We’re at Redington Pass again. The Monsoon is extra wet and we can’t resist this place. Today, we decide to take the high road to avoid the crowds and make better time toward the upper part of the flow.
The vegetation has grown thick here. So, having come nose to nose with rattlesnakes along here before, extra caution is taken. I wouldn’t want to disturb anyone’s daily beauty rest.
We descend the last tall steps into the bedrock bottom of the canyon.
There appears to be even more water since the rains last night. This place changes daily, when the rains come.
Off to the side of the main channel, a feeder stream is flowing with fresh rainwater. I try the little waterfall and sip a drink!
Another year’s gone by. It is another July anniversary of TheFreeRangeNaturist.org.
Seven years have rolled on since I got fed up and decided to take a stand about some issues of body freedom and started this website. Those seven years have documented highlights, passed on passing thoughts and accumulated bits of some kind of personal evolution.
I had notes from around 100 old stories at the start, which I had written for The Secret Naturist Society Forum. These had been mostly written during the previous seven years. I figured with that and a few new posts, I should run through a year, or two. I’d make my point and that would be that. Maybe I’d leave the result out there as a monument, or a “how to” book of free ranging liberation. Maybe, it could change a few lives, make them more. Maybe, it would take off, changing many lives. How would I know?
I soon found myself not only refurbishing those old posts, but DF and I were having a great deal of fun with the project. As time went on, our photography was improving and I was also seeing entertainment in my experiments in writing. Our frequent hiking/camping trips were being enhanced by the dimension of reporting our trips and people were enjoying the tales. Time went on; we looked back, looked around and looked forward. We saw memories, more fun and good living.
They say that one needs to use imagination to manifest something.
There has been drought. Now, a month, or more of excessive heat. Did I mention drought?
Last year, we arrived back in Tucson into the results of an historically wet monsoon. I remember those days. Our vacation seemed extended, by playing in the flow of the water in Redington Pass.
It’s time for monsoon again. It isn’t a consistent event, anymore. So maybe, it’s time to manifest this year’s fun by revisiting last year’s. Rain dance anyone?
2021-07-29
Casually, we make the twenty miles, or so, to drive across town and the width of the Tucson Valley. The more urban Tucson fades into larger home lots and fewer strip malls. Tanque Verde Road begins its two lane up and down dips through the lush mesquite desert.
Fresh flowers from rains are abundant. Frequently, natural gardens appear where different species cluster.
The trail down into the canyon is surrounded by a verdant garden. The path has become overgrown. The gardens of flowers reach out to brush against our nude bodies. The color and variety is compelling. I have to stop along the way to admire it all.
The roar of the waters below us, echo up to our ears. Our sense of excitement grows.
I lifted this off of a now defunct website, fifteen years ago. I thought it deeply revealing and kept it stored away in a small yellow computer folder, only to rediscover it recently. I also discovered the author.
It describes a first very secret naturist experience, a stealthy sneak out into the English woods. What might be considered a person out of her mind, is the actual discovery of an immersion into a profound perspective of life.
Free range naturism, away from the home, or away from the discrete resort, at first, is daunting. Fear excites. Breaking forbidden barriers may couple with sensual delight. This story expresses that and a woman’s bravery.
I have slipped in a few old archived photos. I hope they do justice to the intended narrative.
Jane’s First Dawn Walk 19th July 2007
The strident beeps of my alarm bring me instantly to full wakefulness. Home alone. This is the day, 3.45 am, the day I will greet the dawn in the forest. I look out, it’s early yet. The twilight has barely begun to spread over the street. I wait a little while and then don dark green cotton jeans, t-shirt and trainers and pick up my little backpack. All was prepared last night. I descend the stairs, check all is well and slip out.
The short drive to the woods is full of nervous anticipation. But this place is familiar to me now and I turn into the car park. No cars, I rejoice. No delay, I glance at the temperature, lock my car, put the keys in my backpack and walk through the forest gate onto the steep path up to the trees.
Up, up along the graveled pathway, my shoes crunching in the silence. Rabbits hop aside. My breathing is labored. Both the hill and the nervous anticipation make the upward journey a labor. I stop and drink some water from my bottle. Better.
There is an obscure spot in New Mexico. It is right near Faywood Hot Springs. You might see the sign and ask, “What could be a City of Rocks?”
The exit is off of the little two lane road that heads east from the hot springs. Over a hill there is yet another hill. In the generally empty terrain, this hill sports a large mound with a stand of generally monolithic granite rocks.
We are at Faywood Hot Springs in New Mexico. We arrived the previous afternoon, after a long drive down from Colorado. There is a strong chance of monsoon, so we may head back home, after visiting a couple of nude opportunities in the local wide open spaces.
This is a beautiful place to wake up to. We are surrounded by tall fountains of pampas grass under mesquite tree shade. There is that green glow from morning light, orange sunshine is beaming through the shadows. It is calm, just the sound of a bird and a peacock. DF is asleep, cuddling in my arms.
DF suggests that we should check the weather to see if it changed. I grab the phone for the National Weather Service. The forecast for this evening doesn’t look good. We do have some time to enjoy ourselves.
We walk in the comfortable early morning air, up the hill to the Henge. We of course, drop our coverings, just as soon as we see that we are alone. The world seems to embrace us more completely.
One day last summer, the water was up high at Redington Pass. It was a wonderful day. Freely nude, I was roaming over the rock formations and playing in all of that amazing water. The falls were tall, short, fast and slow, the ponds, shallow and some deep. Each delighted us in a unique way. Some were effervescent. Always it was refreshing and joyful.
Being nude in nature is the more complete experience. I’ll see things that were not seen before, simply by awareness, sight, sound and smell. I feel all around, picking up on the nature of nature. It is one thing to experience this in a back yard, a resort, or around the house, but then a step further and there is that immersion into the rich natural world.
