On the Road Again

“The perfect ending was a bit of the old Ludwig Van”
-Me, every time I head into our van – Ludwig – for the night (I suppose that may have also been said in “A Clockwork Orange”)

We finally finished the van – or Ludwig, as we have decided to call him. There are a few tweaks we’ll need to do, but we have left TechShop and we are actually starting our travels. You can all breath a sigh of relief, as my blog posts will now consist of adventures, instead of recounting the things we are doing to make the van livable.

The sendoff from the crew at TechShop in Chandler (Phoenix). How come I’m the only one making a goofy face though?

Unfortunately, our timing wasn’t the greatest, as we finished things up right in the middle of Memorial Day weekend. There was no way we were even going to attempt our intended route of going up to the Grand Canyon and Sedona on this particular weekend. Instead, we headed south, where no one goes this time of year.

Our first stop was the Cochise Stronghold, about an hour southeast of Tucson. We found a free primitive camping area about 11 miles down a dirt road, where the only people we ran into were border patrol agents.

The approach to the beginning of the climb was over an hour of hiking, a lot of which was quite steep. About 10 minutes into this hike, it dawned on us that we forgot sunscreen. In southern Arizona. In late May. Stupidly (and lazily), we shrugged and continued. And it’s not like we didn’t have any sunscreen in the van. We simply didn’t feel like walking back the distance we had already traversed. I’m sure it surprises no one that we are completely burnt now and totally regretting that decision.

John’s sunburnt shoulder

Most of the climbs are huge multi-pitch ones, so instead of trying something small to get an idea of the rock type and the rating system, we hopped directly onto a 7 pitch 5.10a. Now here’s where the importance of giving an area a trial run comes in: every climbing area uses the same grading system (at least in the U.S.), but there is always a little bit of fluctuation from place to place. A 5.10a is normally an easy climb for me, but nearly every pitch had moves that were just too difficult for me to complete. There were multiple times where I simply could not make the move and started using draws and bolts as extra handholds and footholds. That being said, the climb was a blast.

John at the top of The Peacemaker, our seven-pitch starter climb in the Cochise Stronghold

For anyone familiar with Texas climbing, the west side of the Cochise Stronghold is like Enchanted Rock… but on crack. It’s like climbing seven pitches of the backside, adding a few cracks and chimneys in to keep things interesting.

The view of Cochise Stronghold. We climbed to the top of the tallest peak.

After the Cochise Stronghold, we headed to Mount Lemmon, where again we slept in a completely deserted primitive campground miles down an old dirt road. It wasn’t until we woke up in the morning – and saw it in the sunlight – that we realized that we were in a totally different world. Where the Cochise Stronghold has been a flat, rocky desert, our new location on Mount Lemmon was a cool, forested ridge. We were close to the highest point of the massive mountain range, on a narrow ridge where we could look down on the massive mountain range in both directions. At over 8,000 feet high, the weather was cold enough to force me to wear a jacket and hat. It certainly did not feel like we were in Arizona anymore.

Ludwig parked at the top of Mount Lemmon

However, driving into Tuscon that afternoon (only about 10 miles away as the crow flies) was a clear reminder of our location. The stifling dry heat – especially on our severely burnt shoulders – made it almost impossible to spend any time outside (and hard to imagine that I was cold only hours earlier). It certainly will encourage us to move north as quickly as possible.

It’s interesting to me how heading out into the open wilderness can be liberating and freeing, yet so isolating at the same time. Now don’t get me wrong, I realize that outside of the context of prison, ‘isolation’ is not synonymous with confinement. Yet it still just feels strange that despite being surrounded by expanses of lush landscapes and wildlife, things always tend to feel a bit empty without human interaction.

Now before you start thinking that I shouldn’t be on a cross-country trip if I don’t like being out in wilderness, I need to clarify a few things. We just spent the last couple of days in remote parts of southern Arizona, and it was beautiful, relaxing, and completely liberating. And I absolutely love being outdoors. I’m simply pointing out that I don’t want to spend ALL my time in remote, empty areas.