Every year I do a backpacking weekend to Reavis Ranch in the Eastern Superstition Mountains. Every year as I am trundling up the 5 Hills of Hell on the Insidious Mile I wonder why I do this. But that is on the way out. I call it the Insidious Mile because it is a deceivingly difficult stretch of trail and unfortunately the last thing you remember about the trail as it is the last mile. When you are hiking in on it, you don’t really notice just how much elevation you are losing. It starts at Trail 109, The Reavis Ranch Trail from the Roger’s Trough Trailhead in the Eastern Superstitions. From here you cross the junction with the Roger’s Canyon Trail number 110 and continue up another wall of hell called Graves Canyon, where there are switchbacks up a granite mountain to Reavis Saddle. Then it is smooth sailing into Reavis Valley across a grassy meadow past a Juniper of Unusual Size, through a swampy area and to the Ranch.

There were four of us, more had signed up but true to human nature, there are those who simply blow off commitments and choose to stand you up at the trail head by sleeping in. I have been leading hikes with Sierra Singles for a number of years and I am sick and tired of unreliable people. Any of you who sign up for a hike and decide to blow it off without notifying the outings coordinator (and you KNOW who you are), don’t bother signing up for any of MY outings as I will oust you from the list and dis-approve of you participating. Tough darts, flakester, go be unreliable somewhere else. The ScubaJedi has a very good sophisticated contact database and I track everything.

So my three GOOD friends and I headed off after stopping at my request at Denny’s to pig out on eggs and bac. We took two cars as the road leading to Roger’s Trough is rough and requires 4 wheel drive, or at the least, high clearance. Two cars are better than one in case one car doesn’t make it. Both vehicles were SUV’s and we made it fine. We geared up and headed in to begin the Insidious Mile to the junction of 110/109. We continued up the switchbacks stopping to pay our respects to Reavis at his grave. He was apparently found dead on the trail while hauling his fruits and veggies to market one fine day in 1896.

Reavis was known as the Old Hermit of the Superstitions. According to Tom Kollenborn (2000) Reavis was a well-educated man from back east who came out west to seek his fortune in the gold mines of California. He eventually ended up in Arizona and settled in what is now called Reavis Valley, an veritable oasis in the Supers where there is a year round artesian spring. This helps us backpackers of today in that we don’t have to schlep as much water to the site. How Reavis met his maker is a subject of discussion. Some say he died of natural causes, pushing 70 and hauling up and down those mountains all the time, some say a covetous neighbor who wanted the land caused him a mischief. Whatever the reason, his remains were found and he was buried on the spot where hikers today can stop and gawk.

I opted out of going up to the grave as I was just too tired. Besides, I’ve seen the grave many times and it never changes that much. There used to be clay letters spelling out Elisha Reavis but they have fallen by the wayside. You would have to go digging through he rocks piled on the grave to find them and that’s too ghoulish even for me.

We scaled the hill to the saddle, then cruised on down through the Very Grassy Meadow past the Juniper of Unusual Size to the Swamp. Once past the swamp you cross the creek and up to the valley. I was hoping for the Grand Skookums Campsite right there by the creek so no water schlepping would be needed but it was taken by a bunch of losers. Then we tried for Skookums Campsite number 2 and some young bozos had gotten there minutes before us and though started setting up camp in another location snagged the Skookums Site Number 2 before us. If some shithead hadn’t wanted to stop and waste time on breakfast at Denny’s, we’d have been there sooner and gotten at least the second good site. Needless to say we had to start hunting for a good site. I knew of one more quasi-skookums site where I’ve camped twice and cringed at the thought of having to schlep water from the creek. There is one really reliable spot to get water and that’s where Skookums Site 1 is located.

Luck was with us as no one had been the Quasi-Skookums for a while, it was a little overgrown but otherwise on good condition. The best news was not only was there a massive supply of firewood handy, but the creek was in high volume and right there by the site for filtering. No schlepping. I made a deal with my fellow campers if they would gather the wood, I would prepare the hearth. I friggin hate gathering firewood. I would rather schlep water.

We set up, got a cheerful fire going and hunkered down for the evening. I ate my usual hiker chow out of a bag, as did Willy and Will. What are the odds of two guys being on the trek and both being named Will? But there you have it. Nunya on the other hand brought steak and shrimp to sautee and savor as her evening meal. I just don’t have the wherewithal to cart that kind of weight in my pack. I am fine with meal in a bag from Mountain House. After dinner it wasn’t long before I was ready to snuff out for the night. I don’t know if it was the heat or that I am getting old or what, but I was very very tired. By 8:30 I was snug in my sleeping bag. It was cold at night and I zipped up all the way in.

