Today, I showed DF the trail. We saw no deer this time, as the tracks suggested. Oh well, another time.
It is still difficult for me to not get momentarily lost, tracing from landmark to landmark. This is a good thing, telling me that my trail is not detectable. This will change with use and familiarity.
We spend time on the comfortable two person sunning rock, sunning.
The following is an account of a person in the countryside of Britain in similar undertaking:
This has brought back memories from many years ago. My location was an overgrown, small unused private wood. My first intention was to find somewhere there suitable for sunbathing. I found it after ruining a pair of trousers because of all the brambles etc. but it was well worth it. The next objective was to make a path to it without making it too obvious. Once that was achieved the task was to clear the small area of all prickly things to make it barefoot and bare everything else friendly. I had my own private sunbathing spot, with a place for morning sunshine and an adjacent one for the afternoon.
To have somewhere to walk barefoot, especially when it became too warm to sunbathe being so sheltered from any breeze, I began clearing the path to it of all thorns back to where the main overgrown path through the wood was. It was obviously little used as it was barely passable so I began clearing it with secateurs. All done naked and as we all know working while naked is much less of a chore. Eventually I had the path clear and free of thorns. I now had a wood where I could sunbathe and walk barefoot. Something I had dreamed about.
Of course clearing the main path, which needed maintaining over the years, meant other people could use it, but I don’t remember any encounters. I would often leave the wood and walk in the surrounding countryside, carrying nothing, up to a mile away. Good times!
I must have gone there for about ten years until the growing trees began blocking the sun. Then the wood became managed for pheasants and it was all over.
One of my two main sunbathing spots is now outside the wood where I have permission to be naked having been discovered there and not objected to. Not strictly Stealth Naturism there perhaps, but there are still trespassers to be avoided – not always successfully! I still walk naked from there in the surrounding countryside.
Dave
In some places a sweeping of prickers with a broom is enough
On Valentine’s Day, I invited DF to climb up into the Tortilitas. It had been 85F today and the air was still quite nice. As the sun began to set, the the magnificent Catalina Mountains and the Tortolita Mountains, which surrounded us, turned Valentine’s red.
Strolling on a Tortolitan Trail, Under a Magnificent Crested
The sun set at the same time that the huge yellow full moon rose.
We sat and watched, we prayed, we soaked it in and danced, naked in the moonlight.
Then, we sat down on a slab of granite upon a hilltop. We had a fine candlelight dinner….
She told me of her day and this humming bird nesting right by a door at the hospital where she works. It had two spring eggs. Everyone watches like expecting parents.
We were on the road, shooting down the interstate at 83mph in the 80 speed zone, naked. The plan was to make it to Cedar City for a long hot shower and a real bed.
The next morning we had to get to Tucson for work on Monday. We grabbed a quick continental breakfast, but decided to stop into that fun little “everything homemade” restaurant for a brunch. We had a great meal again.
We had crossed through a scenic Highway 14, peaking at 9900 feet, through canyon’s vistas, forests, lakes and down into the wonderful red rock country on the way to that brunch.
Looking South Toward Zion
The next leg is mapped and mostly done today. I still have to trim and sweep away parts of bushes. I have displaced prickly pear cactus, but those are hardy and root, regrowing where they are placed. I did accidentally chop a small pin cushion cactus growing next to a barrel. Next step will be to hone with clippers.
The spring day feels wonderful on a nude body. Blazing a trail amongst the vegetation with a bare body gives the process a natural intimacy. Touch and trimming are more delicate and aware. I find myself talking to the plants, explaining my needs, my intentions and giving assurances that there will be no death, just accommodation. My sense is a love of being in this world, a fellowship of all that is here, family. I brush a leaf filled stem with my bare hip, just as the air brushes over me, as it continues on its way.
The trail meanders through some areas with various “pretty and colorful rocks.” It has become mostly lots of small rocks. I should be able to sweep away these small ones making a more discernible path here and there. This should make for smoother walking.
I want to make this a disappearing trail that is difficult for others to follow. To this end, I have deliberately left plants to climb over and one spot where the trail disappears in a golden granite field over a light ridge. There are many switchbacks to make passage look impossible to a person standing and surveying. A stranger should wonder if he is on a trail at all.
I have a list of monuments to keep my bearings along the trail at this point. Out to the big saguaro, then past the tall forked jumping cholla, up the opposite ridge passing the leaning barrel cactus, until a switchback leads back through on the south side of the dead saguaro skeleton. It is a list of cues, more than a trail. Then, it rises up the ravine to two armless saguaros growing side by side. Over the ridge, where lies the patch of copper bearing rock and into the next secretive little valley. Then, up, along the valley’s ridge to the peaceful rock, where I like to lay and meditate.
I will clip these bushes that only have leaves during monsoon for clear passage. I can smell the deer in the breeze, often. Tomorrow morning, I hope to take DF on a tour with a camera up the trail to the boulder and catch rays. I’d bet that we will find the buck or more. The weather continues to be perfect.
A Cholla Guides Me.
Our destination was the annual national Rainbow Gathering at 9400 feet the Uinta National Forest. I hadn’t been to one since 1998 and this would be DF’s first. It is a gathering of 10 to 15 thousand people that set up an alternative community and live in nature for a period of time. It culminates in a huge circle where everyone prays for world peace. Afterward, the forest is cleaned and rejuvenated to its former self. It is left as though those thousands had never been there. There is a devout sense of Mother Nature. It has been going on since 1972, evolving out of that period’s hippie culture. Yep, it’s back to the sixties!
The National Forest Service and local authorities gather also. There are vicious claims of danger to surrounding communities, and the coming destruction by thousands of naked drug crazed street urchins, which are out to contaminate the local youth. The gathering is actually a peaceful lesson and experiment in anarchy and community. It is fascinating to see how it actually works and succeeds. A town of this size is set up in two weeks with plumbing infrastructure and kitchens that feed everyone for free. Many various social elements come together. For a week it thrives, and then, two weeks later, it is as though it was never there.
First leg of the trail is accomplished up to the big saguaro. The trail is deep in growth, and so fluid with nature, at this point, that I lose it easily, as it meanders. There is a lot of biodiversity along the way and some Indian pottery chards; it’s a great nature trail. I’m away from places where it might be discovered. I have left only subtle markings to keep it less evident. With use, some of that will change. I’m attempting to keep the footpath away from vegetation and rocks that might hide rattlesnakes in their shade, when they come out, so I will have no surprises. I need to create this thing before the snakes come out of hibernation, which with this warm weather, may be sooner. So far, I don’t believe that I have had to kill a single plant, just trim and explain to them. One in particular has twice voiced disapproval on my wrist which has two streaks of blood presently. In this desert, everything has pricks and scratches waiting to defend its space.
I’m probably one third of the way done. The next leg will require more survey, as it leads through rocks on a ridge and out of the flood plain. I have used some old rusty things like a barrel ring, or a carpet scrap that are not native, and put some dead cholla trunks in unnatural positions as cairns. In the hills it will be more difficult, or I may have to import these objects. There are many places where the route will travel across rocks. I’ll need clues, to remember the way. It is not straight at all. It is a series of openings to avoid sharp vegetation. It is also placed to keep me covered. I get the feeling of being totally away from man, naturally.
It is interesting making and planning a stealth trail with a free range naturist’s stealth craft and wisdom. It is a non-trail trail. If it rained tonight, I would lose the track.
There are trails made by animal tracks out here. Since they already exist, I must use them to link together my unseen stealth trail.
Some of the trail follows the paths of the animal community
The Free Range Naturist 