Immersion is to understand that nature plus nudity is naturism. Without coverings, it is quite different to sit, to walk, to contemplate, and spontaneously discover the complexities of the web of life. There is a sense of a gift, when feeling the nuance of the moment through the sensuality of the many ways that nature is reaching out to touch, to accept, to take and to give. There is a naturalist in each of us, if we can walk out in humility and respect, and wonder.
What better way to interact with the divine gifts, than to present ourselves naked. What better way than to surrender to the elements, just as when we entered into life as babes. Our ancient forebearers coexisted and harmonized for millennia before history. We grew out of; we evolved in this mixing bowl, this blessing for us. We are adapted and attached to the natural world in a multitude of ways that living in man-made shelter in man-made garments can’t express to us.
All of these lessons and directions given to us as human beings of this earth, are constantly being expressed, or they are dying in us. Millions of interactions are happening every moment, which we are just not aware of. So much of this is life missed, sacrificed to immediate needs, channeled into a survival mode, replaced by stress, the future, those many plans and the games which lie in conscious thought. To expand consciousness, to be amazed by the wonder that is life and universe, then we must sometimes, or often, need to stop and look and listen and smell and feel and just be.
The direct link, the key, is to drop out of our man made world and visit into what created us. Naturism can be in the complex reality of natural environments and away from the creations of our egos, fears and our self-inflicted stress. The simple harmonious joy is our birthright.
Nature is not just to conquer, to fight, or to master, but to surrender to our true existence, which is our world less characterized by reactions to fears. There is trust and oneness with it.
Take off your clothes and walk down a natural path, feel every step with nothing more than the whole of the blessing that is body, spirit and a sense of being a part of all of the rest. Each and every step can be a wondrous moment. A footstep an amazing savored nibble, or decadent bite out of life.
So, the water was particularly strong at this little rapid. I climbed into the force of it, grasping for purchase, anything that would anchor me, searching blindly under the suds for a grip. At any moment, I would be swept away back downstream. The force of water and Mother Nature is fascinating. A movement of just a few inches would catch me up in a particular current and toss me in a different direction. I fought and I laughed. I felt played with, a child and his mother, nature. She just tussled and gamed me. I was all on her terms, in her arms, immersed in her joy with me.
DF got a call from a friend of ours offering permits for Araviapa Canyon’s west entrance. The four of us, our two non-nudist friends and we two, will now be leaving the following weekend… It didn’t take much deliberation. After all…”Paradise!”
We hadn’t been out backpacking in over a year and not visited the Aravaipa paradise since 2017.
We were last up on Mt. Lemmon in the spring of 2020. We hiked down to Lemmon pools and explored on through the Wilderness of Rocks. It was early in the Covid lockdown and we got surprised by around 35 other hikers on a trail that rarely saw anyone else. We just had to grin and bare it, having brought no clothing along with us.
The next day, a bolt of lightning hit the mountain range and burned with little control for over a month. Every day, we watched heart broken, looking up to the flames above, from Tucson below, tasting and smelling the smoke. The Forest Service maps reported that a huge area, something like 120,000 acres went up in smoke. Our favorite spots were hit, one by one.
We finally got the gut fortitude to return and assess the damage, as it applies to us on August 27th of 2021. We found there, that the historic extra wet monsoon rains have left the entire region is in hews of green. Trails are getting overgrown. After a year and a half long drought, it is stunning.
We expect much of our forests to be gone, but from the look of things, the desolate aftermath of a forest fire has been replaced by a mass of bush, grass and shrubs. We have heard reports of abundant flowing water!
The hiking trailheads along the road have been closed to hiking, due to the extra year of drought that led to the fire’s fuel.
We begin the 21 mile drive up the Catalina Highway, from 2500 ft. to 9200ft.The saguaro studded lower hills are great, as if nothing had ever happened. I remark that maybe nothing did happen here.
I got an unusual comment on Sycamore Canyon post, today. Someone thought walking alone there, to be boring.
It consequently occurred to me, that I have been writing few stories of solitude, or lone nude walks. During the continuing “Nude Across America” trip, DF and I were glued together nearly 24/7 in a little Honda and our beds. Also, I am now away from my digs in Tortolita and immersed daily in the sounds of the city.
This website was never meant to be a weekly blog, but a repository of stories. It is to guide people into the joys of free range naturism and to share. I created a “Table of Contents” page up at the top to help navigate through all of this. I confess to not having been prompt about keeping up with the content there, but there is plenty.
There is a series there in the “Trip Reports” section of the Table of Contents, “My Private Place for Naturism.” There are 28 episodes, where I am walking nude and alone. These explain the wondrous quality of aloneness. There can be nothing boring.
A walk in nature is with nature. To be nude in nature is to be even closer. You might as well be holding hands with it. To walk freely to where your nose takes you in the moment is adventure in nature.
Alone, one can be more aware in every way, to feel inner reactions and guidance. When with someone else, there can be distraction. The roles of a social self can interfere with the being, just being, or in touch with the authentic self, or to be cast naked in the moment.
I understand what you mean about feeling bored when alone. I have experienced it. It is also important to not get stuck in social contexts and instead, to be alone. There can be nothing boring about being alone in a natural place. If you seek people oriented things, go to where the people are.
DF and I are often alone when we are together hiking, during these reported trips. Then also, we share, too. We lag behind on the trail, we walk off, and we give each other space. We generally don’t talk, but instead we listen in the many ways.
Sycamore Canyon itself? If I were to find myself bored there, I’d leave all of my clothing behind, swim across the river, to walk the tracks. There may be danger to experience. There may just be the feeling of being very much more alive in my own skin.
Sure hope that the video works…there’s a learning curve, becoming proficient.
The Free Range Naturist 