You can camp year round in Arizona. You do have to pick your places as during the winter camping up north is out of the question, and in the summer camping in the desert would be a bit uncomfortable. My favorite camping in in the mountains where there are tall pines and aspen, grass and shade. The thing is, when the monsoon season hits (around July 4), it rains every day and I really hate camping in the rain. So when I got the invite to camp the weekend of June 5-7 in the San Francisco Peaks I jumped at the chance. The weather would be beautiful, it was before monsoon season and it was hotter than the seventh chasm of hell in the valley.

I get off work at 1:30 in the afternoon so I could bolt on up there right after. I would have the car packed and two of our camping party were going up early to snag a couple of skookums campsites at Lockett Meadow.

Of course it rained.

There are three basic physiographic regions in Arizona. Basin and Range, which includes the Sonoran Desert and the Phoenix area, the Transition Zone, which is chaparral, the areas around Payson, Sedona, and Prescott and last, the Colorado Plateau, which is high elevation and snow in the winter. The Colorado Plateau was where we were headed.

The image is misleading as the Colorado Plateau should be green and the Basin and Range should be brown

As I left Phoenix, it was raining. But I had high hopes that it would clear off. As I headed up a mesa to the transition zone, which I refer to as The Riddermark, it got worse. However, when I got to Flagstaff it seemed to be clearing on one side and really dark and foreboding toward he east. Thank Dog we were going west! Lockett Meadow is located on the north east side of the San Francisco Peaks.  The Peaks were once a huge, cone-shaped stratovolcano that rose somewhere between 16,000 and 20,000 feet high and looked like Mt. Ranier in Washington or Mount Fuji in Japan.  About 250,000 years ago it blew it’s top and left behind several peaks and a nice place to camp called the Inner Basin. The actual campground is located in a place called Lockett Meadow. I tried to research where the name came from but could find nothing. My guess is it was named after some bloke named Lockett.

I got a text from Deb back in Phoenix that our campsites were going to be 14 and 15. Megs and Ken had already arrived and were setting up.  stopped for some firewood then headed on to the forest. I thought that the meadow was toward the bottom of the peaks. Boy, was I wrong about that. I headed in on the gravel road and it was still sprinkling. I still had high hopes that it would stop. Wrong again. Once I turned off FR 420 on to FR 552 (AKA The Fury Road) I saw a sign that said it was unmaintained, steep and curvy. Now, here’s something about me that part of my ‘wuss feature. I really hate and am terrified of driving narrow, steep, unpaved roads. But I tell myself I gotta do it. So I chived on. I bottomed out in a few places and was white knuckled on the steering wheel. I kept telling myself to stop whining, I’ll be all right. But some people are afraid of the dark, some are afraid of the number 13. My phobia is of driving on roads like this.

Like this but scarier

I’m yelling out loud, “Where is this f****** campground??!!!”. When I get higher and higher where it seemed to level off it really started raining. I was glad it was raining on the road as I was driving. I finally reach the campground and start looking for sites 14 and 15. I got to number 8 and there was Ken standing in the rain wearing a bright yellow rain poncho. I pull in and park. I had a huge golf umbrella in the car and it came I handy. Ken asked me if I wanted to sit in the car with them so I did. they said that they had to move from the original sites as the wind was blowing so hard they thought they were going to end up in Oz with the Munchkins. the left the easy-up (A portable shelter) down there and thought they would go get it when more people showed up.

After that we went to get the easy up. The wind was not kind to it and two of it’s legs were broken at the knees. We managed to take it down and get it in the car and drove back to the camp. Still raining. