We walk off and away from camp, down the raspy forest service road, attempting to stay off on the side to avoid the dust puffs. They are little clouds at each step of our feet. Just a few strides and our shoe’s colors blend into the surroundings. DF hangs back as my puffs head her way, traveling in front of her. It’s not sandy here. This is dried soil churned by vehicles. It turns to thick gooey mud when it rains and it then washes away, exposing the local rocks more and more. This is good for us. It makes a terrible trail, fit only for thick tires, 4×4 and destructive ATV’s. The latter churns up the soil deeper, making more dust, but this creates the solitude. Few people come this way and they move slowly, with caution.
We’re camped in the White Mountains. We’ve returned to our favorite spot, where we spent a month glamping in the big top tent, back in 2023. It is 11am. It’s Dry, with a capital “D”. We are returning to Arizona from Utah in anticipation of the monsoon rains, but the “Monsoon Season” is still languishing down in Mexico. Late yesterday afternoon, we pulled in and the dust that we made while parking made a foggy cloud that just hung there. It finally floated off, as the aspen leaves began to quake.
The Color of Utah
Familiar with the whole area, from years of wonderful explorations, we are noticing change. Back at camp we see that the small tree that we used to hang dishes to dry has fallen over, perhaps the snow cover from winter, or perhaps a large elk callously used it. Our aspens that we saved by placing our tent just so and using them to decorate our tent’s patio, remain and have kept growing. Nobody has come by to chew of the leaves, or rip them out of the ground. We take measurements for the first time. Perhaps, we’ll see how these saplings do as the years go by in this harsh environment.
(To see the rest of this post, you’ll have to find the “2” and click the page turning button, below.)
We’ve come out to the Rosecuge Mountain’s foothills to explore, a short hike, and a breath of nature. We have found our bearings. I’ve been attempting to get here for years, by hiking, foiled by distance, time and a maze of man-made obstacles, the steep canyon-like washes to appropriate water for cattle.
After collecting bearings, we are back in the SUV heading through another mile of back-road desert.
I take the tiny road under the double power lines out a bit to line up with the mountain hills. It doesn’t appear to have any closer roads through them. Eventually, I see a place to park and walk into the desert hills.
DF and I drove out for a short walk, an afternoon’s exploration. I’d been laid up with a neck and back pain and then nearly recovered, when, I immediately contracted probably covid. You know, one of those just passing through viruses. I didn’t want to get up and over do it the first day. On the other hand, I was stir crazy with frustration.
Thirty minutes from town and then a few miles of dirt backroads, the trail began to splinter, getting worse. The 4runner is crawling over piles of rocks, in berms and zig zagging. Pin stripes can be heard forming in the overgrowth, then deep sand. Don’t stop in the deep sand.
Along the way, just across a field up the hill, seven deer are getting up from an afternoon siesta under a palo verde tree. Our loud motor has disturbed the peace and quiet. The odd loud red thing with two beings have disturbed their rest. We’ve stopped and watch as they lumber to feel a safe distance. Nobody actually runs. They just stop look and listen as the truck idles and two naked shutter bugs grapple with the telephoto lens, rolling down the window and working out elbow room, whispering for some senseless reason.
They are big. There is a lot for animals to eat out here in this lush Sonoran foothill desert. The first thing that we had noticed was that the ground is carpeted with a lawn-like green. The Spring bloom is setting up. The abundance of rainy days have encouraged it. Maybe, this year will be another a super bloom.
Big “Slim” a dead saguaro waves as we pass. “Hi Slim.”
We’re running late, its 1pm. Well, that’s three hours late. It looks like this will be a shorter walk than we thought, but that’s okay. DF has been getting some therapy on a sore leg the last couple of weeks. This should be a test run. She should be careful, as to not overdo it and too soon.
The plan is to visit the Tortolita Mountains, but this time taking the back way from my old home. We’ll need to find the pass heading south this time, It’s one that we used to come out of our hills through, but heading north.
In the pass is a trail that the mountain bikers have been using more and more during the last decade. Their treads should have kept it evident, but we’ll still have to find the unofficial path in a pretty large piece of grassland desert.
The trail that we’re looking for is one that I used to use often. I wrote a story “Naked to the County Line,” here:
I have mentioned the AirBnB here at my home in Tucson. It has been functioning by word of mouth. In mid- February “Ida’s Place” became marketed as a clothing optional AirBnB. This is a bit of advertisement and a bit of story.
