Senior year of my Undergrad Chemical Engineering degree, the final semester, finally allowed me a bit of time to get out and breathe outside. Up until then i had been doing double duty working 30+ hours a week and pursuing 2 degrees without much time to get out and explore.
Arizona is an amAZing and beautiful place, but it is a land of stark beauty. Most of the plants have heinous thorns that shred skin, animals are poisonous, the terrain is quite rugged- steep loose mountains or flat open desert, and there is a general lack of water (its the desert). My childhood years were spent exploring the lands of Central, Northern, and Southern AZ as a boy scout, i had grown up learning how to move through this terrain, learning how to navigate by terrain features and a compass, getting lost then finding my way back. As a teenager my attention was drawn elsewhere by the typical teenager distractions, Playing on my HS football team, going to parties, homework... I very infrequently got out to go camping or hiking. I forgot what that side of myself wanted. In college i found that side of myself again. As a way to de-stress after school and work, I would often go for a run by Tempe town lake or through Papago park. Occasionally i went farther afield, into the Mcdowells, Flagstaff, Sedona, or the many canyons and mountain ranges throughout the state. They became a bit of a sacred place for me. A place to get away from the obligations and business of the city.
The Superstition front at sunset after climbing a few years ago. This series of spires and cliff faces is probably one of the more photographed areas in Arizona,, yet it is one of the least recognized.
One spring Sunday morning, after a rainstorm had moved through, Andrew, and i decided to head out to the Supersitition mountains, a range of complex terrain that is the remnants of three separate volcanic events that resulted in innumerable canyons carved into the welded volcanic tuff (thats the type of rock). The rock is porous and unique,. On our drive in, Andrew and i, both fans of water peeping looking at rain fed waterfalls and water features, were amazed at the amount of water that was flowing through this normally dry place. The area was astoundingly beautiful with waterfalls everywhere. Our plan for the day was to run through the north fork of Tango canyon in the fish creek area. I knew this canyon would have water flow from the recent rains, however it is usually a class A or dry to non-flowing canyon so i was not anticipating any major issues, we had gear and wet suits to get us through whatever we needed for the day. We got a late start, and were walking in to the canyon at around 11 am. I wasn't expecting an issue with this as the round trip for this canyon should have been around 6 hours, plenty of time for us to run through and get back to the car before sunset.
Rare waterfalls along Highway 88
The superstition mountains got their name from a number of stories that early phoenix settlers heard from the Pima Indians about people venturing into these mountains where they heard strange sounds, became completely and hopelessly lost, or died from any number of ailments. It is easy to see how they got their name, the terrain is rugged and complex, with inconsistent cliff bands that come and go among convoluted and vertical terrain choked with thorny cat claw and cacti. For those who are not familiar with the range, i can guarantee everyone has seen a picture or painting of these mountains. I myself have seen adds featuring these cliffs as far away as in a German newspaper ad, or a Costco sleeping pad box, or an airplane magazine backdrop. They represent the quintessential "desert" landscape of the southwest.
At the time, Andrew was still pretty new to the outdoor life, i had taken him through a canyon or two. We were still relatively new friends that had met in my engineering program at ASU, and in general Andrew was reliant on my abilities to navigate through whatever activity we had chosen for the day, he was more or less just along for the ride
Side bar, just before pulling in to the parking area, there was a Gila monster waddle-running long the road, Love those guys!
We left the small turnout off of the old Apache trail dirt highway and began the journey. The Canyon floor quickly dropped away as we headed up to the top of the Horse Mesa flats. Andrew marveled at the water. Here you could visibly see how a river forms. The recent rains had left the ground soaked and water was springing out of the rock everywhere, these trickles began from nothing but quickly converged and in a few hundred yards became a small stream, then a medium stream, growing as they progressed back down a few thousand feet to the canyon bottom to join the gushing flow of fish creek. Following a GPS mark on my phone, we bypassed the heads of canyons that i assumed were Romeo, Sierra north and South forks, and headed towards the GPS point for what should be the Tango canyon drop in. At the time, Phone GPS units were pretty inaccurate. Couple that with complex rocky terrain that messes with GPS signals and I never got closer than a couple hundred feet away from my waypoint. This inevitably led to us dropping into a canyon one drainage too far north and unknowingly starting what would become a bit of an epic.
En route to the top of Horse Mesa
Dropping in was beautiful in a way that the superstitions only can be, with water pouring out of the porous rock all over the place and vegetation fresh and green. The recent rains had compromised a lot of the slope stability though and large rocks were easily moved. Just before reaching the canyon bottom, I jumped across a small side drainage. I came so close to landing the jump, one foot was firmly on the other side of the drainage. As I came down, the boulder that i landed on gave way and my right foot rotated. I came down hard on my foot and not in a good way. I landed on the ground with the bottom of my foot more or less facing up at me. Instant pain and an utter lack of stability, i immediately stopped, took my pack off, and sat down. I have had plenty of ankle issues in the past, and gotten my share of severe sprains. This was a bit more than anything i had experienced. This was the hindrance that started what would become a much more epic day.
After wrapping my ankle as best i could given that all I had was a single roll of kurlix (now i always carry an ankle brace because i know i am prone to ankle injuries) Andrew and I set off down the drainage, what we thought was Tango Canyon. At this point we had dropped down a few hundred feet into a drainage, and in my mind the fastest and easiest way to get out was to go down. The terrain we had walked up was steep, hot, loose, and not a great option for a sprained ankle. Most canyon bottoms are relatively flat and I knew fish creek should be relatively flat and facilitate quick travel. If only…
The bottom of Fish creek several miles downstream from micro canyon on a later return trip, choked with massive boulders and vegetation.
The canyon bottom was typical of nearly every drainage I have come across in the desert, choked with large-ish boulders and thorny plants, what set this apart was the water flow. As we descended the water flow gradually picked up, carrying the recent heavy rains out of the mountains and down to the desert floor. Hours of boulder hopping in and out of water and we were seemingly exactly where we had started. Perhaps the canyon walls had grown a bit steeper and were a bit higher, but otherwise there was no apparent progress. The boulder hopping wasn’t supposed to take too long, maybe 45 minutes. Was I really moving that slow with my injured ankle? It didn’t feel like I was dragging, but sometimes it is hard to tell. Around sunset I started to get a bit more nervous. Clearly we were not in the right canyon. I pulled out the Topo Map I had printed to determine where exactly we were. From my best guess, we had gone one canyon too far. The interesting thing was that this canyon, according to the topo, did not seem to connect to fish creek, but rather dead-ended in a basin just short of fish creek. That section would be interesting, I thought. It turns out it was just a resolution issue on the map, and the soon to come narrows were to narrow to represent themselves on my Topo. The distance of this canyon also stood out to me, it looked to easily be twice the length of the others. I wasn’t exactly sure where we were within the canyon but had an idea. I did my best to commit the map to memory and put it away. We continued down.
Our planned route in red, with our actual route in orange, the X denotes the location of the incident.
Right around dusk, a wall began looming in front of us and I heard the faint roar of water rushing over a cliff. Things were about to get exciting! We had just taken out the head lamps. I had the foresight, luckily, to bring two along with me, both of which were water proof. Unfortunately I hadn’t though that much about it and one lamp was running quite low on battery charge.
As we continued into the basin I had seen on the map, I began to notice a crack that seemed to split one of the walls, The exit! Follow the water! That was our ticket out to fish creek and a relatively straight forward path to the car! Of course, things always go wrong at the worst moment. Right as we had entered this pseudo-slot canyon in the superstition wilderness, the headlamp I gave to Andrew died. With no real spot to pull over and utter darkness when I turned out the one remaining light, Andrew and I sat down so I could think about our course of action. Ahead was the literal black unknown, a canyon of unknown length and difficulty that was flowing with water. An unknown number of cliff drops. Behind was a VERY long trip up and over a mountain and convoluted drainage system back to the car that would be very difficult in my current state.
“OK, Andrew here is what we are going to do” I started mapping out to Andrew, I wanted to make sure we were 100% om the plan because there wasn’t much room for error.
“lets open your headlamp, remove two batteries from it and memorize the orientation that they need to go back in. Hold them in your left hand and the head lamp in your right. I will turn off my light, remove two batteries, hand them to you. You will hand me your two batteries. We put the swapped batteries back into the headlamps and we both have light!” We turn the lights out. The blackness is stifling and instantaneous, the world has blinked out of existence, gone with the light. The moon wasn't out that night, but even if it was it wouldn't have helped due to the narrow, high walls and the adverse orientation of the canyon for light from above. It seems the only thing that still exists is the dull roar of water flowing over a cliff and through the boulders.
We execute. This is an interesting trick that can help if you need it to. The battery that is dead usually still has just enough juice in it to add enough voltage to help run a light, it just doesn’t have enough current. Essentially you use that voltage from the dead battery and the current from the live ones to give the lamp just enough energy. It kills your two live batteries much faster but we just had to make it back to the car, two lamps were much desired over trying to pick our way out with only one.
With the lighting situation sorted, we turn and head into the unknown, unsure what we will find. My only consolation was that, when I was looking at the topo, there didn’t seem to be a large elevation difference between the seemingly stranded basin and fish creek. I was hoping that whatever we would come across could be surmounted with a 200 foot rope and whatever else I had in my kit.
Descending into the truly unknown was an interesting and thrilling experience. I literally had no idea what would be in store for me outside of the 20-50-foot bubble that I could see with my dim lamp. We quickly came upon a drop off I looked over the edge, it seemed to be just a bit too long to down climb easily and safely, maybe 15-20 feet, especially since we couldn't see the bottom very well. With no readily visible anchor to use for a rappel, I wrapped a loop of webbing around the largest rock I could find a few feet back from the lip. I stacked the remaining large rocks that were in the canyon and were easily accessible on top of the first, creating a deadman anchor. Hopefully its namesake was not foreshadowing what was to come for us. I helped Andrew rig up his rappel and took my place as meat anchor back up. I sat on and in front of the makeshift rappel anchor we had built to give it a little extra support, so we could test it and if something failed I could still save the anchor and allow Andrew to safely make it to the bottom. Everything held, I rigged up, and we dropped in. There was no more cliffs that I could see that we would have to descend so I pulled the rope We were now fully committed to the unknown, to going down to get out, or else we would have to find a place to wait for sunrise within the slot canyon.
Micro Canyon on a return trip earlier this year with pristine emerald colored water and in a completely different state of mind.
Naturally, just out of sight, was another drop as a result of a chockstone, lightly overhanging as a result. It looked climbable and seemed to drop into a decent pool. We decided to down climb this one. I went first this time. On my way down, i slipped on the slick rock due to my week injured foot and did a mid air cartwheel. Luckily my injured ankle went into the dead space underneath the chockstone, and the pool was relatively deep. "cant be doing that" i silently scolded myself, i didn't want to get any more injuries that would further complicate our walk out and was damn lucky the drop ended in a decent pool. Andrew came down relatively without issue.
A slight bit of light seemed to be looming ahead. Usually the end of the slot means the end of the fun part of the day; today the end of the canyon came with relief that we would soon be at fish creek and would have a relatively straight forward, if long, walk back to the car.
Its amazing how quickly you can get turned around in the dark with high foliage surrounding. We left the stream that emerges from micro canyon for some easy looking walking along the stream. We happen upon a stream that appears to be larger than the one we have been following. A light immediately goes off in my head "Fish creek, turn left and its a straight shot to the car". I mention this to Andrew and he immediately disagrees, questioning our directions. Fair enough, we reverse course, head back to the first bit of water. I note the direction of flow. We turn around and head back to the second stream, i note the direction of flow. They seem to be flowing towards each other.
"This is fish creek! Its gotta be!" I say
Andrew still questions, so we go downstream a bit on fish creek, and quickly come upon the micro canyon stream entering on the right now. Satisfied, Andrew and I reverse course and begin plodding up fish creek. It is now likely 10pm.
What followed was a long mixture of bitching, grunting, swearing at plants, and the occasional rest to eat some of our dwindling food supply. Fish creek was quite swollen with runoff, travel upstream was not easy and was generally mid calf to mid thigh deep water that was moving swiftly in the opposite direction of us. About every 200 yards or so, we would get fed up with fighting the current, get suckered into a nice looking beach or hole in the vegetation and commit to walking on shore. This would go great for about 100 yards before it inevitably devolved into wading through cat-claw acacia and any other manner of sharp, thorny plants, which we would tolerate for a few hundred feet before deciding "F-this, I am going back to walking in the water". We repeat this for what seems like an eternity.
