"Danger wild!": My Most Memorable Adventures of 2023

DANGER, that is the word coming to mind, when picking these three trails as the best of my 2023s — each for a different reason. Arizona really still is the Wild West.

Karl May wrote about it well, taking us on the adventures of his characters like Winnetou, the victorious warrior and his blood brother, the trapper friend Old Shatterhand, a larger than life hero; yet, May never saw this land and its magic.* We still can.

Here are 3 awesome and awe-inspiring ways to do so — hiking with a Komoot Pioneer as your guide.

First mention belongs to the Granite Mountain Hotshot Memorial Trail. This tour leads to the place in the Weaver Mountains where 19 of Prescott's finest firefighters died saving the town of Yarnell in 2013 from being burned to the ground by a true inferno. Winds had whipped up hell as it fanned flames into a towering monster of fire levelling everything as it advanced with unreal speed, until nothing was left but a moonscape. Hiking there is an unforgettable experience, as you encounter the stories of the real life heroes of this land.

Granite Mountain Hotshots is a name that fit them. Granite Mountain is an imposing rugged mountain outside of Prescott, Arizona, rising to 7,628 feet (2,325 meters) with a sheer granite cliff face approximately 500 feet high, a rock climber's dream. This unique place is wild and preserved as the Granite Mountain Wilderness area, the most popular of all Arizona's wildernesses.

It can be so dangerous I dared not hike it alone though. For years it haunted me. I saw it on every hike in the Prescott National Forest. There it stood and stands, mysterious, inviting, but defiant.

The retired detective David Paulides warns about places like it in his Missing 411 accounts.** Where Granite and water are found, he discovered hikers sometimes disappear under the most mysterious circumstances that defy rational explanation. Being a White Male does not help either. Ask Paulides why. Just last year on September 28, 2022, Jeff Stambaugh (63 at the time) went missing in the Granite Mountain Wilderness and has not yet been found. Rescuers scoured every reachable inch of the entire wilderness, but to no avail.

Thus I waited for years, until some group of hikers would join me. Finally, this year I went up Granite Mountain. Still, the hike was not without peril. The experienced and locally well known hike leader that day fell twice. Each step could be one's last; yet, doing it safely carried the rewards of sights imparting a mystical experience. House sized boulders are often perched as if waiting to tumble down. The rock strewn sandy path is gritty. Some of the vegetation fails to cling to life, withered up and burned. Mountain lions, bears, and rattlesnakes own these parts. I know of no other place quite like it. Human beings visit, but must shortly leave again or be lost — perhaps tragically forever.

Why, you might ask then, is the hike to Wolverton Mountain Peak one of the best 3 in 2023 for this hiker? DANGER is the answer. You might wonder why, when it started out like any other day's hike, and with a large group of very experienced hikers. It is not nearly as rugged as the other two.

The only hint of foreboding might have been the speed of the hike leader, who in his 80s still can out-hike almost everyone. He might be likened to a force of nature, almost a genetic anomaly. What an inspiration to all of us growing older he is... Unless you are struggling to keep up with him on a hike that only gets steeper as you move along; moreover, it is the only kind of hike he finds sufficiently invigorating. "Tell everyone, I like to keep going and not to stop" were his words to us that day.

So I kept my backpack light, gritted my teeth, and kicked into training mode. Trail 9415 or should I say trial 9415, covers the highest section of the Prescott Circle Trail, the Arizona PCT. The views are commensurately breathtaking, but it was the speed that day that took my breath away more so. I kept up.

By the time we reached the peak, two blisters, one on each heel, reminded me of the rising cost of the hike. No problem or so I thought at the time! As soon as I had bandaged up and changed socks, visiting time was over and we began the descent.

In Europe, mountaintops often carry a cross. Here in the Wild West, if you are lucky, embedded in the ground you can find a geological survey marker, a flat round piece of metal usually 3 inches in diameter with a stamping of the designation name and installation date. On some mountaintops you may also find a small canister, where previous hikers note the date of their visit, and sometimes leave sundry useful items, or perhaps a warning note of their woes.

Not this day though. Downward we went. No longer as long-winded in my breath, I joined in on the conversation of our talkative bunch. This was a mistake, but we were all experienced hikers. We knew, what we were doing. We have all known the 10 essentials to hike with.*** We have done hikes hundreds of times; however, this time we were with a man leading, who I had wished would stop more often to see what hikers might emerge out of the dust trail he leaves behind — or who might not.

Remember, no stopping! Is that a Komoot Pioneer's way? No! I take photos to share with the Komoot community and friends. Talking, hiking rugged mountain paths, and taking photos, while moving, all at the same time, is a no-no however.

And so it was that a branch magically moved into my path and lodged itself adroitly between my feet. Headlong I fell straight down like a toppled tree, and at great hiking speed (~3.5mph/~4.8kph). My hand landed in and next to the only cactus I had seen on the entire hike. There, emerging from the camouflaging leaves and dead matter on the ground its prickly, tiny thorns greeted my left hand as they pierced through my gloves. These thorns embed themselves in the skin, but are so tiny and numerous, it takes time to pull them out under a magnifying glass. Often they break off and have to be digested by the body, in order to be removed. No time for that now! And some thought it was only the bears, lions, and rattlesnakes to watch out for.

My hands could not dampen the blow to my body much. My head hit the ground, along with everything else. "Are you okay?" one of the hikers asked as their form of offering help. "I don't know," I said and laid still, until I had taken an inventory of my body. Shook up, I had no idea I had fallen taking a photo, how embarrassing!

Seeming all right, I got up and continued, one of my knees bruised and scratched up a bit. It could have been much worse, so much, much worse.

Lesson learned I hope: No more picture taking while moving, even if it means falling 30-60 steps behind each time!

Here I write to you with some type of pain still in my chest area, you might say, "where the last wound was received."

Okay, you may wonder, but how does that compare to dying in an inferno or going missing, perhaps never to be seen again? Isn't that a little presumptuous and quite egotistical? It would be, were it not for a secret I cannot reveal to you here, the reason this hike took top rank for me.

Of course, part of the reason to share a hike like this one is to avoid danger and have a great time hiking these remarkable, outstanding, adventure tours safely, and not to let anyone rush you. I share at the risk of my humiliation here, mind you.

What I would really like to do is share that secret of my adventure out of the valley up the mountain, but I cannot do it here. For one, it could cover a book. You would have to visit and hike with me. Perhaps then you might coax it out of me. Perhaps I will find some way to share it.

As it stands, downward I went, and then down I went, but up again I did go.

Will I take this secret with me past this life? I hope not. Will these mountains still be here for you to hike or climb? I hope so. Either way, here in this Komoot Collection resides perhaps one of their legacies. May these hikes inspire and move you to explore together, or simply to receive a thank you from me for having read this blog.

In closing I will leave one more breadcrumb on the trail. Clues to the answer to my secret are hidden in this essay. I really would like to share more with you, but it would be meaningless, unless you are already climbing up that mountain yourself. I hope to see you there. Wishing you many happy hikes, climbs, and other rides!

* en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_May
** missing-411.com
*** nps.gov/articles/10essentials.htm