Posts Tagged With: White Mountains

White Mountain Reminisce II

Posted on February 2, 2026 by lasthouseob1

Bears Ears, Utah #42

 

One Moment Leads to the Next:

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.

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White Mountain Reminisce

Posted on January 28, 2026 by lasthouseob1

Bears Ears, Utah #41

2024-06-11

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.)

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White Mountain Retreat: Pt10: Carnero Lake

Posted on August 15, 2025 by lasthouseob1

2023-07-08

During the summer of 2023, we spent a month in retreat, glamping in the bell tent in a wilderness area of the Arizona White Mountains. We hiked or walked each day. This was one….

We have been out in this forest by ourselves for long enough to feel very comfortable nude. Nude is our norm. However, each evening we’ve bundled up, or lit the wood burning stove in our glamping bell tent. Often we’ll just cuddle in the luxury of a cozy bed. The need for clothing has been caused by an onslaught of determined mosquitoes just before each sunset, which necessitate textile armor from head to toe. Generally, things have been lovely enough that most of our time has had no consideration of coverings, save the shade of a friendly tree.

During our stay, we might have only seen a quad, or an ATV passing during the day, enabling us to roam freely and unconcerned. However, the Fourth of July weekend crowds are upon us. This day, we will find ourselves heading out into the more populated areas, but still determined to stay nude. We’re not here to have hassles, which are unlikely; we’re not here to be seen. We may use stealth tactics to stay out of sight. We just want to explore in the pleasant natural state that we have become accustomed to.

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Short Walks 3

Posted on February 29, 2024 by lasthouseob1

2023-07-09

Sometimes, a short walk just keeps goin’.

We decide to walk, but have no decision where. We look across the great field and DF suggests revisiting the distant Aspen Grove (See Here):

Exploring the Mystery of the Aspen Grove

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.

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Short Walks 2

Posted on February 25, 2024 by lasthouseob1

July 4th 2023

Morning:

The squirrel chatters away, high in a tree, the rhythmic tat-tat tat and squeaks above us.

I sit in a chair, now in the cooler shade of the clouds. Below me, a light breeze wriggles the baby aspens, barely two feet tall.  They are children of the forest playing games, gathering their strength and prowess.

I sit back and look up at a shining silver break in the grey, as the sun casts similar light across the grasses through tree branches. It is warming me, radiant, caressing. It feels as though it burns skin for a few moments. Before this disappears, I’m reminded of the dramatic reaction my body has with the sun. There is an ancient synthesis from the beginnings with the sun. One might call this simply natural, but I know how deeply it brings me alive in the morning. It penetrates my eyes, as if a portal into my inner being. I become more alive and whole as my body receives.

This afternoon:

We put on shoes and take a water bottle and cameras. There is a slope into the deep forest away from camp and the great field. I know that if we get lost, we just keep walking downward to a Forest Service road. We will wander as far as our mood is fulfilled.

We just want to see what is there, in the neighborhood.

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Downhill-Rim Road: Part III

Posted on February 26, 2021 by lasthouseob1

September 2020

 

Monday:

We awaken in a pine forest, at the end of a rugged road. We are about eight miles into this forest from the Mongollon Rim.

Continuing in our casual unhurried pace, we break camp. I want to explore the rest of the side road that brought us to this piece of The Arizona Trail. There is a Battle ground Monument near, just a couple of miles further into the forest on the easy road. It is the site of a battle between something like 54 San Carlos Apache and a couple of troops of soldiers with their native accomplices.

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Downhill- Rim Road: Part II

Posted on February 17, 2021 by lasthouseob1

 

September 2020

We are exploring a riverbed leading to a lake in the great forest above the Mongollon Rim. Part I is here:

Downhill-Rim Road

Spirits in the Rocks

Heading Back:

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Downhill-Rim Road

Posted on February 13, 2021 by lasthouseob1

 

Sept. 2020

 

Out to Rim Road

Saturday:

We have a casual start Saturday morning. There is no hurry.  It takes about two hours of interstate and freeways to get to Highway 87 and wide-open spaces.  On the other side of Phoenix, we pass along the highway sadly. Because of unprecedented drought, a fire has devastated mile upon mile of lush Sonoran desert. Two hundred year old saguaros are burnt and slowly dying among scorched dark hues of black and brown.  The coating is like earth under a leaky car on the completely barren landscape.

Tall cottonwood trees, formally a riparian habitat, are black sticks on one side of the highway bridge, while it is still abundantly green on the other, accenting the contrast.

Having escaped the somber tone of the once great, the highway brings us into the dominion of the bushy pinion pine forest.  

Soon, the town of Payson marks the beginning of the tall pines. We stop in a parking lot behind a real-estate office and cover our bodies for drive-through ice cream. After pumping  gas, we head into the wilds, the great pine forest of the White Mountains. We are heading to a section of the Arizona Trail to camp.  Tomorrow, we will leave that trail to explore a dry river to a lake reservoir.

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Exploring the Mystery of the Aspen Grove

Posted on October 1, 2020 by lasthouseob1

Early July 2020

 

It’s a first day of our retreat in The White Mountains of Arizona…”Let’s go for a walk, not too far. This thin air is 10000, feet above sea level. First day pushes can make a person quite ill.”

Curiosity beckons. Across the vast field bordering our chosen campsite, is a dark band across the bottom of the white bark trunks of a grove of white aspen. It is a dark line and we want to investigate its origin. What is causing such a consistent line?

We are in an alpine wilderness. We’re away from most anybody. We journeyed the rough little route that crosses another similar open space, then through a gate. Eventually, the Forest Service road turned into a 4×4 pile of chunky volcanic rock, where few will venture. Perhaps a fellow hiker, but more likely we’d be found by an errant quad or ATV and just a couple of times in a day. This is slightly further away from that shabby trail. We have camped in place with a vast sense of freedom.

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A Week in the White Mountains: Part 1

Posted on September 2, 2016 by lasthouseob1

2016-07-23

DF had a sudden very disappointing schedule change. Her four day retreat in Slow Low with a friend turned into one day. This caused our four days together, to be after their retreat, to become a week. I had to shuffle to leave four days earlier and decide where to go and what to do. Nude vacations, hiking and camping, especially during monsoon season need planning and contingencies.

I spent hours researching to figure out what the actual conditions were at various locations. I used topo, internet information and Google satellite. I had previously put together a list of nearly all of the perineal water creeks in the White Mountains.  I went through 25. All but one was devastated by the Bear Wallow fire to some extent. It was very discouraging. If the percentage of Arizona Forests that have been consumed by fire and rancher alterations were to be applied to the Amazon forest, we would all be in trouble.  So much is gone, except for patches here and there.

There was one untouched area with a creek. The site of the 1998 Rainbow Gathering. That would be our first destination. Later, we might head out on a backpacking trip. Two creeks had potential. But first we had to get DF to her retreat in a nice mountain home on Saturday night. She would have a full day Sunday….

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