Looking down at Fish Creek on our climb up. The terrain down in this drainage was our path through the desert and our ordeal.
After hours of walking by faint headlamp and moonlight through the winding fish creek canyon, i notice the walls are starting to recede. A short bit later, i see a slope that I recognize from earlier in the day.
"The car up on top of that hill." I mention to Andrew, he doesn't believe me. I say lets go check it out. Sure enough, we surmount the bank of the creek and see the glint of the 2 AM moon high in the sky, shining on my BMW, parked along side the Old Apache Trail highway.
Andrew seems almost on the verge of tears with disbelief that his trial is over and gives gives me a bear hug, relieved that the trial is over. We saddle up and roll out. Instantly, i can tell that my hurt ankle is missing the cold water. The saving grace of walking through the complexities of fish creek is that the cold water inhibited swelling and allowed me to continue moving. It feels very hot and is starting to lock up without bathing in that cold water. Going up "the big hill" We pass a Penske truck coming down, the breaks are struggling and smoking. They have GOT to be up to something i think as we pass. Why else would they take a dirt highway at 2am? We hit the pavement again and I see a Sheriff's Truck with lights on heading the other way. I pull over as does he.
"Hey, i am looking for a Sean and Andrew, that you two?"
"Yep that's us" i replied from the other side of my car. I can tell already that my ankle is shot and can no longer stand on it.
We talk shortly about what was going on. I guess in our absence, Andrew's mom had been freaking out. She coordinated with my parents, she called the police, and this was the initial response out to find us. Likely they would call in SAR in the morning if we were not found. He asks if we have any immediate medical needs, we say no, we were just running late.
"I think you should keep going down the road though, we passed a Penske truck headed down the hill that wasn't looking too great and will probably get stuck." I mention.
Since he is out here already, he continued on to check it out.
Andrew and I head back into town and part ways. I am told he had the best What-A-Burger of his life that night at 3 am, relishing in the stark dichotomy of the last few hours.
I awoke the next morning to a few figurative fires i had to fight. My ankle is easily the size of a softball or larger, i can't weight it and i have to ride my bike to work, i have no crutches. One of the few benefits of going to school close ish to home is that i can strategically call in a parent for help. I discover that several others were alerted of my absence that night including my dad. They were prepping to go out and search. At dark. In terrain they were unfamiliar with.
In the event that anyone you know goes missing and their overdue time is after the sun has set, PLEASE DO NOT go out and try to find them unless you are very familiar with the terrain, highly practiced in night travel, and are carrying everything you need to spend multiple nights out. When I began talking with them, it was clear that this was not the case, and it would probably have resulted in several more rescues being required had they have gone out. The thought was much appreciated, but heading out at night in complex terrain will likely not help anyone. This is why SAR generally does not initiate searches at night unless they have:
Already made contact and have an exact location or a very good understanding of the terrain
Can see or communicate with the rescuees
Are extremely familiar with the terrain
Are doing a cursory search along a main corridor or main trail
The last thing you want if for a potential helper to become a victim themselves. This is taught in all rescue and first responder classes. If the scene isn't safe (that could mean it is night time and you don't know where you are going) find a way or wait until it is!
To end this on a bit of a lighter note, here are my repercussions from our little excursion:
The following day was a follow up for my Senior year capstone project with my team and one of my professors. When i stumbled into the room on crutches, and, i should note, absolutely covered in scratches from those oh so lovely thorny bushes and cat-claw acacia, everyone had a nice deer in the headlights look. My professor takes one look and just says "what the HELL happened to you??"; everyone had a good laugh.
At first glance, my mom immediately says we are heading straight to the hospital after i get out of class. My ankle is bad but i didn't think it was thaaaat bad, and wasn't planning on seeing anyone. Sure enough, when the doctor walks in he says:
"What happened to you? You get mauled by a horde of cats???" I guess the cuts are pretty noticeable, i mean i must have at least 200-300 of them peppering my skin. An X-ray doesn't show a break but based on how everything looks, my range of movement and control of the ankle, and physically feeling my tendons as i flex, he suggests that i have likely torn nearly all of the muscular attachments in my ankle and apparently I am super lucky i didn't do any more because it would have needed surgery. It would be about 5-6 months before i could run again easily, 8 before i felt back to 100%, but only 1.5 moths before i went skiing!
