Just to get the record straight, getting to the top of Humphries Peak, the highest point in Arizona, was Ben’s idea. We could see the peak each day from our classroom and he wanted to stand on top of it. That being said the rest of us wanted to go so that got us going.
This morning we woke up extra early and started breakfast at 6am. We were on our way by 6:30am and arrived at the trailhead by 7am. The trailhead is at over 9,000 feet and the one way trip 4.5 miles with a 3,300 feet rise in elevation. While light, we were not in sunlight when we began our trek. Very quickly we realized the altitude was going to make this difficult. We are all soon feeling a little woozy and experiencing headaches. We soldiered on ignoring the lessons recently learned which was to go back down. We did slow down our pace and took it very easy.
On the way up we met four people from our course. The first was Don who had hiked up and ‘camped’ under a tarp the previous evening and had caught sunrise from the top. Close to the top we met a group of three. At this point the winds were quite brisk and very cold. Fortunately, at the top windbreaks had been built from rocks so we were able to sit in these and shelter from the wind while warming up and eating snacks and drinking water. The views were better than anticipated and we were all pleased we’d made the effort to get up there. Our original estimates were three hours up and two down. It actually took us four and a half hours to get up due to the difficulty of climbing at that altitude. We figured we’d make up on the way down but were wrong again. The descent went on forever and seemed a lot longer than the way up. Ben reckoned we must have been spaced out on the way up which made it feel shorted.
We eventually got back to the car by 2:30pm, much later than our anticipated noon. We stuck to our plan and drove to meteor crater. It was great to see but we were less than impressed with the exhibits as the science was a bit inaccurate to say the least. We didn’t stay long as we were all quite fatigued from our earlier exertions and I developed a severe headache – a sure sign of altitude sickness.
So here are a few pics from today’s day off :
I’ve also uploaded some pics from our WFR training. Enjoy.
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