Yuma After

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During the first half of March, we were paying close attention to the spread of Covid 19 and how it was starting to really impact things much closer to home. During the second weekend in March, we were looking forward to attending the Yuma Air Show on both Friday evening and all day Saturday.  But just a day before the show was to start, the commander of the base where the show was held decided to call it off. I’ll admit at the time I was quite disappointed but writing this post a few weeks after the fact, I can say it was the proper decision. Later that weekend, the president declared a state of emergency. It was a little strange because in many ways, things didn’t really seem all that different at least here in Arizona.

When the first 15 days of social distancing were put in place, we figured things would change dramatically. But then we realized how our lifestyle, favorite activities and being generally introverted people to begin with work rather well with the concept of social distancing. And since we no longer work, there wasn’t any consideration about whether we should be going to the office or not. We helped to patronize a local restaurant by ordering takeout and we found our immediate lives weren’t that much different.

We got out to do a few days of bicycle rides around the Foothills area. Once off the main streets, there isn’t a lot of traffic and there are plenty of trails off into the surrounding desert areas that can work for mountain bike riding as well. Our rides took us thru some interesting areas with new homes being built. Many of them had nice homes with a large garage attached big enough for a motorhome or large fifth wheel. It reminded us a lot of the a place call “The Gardens RV Park” in Crossville Tennessee - about halfway between Nashville and Knoxville. We had stayed there to check out the possibility of living in a place where we could store the motorhome inside when we weren’t traveling. We obviously skipped that option and went fulltime instead. I suspect the people that own places in Yuma, spend their winters at home and take the rig north during the sweltering portion of the season.

Ocotillo in Bloom

Just a few miles from our campground was a place called Telegraph Hill. So named for the dozen or so towers situated on top of the peak. However, I suspect they are no longer used for sending telegraphs. We have been to the parking area below during a bike ride and know it is a very popular hike to the top. The main trail is actually the gravel service road up to the towers. By going this out and back route, it is about a 5.4 mile hike with 1400 feet of elevation gain. In the Google Earth View below, this would begin at the “Start” point on the left of the image and parallel Interstate 8 before climbing the trail up to Telegraph Hill on the right.

Blue = Actual; Red = Skipped

We had seen in our All Trails app, a trail called the Long Telegraph Pass Loop. It was less than a quarter mile longer than the other hike and only a couple hundred feet more in elevation. When given the opportunity to do a hike as a loop instead of an out and back, we usually will go with the loop. So we figured we would give it a try. This would be the outside loop in the image above. From what we could tell, this trail follows the ridge line of the hills all the way around to the towers before hitting the service road back down.

It took us a bit of effort to find the start of the trail out of the parking lot. There was a faint trail up the side of a rocky hill but after heading up several hundred feet, we were convinced we were on the right trail by using our app. At the top of the hill is an American flag and we suspect that is where we are heading. It was slow going because of the steepness and the loose rocky trail. As we are heading up, we keep thinking how glad we were to be doing the loop in the clockwise direction since coming down this stretch would be a challenge. We eventually make it to the top of the first hill and indeed spot the flag and cross at the top. The view from up here is pretty dramatic as well.

Heading Somewhere Up There

Rocky "Trail" with Cross Just Visible

We Made It Up Hill #1

Distance View of Yuma

As we went to continue on the trail, we found it hard to spot the small rock cairns that are intended to lead the way. It also didn’t help that the “path” as it was, appeared to go pretty much along the knife edge of the ridge. We are rather experienced hikers but not so much rock climbers. We found that we needed to often spider crawl down one small peak and then use all fours to climb up the next one. Our progress slowed dramatically. From our GPSr tracks, I was able to get both elapsed time and distance along the way. The map image shows where we were at one hour intervals.

