2016-06-24

We took off Friday afternoon after DF got off work. Our plan is to get under a huge cottonwood next to the Gila River tonight, set up the quick dome tent and get an early start in the morning. It is more than a twelve hour drive to the Orient Land Trust and its hot springs in south central Colorado.  This way we can save three or four hours this evening, giving us time to more leisurely cruise through the back roads near Reserve, New Mexico, a place that I had been curious about for years.

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When we left off the last time…

…we were trudging up a steep rough incline rock to rock, step by step. The altitude and exertion were making DF sick to her stomach. My legs were getting shaky from the climb. We had seen no water near the trail and no place to stop and camp.

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Heat

It had been 112 plus all day. The intersections, filled with heating asphalt, fueled by car exhaust and many hot motors add another ten, and more, degrees. It was something that we call “Way too Hot.” I had many errands to run, requiring clothing. The little rice rocket’s air conditioner, wasn’t kicking out as it should. “A bad time to have an air-conditioner go on the fritz,” I thought. It was discovered that the air conditioner wasn’t broken. It wasn’t going bad, The Freon wasn’t low, no leaks. It just didn’t have the capacity to handle that kind of heat!

The hot water comes out of cold water taps. Cars designed to operate at the extremes of weather around the world are not able to keep up. It’s way too hot. Naked bodies are the answer to clothed bodies that don’t function and that’s the message a naked body gives. Run for cover, it’s way too hot. Clothed hikers, with limited senses, or some might say no sense, coming out of their air-conditioned buildings, expecting a user friendly environment. A turkey in an oven is basking in a “dry heat.”

Can you imagine the police sent to arrest someone for being nude on a day like this? The officers are in their black uniforms, full body armor, leather boots and utility belt. The patients are running the asylum.

This Phoenix heat, this Yuma heat is near record highs. It is not typical Tucson weather. It has been dashing well laid out plans.

So, this is summer solstice and official Nude Hiking Day, a time for celebration. I have been looking for ways to do both, but this extreme heat just keeps dashing plans.

World Naked Hiking Day

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2016-06-04

Friday afternoon we are on our way to the Pinaleno Mountains. At the base of Mt. Graham, 9300 ft. is the trailhead for Ash Creek. A tough hike, but worth the effort, or so I had read.

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Summer 2013

Please indulge me before we get to Nudestock. Carnuding across Arizona and California, there is a perception, a projection, but how far from the truth is this? How different from the trek across country as young “freaks” on their way to a rock festival in 1969 is this?

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A Continuing Series

March 25th, 2015

“The desert is in bloom now,” I silently hear myself say, as I walk into it on the stealth path.

I keep my head down mostly, watching each step; I know that a rattlesnake could be lounging under a bush next to the trail. I had cleared the brush just enough to allow enough sight to leave no places for that to happen. That was a need for its construction. This was a good test for that objective.

Watching the ground, I take inventory of the flowerings.

A Dainty Pin Cushion in Bloom

They are not quite as abundant as I expected. The tunas are forming on the prickley pear. The tiny leaves on the paloverde are turning color ready to fall off, making way for the masses of yellow flowers that contrast so beautifully with the turquoise blue clear sky. There is not much evidence of the rains that came a few days ago. It is dry, but definitely not parched. Animal tracks and pieces of cholla and prickley pear have made it back into the trail like litter. I take note that this is something else to watch for, as I take each step with care and awareness. The pink fluffy blooms that had delighted me earlier are all but gone, replaced by another group of flora. The brittle bushes that I had trimmed back, now are covered with bright yellow florescence, spanning out into the path.

Brittle Bush on a Hill

They brush my leg, or my leg brushes them in their caressing way, as I pass through. Continue reading →

Late June 2007

To escape the heat I went up to Mt. Lemon with my new girlfriend. I was pleased when I discovered her riding comfortably bottomless on the drive up the mountain. We had discussed this thing of nude living.  Although she confessed that she had only hiked topfree a couple of times, I discovered that she certainly has the spirit of naturism.

We searched far and wide to find some privacy for a picnic, finally finding a hillside with a slight indentation that we could use. The steep hillside coupled with the geometry of visual angles from being spotted from the road cloaked us just enough. It also created a patch of level on the steep slopes. We found that this day, there was a lot of traffic for an obscure barely maintained back road. We spread a blanket, enjoyed the view, and ate sandwiches and cherries. We stripped, enjoying the breeze and laid on our backs watching the rapid swirling of the wispy cloud formations (We sat at 8700 ft., during the monsoon season and it was extremely turbulent above us). I’d never seen clouds move so fast without fast-forward controls and a video screen

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A Continuing Series

There has been more contact with these javelinas the last few days:

I couldn’t help myself. I snuck back out there to the large rock with a camera.

They are no longer beneath the big sunning rock, but in the hackberry bushes that they were under earlier. I have spotted one asleep. Two detect me and start moving around, grunting, sounding alarm. An ‘old boy, bolts alerted first, maybe to draw me away from the young. I see one very young babe follow another, apparently a mother, at a different, slower pace. I wait. Now, they are all alerted. I decided to mosey on. It just seemed right to give them a break. As I crept away, one of them gave a loud grunt as if to say, “F-you!” It is a challenge, perhaps a bluff, perhaps an intention, perhaps formality or male duty.

They can be aggressive, I’m told, but most likely not, or so I’ve found. Unless I corner one or separate/threaten the babes, I’m not too concerned. The Deeksha (a transpersonal energy) helps. Some moved, some got into ready stance, some just laid there, seemingly ignoring the intrusion.

Creative contemplation erupts:

The next day, I bask in the sun, just soaking in the entirety of it all.

In a bush, a loud grunt reminds me of the tone of a silverback great ape barking out. It sounds angry with something.

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2012-07-01

We hadn’t been up to Mt. Lemon for a while. After a stretch of way too hot days, we drove up to escape to cooler weather. It is a wonderful scenic cruise, about an hour above Tucson, if you take your time. We took off up a dirt side road into the forest near the top. It is about 8000 to 9000 ft, give or take, depending which section of road, gully or bend you find yourself on.

There were campers and picnics going on at most of the sites as we searched, our nudity protected by the walls of our car. The full privacy for what we had planned was a difficult find.

I spotted a grove of young aspen, stopped, and discovered that it was posted as a foot traffic only restoration area.

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Winter 2013

I’m rethinking this title. This is about going through daily tasks, living nude in an urban environment. DF and I, like most, don’t just live out on the road. We maintain a couple of homes, one urban and one more rural. This is about making the wood to fuel the fireplace and the stealth naturism involved in daily nude living.

I have always enjoyed cutting wood naked. I do it with good protective shoes, sometimes light sandals for splitting. Sometimes I’ll take a chainsaw to wood barefoot all over, if I’m in the mood. It is good exercise. My dad, who won a wood splitting contest at age 65, showed me proper form. I think of him fondly often, while I split a log.

Christmas Eve, I took an electric chainsaw to DF’s pile of mesquite debris. It was a colder day. I put a sweat shirt on to work outside. I found that it helped minimize scratches while hugging the piles, which had been left in the driveway and needed to be moved into the yard’s wood pile.

There is a neighbor very close, to the north and there is visibility down the drive to the street where there is frequently a great deal of foot traffic.

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