Hike to Reavis Falls

Notes from my hike to Reavis Falls in the Superstition Wilderness, AZ on Friday:

12:19pm - The trail to Reavis Falls has been fairly gentle so far. The trail back is going to be rather steep for the first half of it. I just spoke with a dad and his son who were coming back up. They got lost and did not get to the falls. I gave them directions and they decided to go back down since we are only about 1.7 miles from the falls from here. I think I'll head in that direction now too. I have been resting in a really nice spot of grass by the side of the trail.

1:45pm - Reavis Falls sings for me will I lay among the rocks below it. The people that I gave directions to are not here. I think they missed the side trail that cuts around the exact intersection of the two streams. My directions to them were not the best. I hope they turned back and perhaps found this trail and I might still see them. The last portion of the trail up Reavis creek involved a lot of boulder hopping and scrambling. Took about 3:45 to get in, including a 15 minute or so break. Getting out is going to be a lot harder, though with all the uphill. Those 2 people I gave directions to might be waiting to lynch me also.

My journey back took longer than anticipated due to missing the trail coming back out of the stream. I spent an extra hour at least down there and got more tired from hoping around rocks. The climb out proved difficult, but once I got to the top, the last 3.5 miles or so were not too bad. I felt bad that I gave those 2 people somewhat wrong directions, although they were straight from the information I had from the hike arizona web page. My hike was over 14 miles and I went from 10am until just a few minutes before sunset at around 6:35pm. A good day overall. I am not too sore the day after, although I had 1 small blister on the inside tip of one of my toes for some reason (probably due to the rock hopping).

Today I went over to Dan’s and played a few games. Dion called me to see about playing some games today as well, but I was already booked out. I picked up the new Descent expansion on the way home and I’m looking forward to giving it a go.

Games over with Dion

Got a call from Dion on Wednesday to come over for some gaming at his house. I got over there a little late, but we got in a game of Through the Ages and Zooloretta. He had Amos, who I had met before and played Tide of Iron with and also his business partner for selling games to schools, Linda. She is a nearly (1 year) retired school teacher who just recently picked up playing games when she met Dion through the person selling games for schools. It was an enjoyable night. I’ve also been working on some plaster molding for Descent floor tiles as well as some bricks. I’ve got all the pieces molded that I need, now I need to glue them together and paint. I also found out that the Grand Canyon hotels are sold out through July 4th, so my hike might not be able to happen. I’m not thrilled about that fact. Oh well.

Caving and Gaming

I went down to Tucson this Saturday for the Ides of Gaming get together. This was an amazingly friendly and fun group of gamers. I got to meet Don and Derek who are on the Pulp Gamer podcast that I listen to frequently. They were both very nice guys and I got a chance to play a few games with each. They mostly ran the games or watched actually. I also met Bo, who is the designed of high school drama. I played a few games with him, including Fury of Dracula and Cash ‘n’ Guns. He was extremely friendly as well and I enjoyed talking to all of the guys who were a member of SAGA, which is a gaming club that is responsible for trying to organize the gamers in the area. They are doing a great job so far, and they have Rincon 2008 coming up this year, which is their first gaming convention. I also met Thomas who does their web site work and spoke to him and his use of PHP and SQL for that. I also met Lee and Sara, who are a couple from Chandler. Sara works at Borders with Amy. Amy was the one I met at Game Depot and told me about this gaming event. After the 10am-10pm day of gaming, I drove down to Benson so that I could take my 2 cave tours at Kartchner Caverns on Sunday morning. First was the Big Room Tour, I had a tour guide who had one of those perfectly smooth radio voices and the tour was very enjoyable. The next tour was the Rotunda/Throne Room Tour. This tour guide was also entertaining, although some of the information was repeated from the other tour. The cave formations were much more interesting on this tour. I would definitely only recommend doing this one, as the Big Room really isn’t necessary for the time and money. Seeing a living cave, as this is called, was wonderful. Many formations are very wet and it really gives them an amazing look. They did not allow cameras, though, which disappointed me to not be able to take any pictures. The weather was very cold on Sunday, so I got back early enough to go over to Pat and Kim’s for a game of Fury of Dracula.

Hike to East Superstitions

On Wednesday I took the day off to do about a 10.5 mile loop hike out on the west side of the Superstition Wilderness, AZ. After driving through a large strip mining area, I made my way to the Miles trail head. From here I took the West Pinto Trail (212) to the Bull Basin Trail (270) to the Haunted Canyon Trail (203) to finally the Paradise Trail (271). This was a very interesting hike, as much of it was through canyons with running water and plenty of trees. There were 2 steep climbs of about 1000 ft. I tried out my new Camelbak electrolyte tablets and thought that they were awesome. Made the water have a nice enough flavor too. I’m looking forward to my Grand Canyon hike coming up in May.

Civil War Day, Hiking, Gaming

Been a busy couple of weeks now for me. Last weekend I went over to Brian’s on Saturday and played Gunslinger with him, Jeff, and Jessie. He had a sweet map setup for us and showed me a periscope he had made for spotting line of sight. Then last Sunday I went over to John’s to show them some painting tricks and played a game of Descent with him, Michelle, and Jake as the overlord. John’s taken to painting quite well so far. I spent a few nights last week making a home made game board for the Heroscape game day, which was on Saturday at John’s place. That was really a lot of fun and I had a great time seeing everyone again as well as getting in some games of Heroscape. The terrain building bug bit me again, and I ordered some more stuff to make another map or 2, perhaps. Oh and Friday I played some Rock Band with Pat, Kim, Jesse, and Jade. Sunday I went down to Picacho Peak with Jeff and Jessie for the Civil War reenactment they had going on down there. We also did a very short hike of about 2 miles total to see the flowers. Ate some sushi upon our return. Tomorrow I plan to go out to the Superstition Wilderness and a loop around Bull Basin from the Miles trailhead. I’ve not been out to this area before and I am looking forward to it.