E E’s Adventures

It was a Wednesday morning and I woke up. My mom and dad told me what we were going to do; we were going on a hike to the divide between the East and West Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains. That is where the Apaches used to live and later the Wild West outlaws hid out. It is close to the Mexico border and to Tombstone, Arizona.

 I got dressed wearing sweatpants, a long sleeve shirt, socks, sneakers a hat and sunscreen. I packed my backpack with, head lamp, pocket knife, flip knife (that I found around the campsite under a tree), multi-tool (it has a compass, thermometer, magnifying glass, mirror, whistle and a flashlight), gloves, a sweatshirt, a water bottle, an orange and carrots, binoculars and my animal tracking book. I felt prepared!

We drove to the trailhead and started hiking up to the pass about 1 3/4 miles. I saw different birds Yucca, Manzanita and Alligator Juniper trees. I snacked on some carrots on the way up. Dad spotted a climbers trail off of the main trail and we explored it while Mama and Ila were catching up. Then we continued on the trail when we were all together.

After what felt like 3000 miles, finally we got to the pass. I started whittling a spoon, out of a piece of wood I found, and the others started eating lunch, I hurried to eat lunch towards the end. When we finished eating lunch we repacked our backpacks and started down the trail.  I spotted the climbers trail again and we started down it together. It was rugged, narrow, steep, bumpy and slippery and ended in a very rocky, sandy wash. Daddy found distinct footprints that went towards the right side of the wash which we followed. It met up with a narrow trail that went up into slick rock. We scrambled to this little flattish rocky platform. The landscape around us looked like a Dr. Seuss world, the rocks and boulders where bubbly and bulging, lumpy and huge. When you looked at them they looked paper smooth and when you went up to them they were rough like sandpaper.  Ila wanted to explore and went off with daddy. I started whittling again while Mama and Jacob relaxed.

After some time Daddy and Ila came back and asked if we wanted to go. We said yes, put our stuff away and we left. We hiked back down the wash, up the climbers trail and down the first trail. A little while later I figured out that I left my multi-tool at the Dr. Seuss place. I got really, really nervous. I ran up to my mom and told her and she said we will probably find it in someone’s backpack. I forgot about it and started hiking with them.

I figured out that we were almost at the end of the trail by remembering the landmarks and I saw a place where I rested and waited for everybody on the way up. I yelled out “yippee” and sprinted down. I only stopped once to see what Jacob was doing. He asked me if I had long nails and I asked why. He told me because he had a big splinter in his hand. I looked at my nails and realized that we clipped them the day before so I told Jacob that I couldn’t take the splinter out. So then he said “ok”.

I sprinted down the rest of the trail. Finally I got to the bigger wash and I was out of breath but I didn’t want to stop moving so I walked to the car. When I sat down at the car I felt like my legs were about to fall off, after a while my legs got tingly and a little while later they stopped getting tingly and they felt like they weren’t going to fall off.  Soon after I heard voices and everyone else appeared, we hopped into the car and drove back to camp. When we got to camp a little while after I looked on the dashboard and there was the binocular case (which I dropped on the first trail) and my multi-tool. I asked my mom where she found it and she said “in your dad’s backpack”. I said “thank you”.  That night I went to sleep listening to a book. When I shut it off I thought about the hike.

The End