Need to Follow the Ridge

Chris Comes Down an Early Challenge

Looking Back at Knife Edge with Rock Cairn on Right

Small Cactus with Bright Red Protuberance

Admittedly, we weren't completely cognizant of just how slowly we were progressing. Part of the issue was we were constantly fearful of making the wrong step and falling down the steep hill we were on. And the other part was we knew we really didn’t want to go back down the tricky loose rock section at the beginning of the hike. We kept hoping that the trail would get better. Some of the issue was that most of the time the intended path was not at all clear so I would make an educated guess and proceed on only to discover a sheer rock face that would need to be descended to continue that path. At one point we made it far enough to be able to look back at the hill with the first flag and the knife edge path we had navigated. I’ve highlighted the “trail” in pink to show our route. I also found myself taking time to get pictures of the blooming cacti more to distract my mind from the fear and allow my body a chance to rest. All along we could easily see the towers across the valley so it wasn’t like we were lost.

Another View Looking Back with "Trail" Highlighted

Prickly Pear Blooms

What's On the Other Side?

That's Where We Are Heading

We kept trudging along like two stubborn mules but with less sure footing! We weren’t really paying attention to the pace of our progress but after 3 hours we had only made it 1 mile. It took another 2 hours for the next 0.6 miles. It was sure pretty from up there and we made it safely to the second peak with a fairly tattered flag waving in the wind. We stopped along the way and ate part of our lunch but being a bit apprehensive, we saved some for later. Once far enough along, we could see the vast irrigated valley floor with acres of produce.

Chris Works Her Way Up the Next Hill

Another Bloom

The Next Flag is on Top of Hill to the Right

A Bit More Tattered Old Glory

Our Route Should Follow Ridge to Towers

We Move On from Second Flag

Overlooking Irrigated Fields

At the five hour point, we had only made it 1.6 miles - definitely not record setting pace. After getting to the peak after the 2nd flag, we completely lost the trail. We could see where we needed to get to but after trying to follow the top of the ridge, the east of the ridge and the west of the ridge, I wasn’t seeing any cairns nor any path that looked even close to being safe. We knew if we turned back now, that five hours it took to get this far might be even longer as our tired bodies slowed down. We knew the loop of hills we were following all went downhill into a huge wash at the bottom and this wash headed back out towards the later portion of the service road. There was a bit of a ravine from where we were and we figured we should attempt to make this our exit route.

Our Bail Out Point - Just Head Down

If we thought we had been moving slowly thus far, we hadn’t seen anything yet. The next hour was spent carefully working our way down the ravine to only advance another tenth of a mile! I was in the lead and had Chris stay far enough back so if she knocked a rock loose, it wouldn’t hit me. We really had no guarantee we wouldn’t hit a spot with a large drop off but we continued on. The middle of the ravine had large rocks that were more or less stable but often difficult to crawl over or around. We lucked out and didn’t hit any insurmountable parts in our trail blazing and got to the wash just before the 7 hour point and only 2 miles to show for it.

Looking Back Up Ravine as Chris Picks Her Path

Still a Long Way to Go

We knew the later part of the wash was passable because there are a series of geocaches along it. It did take some effort to navigate the upper part of the wash but since we didn’t need to butt slide or spider crawl, we were making good progress. Our “detour” down the ravine and wash was about 1.2 miles and took 1:45 but we were now back on the trail. We still had over a mile to go to reach the car but it was the most relaxing part of the hike. As I look back up at the towers, I wish we could have made it but that wasn’t meant to be. Did we learn a lesson from this hike? I hope so!

I See a Face in the Rock Patterns

Never Got There

We have been closely watching the closures of things from the epidemic. Our plans had been to head over into California at the end of March an even had a reservation at a state park near Borrego Springs. But with California locking down things pretty tightly, and closing all state parks, we knew that path wasn’t the smartest. We don’t have another reservation until late June up in the Canadian Rockies. We also had a free site for two weeks scheduled for mid-June north of Spokane Washington. But it didn’t look like traveling like normal was advisable. Our campground in Yuma was getting emptier by the day, so we likely could have extended here (although not at our cheap rate) but Yuma is noted for extremely hot weather. We were experiencing temperatures below normal, giving us nearly perfect mid-seventies to mid-eighties, but we knew that wasn’t likely to last. We wanted to find a more comfortable place to hunker down for a couple months to see how things shake out.

