Black Canyon Trail: Lookout Loop

I found a heart in a prickly pear

shot to pieces. Shotgun shells and trash all over Black Canyon.

A saguaro cactus. They do not grow any arms until they are over 75 years old.

Matt, preparing to launch a cholla cactus

FLYING CHOLLA!

Hedgehog cactus cluster

Rock formations in the distance where we did most of our rock work

awesome lichen! 

part of our trail. It is a rugged, technical trail for mountain biking.

there are so many saguaros in Black Canyon, it is difficult to believe they are endangered!

Kramer's hedgehog?

cows roam freely around Black Canyon.

cholla stuck in the tread of my boots

totally AWESOME lichen/fungus growth we found.

beginning process of building a crib wall

Ryan is excited to find big rocks to build the wall!

I can be the retaining wall!

      I spent the past eight days working on a new section of the Black Canyon Trail. Black Canyon City is a small city a couple hours south of Flag, and two CREC crews were sent to create a new technical mountain biking trial, which I have been told will be called "Lookout Loop" when completed. The name is pertinent in that there are many beautiful spots to view along the trail and also that there are numerous steep rocky slopes throughout. I honestly think it would be terrifying to bike the trail, but it is supposed to be for intermediate/advanced mountain bikers. Anyway, between the two crews we completed over a mile and a half of tread and built eight retaining rock structures. Pretty awesome.

     The Black Canyon area is gorgeous and very much a desert area. I had numerous cacti interactions and observations. I saw my first saguaro in person--they are huge and wonderfully impressive. They start as pole-like cacti, and after 75 years they can begin to grow arms. Totally amazing. I interacted with a variety of other cacti, including cholla, hedgehog, barrel, pincushion, and prickly pear. Primarily we worked with one type of segmented cholla, which is a brutal cactus that has left me with many, many cuts/stab wounds. There was also a teddybear cholla, so named because it looks fuzzy. Honestly, fuzzy-type cacti are the worst, because they have fine needles that get into skin, break off, and are nearly impossible to remove. Still, most of the cactus violence came from us. I easily dug up over 100 cholla.

     My favorite cactus was probably the barrel. It reminds me of velcro! Velcro was invented after observing the ways that burrs hook into clothing/fur and attach themselves. The barrel cactus has big, hook-like spines that are about as thick as zip-ties and look like them, but a pale pink color. When it rains, apparently the hooks turn blood-red. I want to see that happen. The barrel is also more forgiving if you are careful around it because the hooks are so thick and they do not fall out easily like the spines of other cacti. However, I imagine that falling into one would lead to an incredibly painful time of removing hooks.

     Overall, this spike was pretty interesting. We started out as two crews of 7, totaling 14, but so many people became sick that one day in particular we were down to 9 people. One girl was so sick she was evacuated out. I think it had a lot to do with the crazy dust storm we had the first day. She ended up with a sinus infection and valley fever. Too much dust inhalation! After she was evacuated, it left us with 11 boys and two girls. I have never been around so many dirty beards at once. Or fart jokes. Sometimes the burliness and beards are confusing, because the guys look mature, but every other word is "penis" or "fart" or "shit," and between every word is a fart. Seriously. A couple of them play a game called "fart baseball." One of the guys is lactose intolerant, and purposely eats cheese to try to beat the others in fart baseball. Also, a couple of the nights I was lucky enough to watch him light his farts on fire. Not kidding. They also like discussing the best places to defecate in nature, the best types of rocks to use as nature wipe, exactly what each bowel movement looks like, and they always announce when they are heading off to do their business. The escalation of ridiculousness is huge between all of them. Honestly, they're hilarious. However, the gas becomes a problem, and was especially apparent the night we drove to town to watch the Superbowl and I ended up as the only girl, stuck sitting in the middle. I will now demand a window seat in future. Sometimes I feel like I'm around a bunch of 13 year-olds, which actually is awesome, because they're keeping the child inside alive and well. In fact, a group of us are going to have 14-Year-Old Day, in which we plan to dress up like we are 14 and do 14-year-old things. We're going to skateboard, play video games, and build a fort, among other things. I of course will wear a lot of black eyeliner, black clothes, a few obnoxiously bright pieces of jewelry, and find some skater boys to follow. Ahh yes, the awkward early teen years.

      Some sights in Black Canyon made me sad. There are shotgun shells everywhere. During the day, we heard guns pretty consistently throughout. Mostly people shoot at clay pigeons, but as seen in one of the pictures I uploaded, people also shoot propane tanks, among other things like televisions, beer bottles and saguaros. They then leave the shells and trash where they fall. A bummer. Also, the second night there, a group of 12 hummers drove through the wash right by our campsite. Twelve hummers! Not only did they wake everyone, but there are signs all over stating that no motor vehicles are allowed in the wash. Even further, they were "sport felling" which means they had chainsaws and were cutting down things for fun. So much pollution! I find it amazing that people feel comfortable displaying such disrespect in such a brazen way. I imagine it has something to do with group mentality. People often act differently one-on-one. 

      Still, the spike was great overall. One of the highlights for me was being asked to teach yoga. The crew leaders stopped work early so that we could head to camp to do it. It was a particularly rough day and it was one of the days that people started to get really sick. Everyone was pretty burned out. We took off our shoes and I taught it in the sand next to the wash. It was wonderful to see everyone turn around completely, from hardly talking to laughing and smiling. Actually, I finished up with a little laughter yoga--we did the laying-down laughter circle. It was a totally infectious, wonderful moment. Even John, who claims he is not compassionate and hates foreign things, said "namaste" at the end. He said, "I'd like to say namaste for freedom and guns," and after we pointed out he actually said namaste, he turned bright red and tried to take it back, saying that he has a Native American aunt so he can be an "Indian giver" and take it back. Heh. Later in the week, one of the crew leaders asked me to teach again, so we did a one-on-one session, and they are looking into possibly making it a regular thing for our crew as part of our "education" requirement through AmeriCorps. Regardless, it was awesome, and made me miss teaching TKD. I really cannot express how wonderful it was to see the total turnaround of mental states during that half hour.
     The project partner for the Black Canyon site is named Troy. I would guess he's in his early sixties. The day we were leaving, he asked me how I managed to smile all the time. I said, "why not?" He's great. He brought us a bunch of tangerines and grapefruit that were grown locally. Delicious!

     Black Canyon Trails: awesome. The canyons, mountains and saguaros are beautifully outlined by the sky, "like purity against resolve." Worth the visit.