OH MY DAMN!!
For those curious, here's how it all went down;
Stacey and I slacked around up to Globe and were installing crispy potato soft tacos and 7 layer burritos at Taco Bell by around 11AM, when we got a text from Clay insisting that we bring slingshots and from Johnny B asking how awesome it would be to take his Camaro 4-wheeling..
Both of those received negatory answers and we proceeded to Fry's to top off on gas and buy a bottle of booze.exe for installation in RC cola.
We bumpetycrunched up to the campsite 40 miles later, all 3 water crossings were pretty trivial and there had been some recent grading done to the last mile or two of trail, evidently following flood damage. I don't know the proper geologic terms for it but the earth around there is all aggregated chunks of rock and sand, so any amount of moving water can have major consequences on the roadway.
Finding the campsite itself unoccupied, Stacey and I found suitable tent sites and parked away from them so there'd be room - we were anticipating Tim would bring his 100 acre tent. Since we weren't really expecting anyone for Friday, we just tooled around the area, hiking downstream a bit and randomly doing crap until we got cold, campfire and food and liquorsauce and go to sleep. We woke up in the middle of the night to a super bright full moon and had trouble getting back to sleep, and at one point we woke up to big scary windstorm sounds. In the morning one of my car doors was open which was weird since Stacey and I were both sure we had closed it. Nothing was missing except my innocence and pride.
More fire and sitting around and wondering where the F everyone was, and 2 dudes showed up in a wrangler to hike the trail. Then a station wagon and a pickup full of hippies showed up to hike too. Some time in the afternoon we smelled the familiar stench of a Mitsu burning oil and clogging up its oxygen sensors and catalytic converter, and saw Clay & Lt, Toasty & Mrs. Toasty & their little crouton, and their wacky 4 legged friend Igor about to pass camp. We got that sorted, tents got pitched and good times were had by all. Tim cruised past camp a bit later in his 1.25" tire F150 and I had to go chase him down Tokyo Drift style, he made tasty burgers and pitched a surprisingly less massive tent than we were expecting. And he brought wine because he's a wine bringin' dude like that.
An evening of revelry and random jackasshood followed about the camp fire, then I succumbed to the excess of wine I put back and I can only assume everyone else partied into the wee hours or something. Morning, another little fire and some breakfast, then we said goodbye to Tim who was off to hunt rabbits and stuff, and we all set out to hike to the ruins. Clay was the first to fall back on the trail, it had too many uphill parts and not enough naked women so I can't blame him for opting out of the remainder of the trail. Some distance in to the trail, I followed a wrong turn and led us up a terrible and unforgiving river bottom for an embarassing number of parsecs. Stacey told me where I screwed up and we went back there, narrowly convincing Mrs. Toasty & the Crouton Man to at least hike up to a feature dubbed "The Plug", because it's neat looking and made of rocks and stuff.
At the Plug, we had to climb up a (sturdy) rope to get around the defining feature, and through a little tunnel in the fallen rock. Everyone except Igor got on top of the big rock and I yelled various loud things at the canyon because I couldn't think of any good reason not to. From that point, Toasty & family turned back because the rest of the trail gets serious. Probably they had all sorts of neat adventures on the way back but we'll never know. Stacey opted to hang out by the Plug and wait patiently while LordTrunks and I continued on to the ruins. I kept being a fat old man and stopping every few inches to wheeze and die while Mountain Man LT just casually pulled a 5 gallon water jug out of his backpack and took swigs. Final dusty climb to the ruins, we got to poke around in some brick work that was laid almost a thousand years ago and contemplate just how badass those people were who built it. We figured that they probably were just little 4' tall wire-like chunks of pure muscle and insanity, because even just the last bit of the climb from where running water exists to where the structures sit is hellacious and having to do that a few times a day with elk bladders full of water and deer carcasses and stuff is just not even fathomable in my lazy, bloated modern American mind.
With our minds blown and our legs all angry at us, we tumbled back down to the Plug where Stacey was waiting, then made the quick descent to camp where Clay was busy rocking out to some metal and eating cheese crisps. The Toast family had already left because they were bored of waiting for us. We took the long dusty road back to Globe and set to enjoying fine, butter-drenched Mexican foodstuffs at El Rey Cafe.