We considered heading to the Prescott Valley Elks Lodge again. We were there in mid-November and enjoyed the area. As we investigated options, Chris stumbled upon a fairly new campground in Camp Verde about midway between Phoenix and Flagstaff. It had decent reviews, reasonable monthly rates and a 25% discount coupon on top of it. Being a bit further north and about 3000 feet higher in elevation, the temperatures should be a bit more bearable even as the spring rolls on. We had heard of many horror stories of state and national campgrounds closing and even private campgrounds being closed to new campers. Being full-timers without a “home base” to head to, we opted to book a spot at Verde Ranch RV Resort for two months even before our stay here in Yuma was over.

We still needed to wait for a new mattress we had ordered online to arrive before we could leave so we had some days left in Yuma. We got another desert hike in but picked what we knew would be a bit more sane of a hike. This hike took us to the outskirts of some new housing developments on the perimeter of town. Since we were following ATV trails, it was generally easy going. We could look up and see some of the hills that we were nearly stuck atop a few days earlier. I did have one geocache puzzle I had solved that took me to the top of a rocky hill. Chris opted to sit patiently below as I scrambled up to find the hide and back down to the trails. It ended up being a rather easy 4 mile hike.

Many Blooms

Ocotillo Blooming

ATV Trail

The Geocache is Up There

Nice View from Cache Location

A few days later we received our mattress and needed to get rid of our old one. We might have been able to squeeze it into the dumpster at the campground but the town has a transfer facility that would accept our “donation” without cost. They had some policies in place to help prevent the spread of Covid 19 but it was a very easy to get rid of it. We took advantage of being in a different part of town to check out some of the sights in the area. Some geocaches introduced us to a federal wildlife area called Betty’s Kitchen. There is a small picnic area and a couple of short paths that go back to a wide dam that makes a bit of a wetlands for all sorts of ducks and other birds. There is also an odd concrete bridge nearby that has swastikas formed into it during construction! The geocache that brought us to the bridge had an extensive history. Built in the very early 1900’s by the United States Reclamation Service well before this symbol took on its present day connotation, the swastika was used as that government bureau’s symbol. You learn something new every day.

Entrance to Betty's Kitchen

Reflecting Palm

Overflowing Dam

Swastika Bridge!

Just a bit up from Betty’s Kitchen is Mittry Lake which turns out to be the more significant water feature created by the dam we just saw. There are lots of people out enjoying the water and weather, but everybody seems to be following the social distancing guidelines. We walk around the area to find a few geocaches and take in the views.

Mittry Lake View

One of Many Jetties on Lake

One last stop before leaving Yuma was the Conservation Garden. It was open and only the volunteer greeter was there, so social distancing wouldn’t be an issue. There are lots of desert plants to check out but it by no means was the nicest gardens we have visited. Another whole section of the garden is dedicated to old farm machinery. There was an eclectic mix of old tractors, trucks, bulldozers and assorted planters as well as a geocache hidden on one of them. The pond is decent sized and full of ducks and geese. The place is worth a quick stop.

Conservation Garden Sign

Senita Cactus with Whiskers

Colorful Cactus

Old Rusty Tractor

Needs TLC

Bulldozer Collection

Pretty Pond

Noisy Ducks

As we wandered around Yuma for the past few weeks, we’ve come to appreciate just how large the agriculture business is here. We have seen what looks like miles of fields when we are hiking up in the hills around town. The aerial view from Google Earth does an even better view. Most of the produce seems to be harvested by workers from across the Mexican border. There seem to be hundreds of white school buses towing a trailer that has two or three ports-potties. They will be parked next to the fields being harvested and move from place to place. Looks like a rather large undertaking to feed a hungry nation.

Vast Produce Fields in Valley

Aerial View of Fields Surrounding Yuma

On the Move to Next Spot

Bus Next to Field

This wraps up our shortened month in Yuma, next stop Camp Verde Arizona for who knows how long.