Pinetop Part 1: Backpacking

The most peaceful three days of my summer (thus far) have come to an end.
410 miles later, I am home with a backpack full of dirty laundry, a memory stick filled with photographs, and a heart full of contentment. I am also so full of stories that I'm splitting up my weekend into two posts: one for backpacking, one for time spent in Ben's cabin.
I may have had to work my hind off before I could leave for Pinetop early Friday morning (I anticipated not having internet for my summer online class) but that made my weekend spent with dear friends in the beautiful pines all the more meaningful.
Before a stop at REI Friday morning, I picked up Liz and Jon, two new but close friends. We made a pit stop at Recreational Equipment, Incorporated to get a sleeping bag for Liz, hiking boots for Jon, and a 4-pack of camping sporks for me. After that, we hit Shea eastbound, the 87, and eventually arrived in Pinetop! Our time spent in the car felt brief, perhaps because we used it to get to know each other better.
When we pulled up to the Peck family house, we were greeted by Ben's grandmother, who was out watering the lawn. We introduced ourselves and gave her hugs (who doesn't hug a grandma?!)
Before long, Ben heard the racket and came outside to find us. Hugs were exchanged, and before long, our camping equipment exploded all over his family's television room floor.
For three people, we sure had a lot of crap. When you add Ben's stuff to the mix, we had a lot-a lot of crap.
Once we arranged who was carrying what (I had Liz and I's tent, my mat, 4 liters of water, food and clothing) we caught up on life, ate freshly made granola, veggies and hummus, and hit the road. Our destination in mind was Mount Baldy--the second highest peak in Arizona.
Unfortunately, by the time we left the house, it was 4:30. Then we stopped and bought cans of soup to eat once we set up camp.
By the time we arrived at the Mount Baldy trail head, it was 5:30, and we realized we wouldn't be making it to the mountain that night.
We hiked until we realized the sun was going to set (about 2 miles, uphill) and went a ways off the trail to find a flat area to camp with our four tents.
Ben and Jon found a flat knoll with a few quaking aspens and large boulders. It looked good enough, so we set up camp, but not until we decided to put our packs down to climb around and venture among other rocks nearby.
Large and gray, the rock faces reminded me of Easter Island heads. Because all four of us are young and adventurous, we climbed on the rocks, trying to get a wonderful view of the forest below and above us.
It was absolutely amazing to take a moment and draw in the beauty that surrounded us. Green trees, soft moss, sticky sap, cold boulders, a blue sky, picturesque clouds. A lack of cell service. It was so beautiful and refreshing to be outside the reaches of humanity.
What was even more amazing was the owl that flew into our camp site and stared at us, curious. (S)he acted as if humans were aliens. And in a way, we were. Four kids from the city encroaching on nature's territory. After we got a few good photographs, the owl flew away and left us in astonishment.
Soon we set up tents, ate dinner and talked about life. I suggested we sleep in the next morning and not hike the 14-20 mile round trip to the summit of Mt. Baldy. I'm a terribly slow hiker when it comes to going uphill. Besides, I wanted to relax. Thankfully, everyone else was okay with my request.
After we set up camp and ate dinner, the boys went to hang the food in a tree somewhere uphill. They returned rather quickly, and joked that they had lost the food, thus turning our backpacking adventure into a new reality television show, "Starvation Island." Good thing they were joking.
Soon we decided to all lay on a rock and stare at the countless stars. Jon (God bless his city-slicker soul) hear the wind rush through the trees, and said "It's kinda comforting that we can hear cars from here."

The moon was very close to New Moon phase, which made for the perfect star-gazing experience. When we decided to go to bed (it was barely 10 pm) we took a long exposure photo, using our headlamps and lanterns to illuminate the camp site, and got an awesome photograph from it.
For being in the wild, we slept rather well. Jon thought he heard breathing outside his tent once, and I thought I heard a few twigs snapping in the middle of the night, but other than that, rest was uneventful. I was the last person to wake up (no surprise) once the sun had risen.
There was a strange amount of bugs in the morning. It was as if they only emerged in the cool dawn hours. We noticed they flew around, tended to land and then would not take off again. We called them morning bugs.

Forest / For rest / Faux-rest

After a refreshing breakfast of apples, granola and tea, we sat around and whittled away at sticks, logs, trees. Ben brought his slingshot, and we had plenty of rocks, so we found a strange-looking nest sort of thing in a tree about a hundred feet away, and proceeded to shoot rocks at it. In hindsight, it sounds like a terrible idea, but considering nothing flew out of the nest at us once I hit it, I'd say we were okay.
As for more destroyal of the environment, we carved a few things in trees. Nothing tacky, though.
Jon carved an owl. I carved a Hamsa , Liz and I carved "Starvation Island 2013." Ben carved "4 Morning Bugs," as well as the photograph you can see to the left. We kept them small, and hope to return to see them someday.

When we felt we'd been at our site long enough, we packed up our tents and food and headed up the mountainside we were on to get a glimpse of our surroundings.

A quick 10-minute uphill hike yielded a view of snow, tree tops, and more rocks. I handed my camera off to Ben so I could pose for photos for Liz, and so I could climb around on the rocks.

The view from atop the hill was absolutely exquisite. The clouds were my favorite shape--reminiscent of something from the Sistine Chapel or Toy Story. We sat down to each enjoy a granola bar in the shade, then we began our hike back down to camp.

We picked up our packs (we had already packed them) and headed out. We were aiming to be home in time for showers, dinner and church, and we were right on schedule.

The hike back to the car was much more pleasant than the hike to the site. For one thing, it was all downhill.
The meadow we hiked through was beautiful when we hiked in, but it was more beautiful when we hiked back out. There was a cool breeze, and rolling clouds. 

We stopped at the beginning of the trail and crossed the small stream we passed on the way in. To say I was cautious while hopping from rock to rock would be a joke, but my boots received no water anyway.

Before I knew it, we were back at the car. I took off my hiking boots, gave my feet air, and retreated to the back seat of Ben's XTerra with Liz, where we put our legs up, closed our eyes, and listened to Transatlanticism the entire trip back to Pinetop.

(Read Pinetop Part 2: The Cabin)