The house had an extra living area off of the porch when I bought it. I didn’t really want a roommate full time, so an AirBnB was proposed. As I considered it, I remembered how much that I enjoyed meeting people from all over the world, during a job, a few decades back. I have been around Tucson gathering information, for over 50 years and it was fun to turn them on to Baja Arizona, in their sense of a new adventure. I realized that I could apply that to my business and have some fun.
In the rental, there is a small kitchen, breakfast nook and a walk in closet.
I introduced better climate control and brightened up the color of the walls. It still felt too dark, so I added a window with some art outside.
As time has gone by, I have enclosed the porch to regulate the weather’s impact and dust. My plan was to increase nude use when the outdoors is uncomfortable. On chilly winter mornings, the sun comes through the 5×5 windows, heating it, as I sit on the carpet stretching.
On warmer days, I can open the large windows and allow air to drift through. It provides a spot that lies in the transition from indoor to outdoor.
I’m game. There is also a jeep trail near there that we could try.
We walk the massive field, finding spring water is creating mushy grasslands in spots. Here after a drought, we’re surprised. We could understand the darker green grasses, but standing water coming up out of the earth is something else. It had been a wet and up here, a snowy winter.
The grove is as if we never left it.
I walk along the edge of the field south to where I had found tire tracks.
Someone has camped here, but not recently. The circle of tire marks is vague and overgrown.
We went out north of Three Points, Arizona, where I had found a clear road into the Roskruge Mountains using satellite photos. They appeared to be saguaro and associated vegetation on the hills. The peaks top out at 3700 feet with their feet lying probably somewhere around 2600, give or take. The private land goes into Tohono O’odham Nation lands and the Ironwood National Monument. It’s often hot out there and warm in the winter. We can expect a place to ourselves.
After a 30 minute drive through an often tortured desert landscape, we are slowing down as the two lane highway passes through the town which offers a few conveniences. After Ace Hardware, Dollar stores, and Mexican fast food, we find our turn at Fuller Road and head north. Asphalt shortly turns to dirt. I pull over in front of a dusty trailer on a property surrounded with a chain-link fence. I need to get out and adjust my 4×4 locking hubs. A pit bull rages out to punish our ruckus in its serene life.
I don’t want to make our retreat in the White Mountains sound too idyllic. The reality is, that we all, at some time, have to accept fate and succumb to the reality of bugs. Midges, mosquitoes, gnats, no-see-ums, creepy spiders, cobwebs, the dangerous millipedes and scorpions (actually not a bug).
How many countless times, that I’d rather forget, were stricken by a hoard of bugs? Picnics having biting ants invite themselves, or visiting mosquitoes inviting themselves and not realizing that I’m not on the menu. That one pesky fly that continually pesters, thinking that it needn’t get its own plate; you know that guy.
How many times, when my lovely day nude in the sun got dashed by attacks? Me, having to take refuge under clothing on a sweltering day. Me, anxiously grabbing, and IN GRATITUDE, a bottle of poison to slather all over my defenseless body. Me, spending ridiculous prices for natural topical solutions, with their scented cakey result everywhere, and where there is no shower to wash before wrecking the sheets. Thank Heaven for Sssting-Stop!
This guy just crossed my foot looking like an early Disney movie, but one in the past gave my bare hand quite a smart.
I remember what could have been a lovely stay for my future wife in Jamaica, but for the 42 well scratched red gushers upon just one of the legs of her merely five foot stature. They loved her more than me; I was fine. They discriminate!?!
So, our retreat in the White Mountains wasn’t perfect. We had a few flies during the day, but we moved our lightweight folding chairs around from sun to shade as we felt. The sun chased us AND kept us away from flying pests.
Sun’s going down between the trees. We ate earlier today to align with the sun’s light and warmth. I’m lying in the pink canvas hammock feeling satisfied, looking up at the canopy of evergreen trees. The sun has gotten lower in the sky and light shoots through the deep forest. I’m fascinated by the golden green light. There are streaks of golden green color and the glitter of sap on pine needles. Below, in some places, the glowing grass looks much the same, like a reflection of the canopy. The pine needles high above spike out almost crystalline against a deep grey in the azure sky.
Up at 10,000 ft. the dark depth of space tints the bright turquoise. There’s a deeper more infinite depth than I’m used to. I’ve been noting spots of it while looking up and out through trees opening along the road’s route in of the forest and then when standing in the open Great Field.
We’re just back from what might have been a short walk after dinner, but one thing leads to another and it extended to a three mile exploration around the great field. We have rambled through the forest, which looks like enchantment decorated by pine, aspen and spruce, with a plethora of smaller treasures along the way. This is our story:
The Free Range Naturist 