I woke up to Will making a new cheerful fire at the hearth. We we back on the trail out by 10:30 after a leisurely breakfast and mellow breakdown of camp. We went back out the way we came in and it takes about the same amount of time to hike out as it does to hike in. We saw three tarantulas on the way out, including one on the road driving out.

No apples in the orchard this year, so maybe next year. I plan on a spring trip in April and hopefully anyone signing up will at least notify me that they are not going to show up!!Dirtbags.

Until next adventure,
The ScubaJedi

Arizona Roller Derby has a new fan in The ScubaJedi. The amateur league is called Arizona Derby Dames and the championships were held at the Castle Sports Club in Phoenix on Saturday night, October 11. It was a flat track bout for who would become the reigning Roller Derby champs, the defenders, The Brutal Beauties, or the challengers, The Runaway Brides.

We arrived to wait in line outside the popular event. There was no shortage on multi-pierced, tattooed, spiked hair fans, and I have never seen so many ripped up fishnet stockings and striped socks in my life. I felt like an old square nerd in my University of Notre Dame sweatshirt. The deep blue sea is where the Scuba Jedi reigns supreme in slick black neoprene bodysuits with an air cylinder strapped on. But it was definitely the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd all about that evening.

Back in the olden days of the 1970’s Roller Derby was popular as a professional full contact sport. The players would wear uniforms and roll on a sloped track with railings where they would get slung over and go flying into the audience at times. Saturday night was amateur flat track and Willy, Yapper and I decided we would sit on the floor right on the track. We were risking getting wiped out but that was the chance we took to be in on the action. The players sported their own expressions of uniforms, wearing the team colors but with costumes as unique as their names, such as Sharon Fists (pictured bleow), Vanessa Velocity, and Phyllis Killer.
It took me a while and reading the program to figure out how to play once again. Not having watched Roller Derby in 30 years, I had forgotten how the game was played. What happens is there is a pack. They start at a given starting line on one of the long parts of the track. Two players from opposing teams are at the front of the pack and they are called the Pivots. Then they are followed by the blockers within the pack. At the rear are the Jammers. The Jammers are the players allowed to score and they score by getting though the pack once, catching up and going through the pack a second time scoring a point by passing an opponent. Getting through the pack is problematic as the other players, various Blockers and Pivots from opposing teams are trying to knock the Jammer down. Therefore helmets, knee, elbow and sometimes mouthguards are worn. The Pivots wear a cover on their helmet with a stripe and the Jammers wear a cover with a star.

The Brutal Beauties were in the lead all evening, wearing their signature hot pink and black colors. They were bigger and more brutal than the Brides, but the Brides came up in the second half leveraging their smaller statures for speed and strategy to overcome and win triumphant over the Beauties.

There was only one real fight causing a couple of spectators to be ejected form the venue, and I thought, how low do you get in life to be kicked out of the Roller Derby?

The evening ended with a raffle and we didn’t stay. Peter, who didn’t even know what a Roller Derby was being a simple farm boy from Cork, Ireland, stayed for the raffle as he had purchased a ticket. I know don’t if he won.

The season is over and we must wait until January to see if the Runaway Brides will defend their title as Arizona Roller Derby Dame Champions.

For more information on this exciting sport, go to:
http://www.azderbydames.com/

Until next time
The ScubaJedi

Oh yes, another illustrious adventure in the local lakes. Betty and I set off on the Diver Down for a morning of two tank boat diving. We did our usual stop at Starbucks to get good and jacked up on caffeine before heading out. Betty drove and dropped me at the meeting point, then went to park the car elsewhere because we were under the impression that Lake Pleasant members only were allowed to park near the dock. I found out otherwise as I was chatting with the El Mar Scuba guys waiting for the boat. They had four student completing their open water certification, a couple of guys doing some free diving, and there was Betty and me just looking to log some dives. We weren’t expecting Bonaire conditions, and it was, after all, diving.

I am not sure what the name of the dive site was, but it wasn’t too bad. Okay, it was heinous. The visibility was pretty nasty and the water got cold at about 45ft. We ended up diving to about 30 ft on the first dive, and I was able to work on those underwater nav skills which are not too shabby if I must say so myself. I was desperately over weighted on that first dive and ended up taking it down to 8lbs for the second dive.

The second dive we went out to a farther buoy and had to cross a dark trench over the Mines of Moria. It got really dark and really cold, I looked at my console and saw that I was at about 59′. I looked around for Betty and she was motioning to go up a little further rather than stay at that depth. She was getting a little nervous at the low visibility and darkness. I personally wanted to keep descending and see how deep it got. But, I certainly am not the dive buddy from hell who makes their divebuddy do things out of their comfort zone and causes things like, um, death. So we went up a bit. I kept thinking I was going to hit a wall or something.

I don’t know if Lake Pleasant is the shittiest diving on the planet, but I am sure it’s pretty close.