mountain.

By the time I dropped my pack at what seemed a good camping spot, it was a quarter of five. I now felt much easier about my situation, so I climbed the easy east side of Peak 1570 and watched the sun set below the main body of the Growler Mountains. It was a beautiful afternoon, actually, in spite of all the concerns I had had all day. This peak was also virgin territory, with no sign of any previous visit.

Cairn and register completed, I walked back down to my pack. By the time the tent was set up, it was dark, just after six o’clock.

I had decided to grant myself the luxury of a campfire, but even as I was gathering some wood for it, another shock. A voice was calling out, and not far off – probably a quarter of a mile away, if not closer! A fainter voice answered. God help us, would this business with these guys ever end? I just wanted to be left alone. The calling back and forth went on for probably 15 minutes – it sounded like they were trying to locate each other in the darkness. Finally the cries stopped and I never heard them again. My hope was they had found each other and would go straight to hell, which hopefully was in a direction away from me. No way I was going to make a fire, just to have them home in on my position.

The next morning, by the time I broke camp it was just light enough to see. Munching my third and last stale sandwich, I marched east across the very flat desert to the main branch of Daniels Arroyo, where I hid my pack under a pile of brush and marked the spot with GPS. Carrying next to nothing (no pack –  just water, a snack, a register, map and GPS), I set out due east across the desert. Here is a shot looking back to the Growler Mountains where I had spent last night.

And here is a view towards the peak I was going to climb – it is on the right-hand end of the ridge, in the middle of the picture.

What a relief to not be carrying that pack! As I walked across the desert, I thought of what my old man used to say, “it was flatter than piss on a tin plate”. In 3 1/2 miles, there was only a 30-foot change in elevation. The desert was wonderful – I found myself noticing tiny details on the ground and in the sparse vegetation. Gradually, my last peak grew closer and I finally stood at its base. The quiet was almost primordial – it was the morning of the world, and it was all mine.

This was the northernmost tip of a 12-mile long ridge called Childs Mountain. I was here because this last bit had enough prominence to be a stand-alone summit called Peak 1515, and it was on one of my lists of peaks to climb. No matter the reason, it was a beautiful little peak and I was very glad to be there.

Fifteen minutes put me on top, where I found this huge cairn left by surveyors of long ago. I left my register on the very top, so that if anyone else is mad enough to ever visit the place, they’ll know that I was there on December 30, 2013.

I didn’t linger, and soon headed down. The long walk back across the desert to my pack seemed to go more slowly than the trip out, and I was glad to be back. My feet were starting to hurt, so I took off my boots and applied moleskin to all my hot spots while eating something. The half-hour rest was good while it lasted, but at noon I set out once more. All I needed to do now was head south to my waiting truck. For the most part, I stayed on the east side of Daniels Arroyo all the way. There’s not much to tell about what felt like a death march. After 6 1/2 miles, all of it gently uphill, I reached Jack’s Well. Hallelujah! Almost done. Another 45 minutes brought me to my truck, at 4:00 p.m. It was all over but the shouting.

How I relished taking off my boots – my poor feet felt like hamburger after the forty miles I had covered in those three full days. It had all ended well, thankfully. As I drove out on the dirt road back to the town of Ajo, I met an armed officer from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department.

“You’re out!”, he pronounced as he saw my truck. “I’ve been keeping an eye on your vehicle these few days since you headed into the Growlers, but now you’re here, I won’t make the drive out there today”. I thanked him profusely for looking out for me and, three hours later, I was home soaking in a hot bath.

I consider myself lucky that my run-in with the smugglers had a happy, albeit scary, ending. It could have turned out a lot worse. I’m trying to make it a rule to only go out with a partner from now on.

IN MEMORIAM: to the brave Sherpas who died on April 18, 2014, while preparing the route on Mt. Everest. Without their hard work and bravery, few would ever climb the mountain. Worldwide, more climbers are killed in avalanches than from any other cause each year, and this tragedy certainly illustrates the dangers of alpine mountaineering. May they rest in peace.

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