Dear Families,
On Sunday morning we prepared for the long drive to Chiricahua State Park in Southern Arizona, where we planned to basecamp the first night and backpack through the park from Monday to Thursday. We quickly realized we would have to change plans due to Nation Park backpacking restrictions in place. Luckily, we had a backup plan ready to go. As soon as we got to camp, we got a steak stir fry dinner rolling as we huddled around the fire to run an AA meeting. On Monday morning we woke up to do a relaxing meditation before the big day hike through the State Park. The view was breathtaking as we drove up to the trail head, and even more-so throughout the relatively tame hike down the Chiricahua Mountains. We returned to camp with plenty of time at hands to play cards and relax by the fire at our last night at Chiricahua State Park.
The next morning we switched up our scenery and made a short drive to the familiar Cochise Stronghold. The plan was to pull-off a backpack scramble through the stream, improvising our own trail through the forested area. Our positive mentality took some beatings as we fought through the upward hike constantly getting whacked by tree branches and trying to avoid falling into the stream. After a few hours of trudging, we took a break to do a group polar dip in the stream, which woke us all back up. After a few more hours of fighting through the wilderness, we found a somewhat flat campground where we all went straight to sleep after the long day.
Wednesday brought a whole new array of challenges as we hiked through the back country in search for a trail. After finding the trail we followed it for a while before deciding to improvise a way through the huge rock formations to get back to camp. Though there was a lot of questionable climbing maneuvers required to make it through the slot in the rocks we were able to tackle it and make our way back to camp where everybody took some time to recuperate from the long day of scrambling and hiking. Later in the evening a group of us decided to go on some extracurricular scrambling where we found ourselves finding new paths up a formidable wall of rocks.
Thursday started late in the day as everyone needed sufficient time to sleep but we hiked out back to the vans where we set up camp for our final night. Thursday night we went on a rigorous excursion to the local Denny’s where everyone ate to capacity. The last morning started somewhat early as we packed the vans and headed back to Flagstaff. Everyone was nice and exhausted as we finished the last day of our week long.
Yours Truly,
The Residents.
