Dan DeLong

“Dude, we should probably be moving faster.”

Cameron, squatted down with his camera to his eye said “Huh. This cactus is really cool looking. “

“No. Really. I think we need to haul ass.” Big puffy clouds had been growing darker by the minute. The steep trail up the canyon wasn’t getting any less steep, and no matter how much I stared at the little dotted line on the USGS map I still couldn’t pin point our exact location. But I was beginning to think it was a lot less further along than I’d thought before.

Cameron stood up, satisfied with his photo op. of the cactus. “OK.” He said. Let’s go.”

In the failing light of the funeral mountains, monolithic head walls above us gave no hint as to where the trail might be. To our right, the gorge dropped into near darkness. Several mines were supposed to be up ahead, and I marveled at the thought of dusty 19th century miners negotiating the precipitous twists and turns of these paths, loading ore cars to travel down the unbelievably steep tramway to the bottom of the mountain. One still hung from a single cable a hundred feet over the canyon, dangling where it stopped in mid-span more than a century ago.

It started to rain.

We pushed on, gloom wrapping around us. The whole hike was only about four miles, but the steepness of the trail, the switchbacks up the side of the rocky gorge made me think: if we lost the trail in the darkness, we were screwed.

Cameron was no longer looking for things to photograph.

By the time we reached the last of the mines, it was full night, and a light rain fell steadily. We examined a small cavern. Bits and pieces of old things, miners things, were spread here and there. “Well, I guess we could always spend the night in this place, if we had to. At least we’d be dry.” Cameron pondered the thought. He figured the same as me: we’d survive the night, but it would suck.

The key to whether or not we’d spend the next 12 hours huddled in a dusty abandoned mine shaft high in the Funeral Mountains was a tiny cairn of rocks, marking where the trail turned north, skirting a thin path around the massive head wall above.

“Dude. I found it!”

Our headlamps cast only the palest arcs as we pressed on into the rain and dark.

It would have been different if we’d started earlier in the day, but it was nearly three o’ clock when Greg and Stuart had dropped us off in the parking lot below Keene Wonder mine. The plan, conceived by Greg, was simple: two guys hike through while two guys drive around and meet them on the other side.

It would become the signature of our trips, these “through-hikes”, ultimately refined to an art form: linking trails through canyons choked with brush, finding a finger of ridge to descend by moonlight, the swig of Tequila at the beginning, an icy Corona with lime waiting at the end, steaks sizzling, feet sore, all smiles and stories and “I can’t believe we just did that” all around.

Ultimately, 2-meter radios and GPS would be added to mix. But for now, it was just Cam and I, a slightly damp USGS map and one small walkie-talkie — the kind you tried to play with as a kid but quickly discovered that they totally sucked.

Greg and Stuart had the other walkie-talkie.

They also had Reep-i-cheep.

I’d considered bringing her on this hike, but her on-again-off-again limp had recently returned. So instead of hiking, the goofy dog rode. Considering what the hike had turned out to be it was probably a good thing.

After a while the trail turned back to the east, continuing along the mountain’s right flank and, thankfully, beginning to level out.  As we plodded along, discussing in low tones how the worst appeared to be behind us, I must have inadvertently pressed and then released the radio’s “send” button because I suddenly heard Greg’s voice crackle thinly from the tiny speaker.  “I can hear you! I can totally hear you!”

Greg told us he was parked in my truck on a road near a ridge top and Reep-i-cheep was with Stuart taking shelter from the rain nearby in an old miner’s shack.  I began to think he couldn’t be very far from our location.  How else could the crappy walkie-talkies actually be talking to each other?  Then I saw what appeared to be a set of running lights across the canyon.  “Dude, flash the headlights.”  They flashed.

In another twenty minutes we had crossed the canyon and, navigating by crappy walkie-talkie, finally made contact with Greg somewhere near the ghost town of Chloride City. It was a glorious reunion.

Stuart decided it was too dark and wet to make dinner at camp. That, and the fact he felt our epic journey earned us a hot meal in a warm, dry place, led us to pile into the truck and make east towards asphalt.

And that is how our first through-hike ended at a restaurant in Beatty, with drinks all around.

Stuart was right.  We did earn it.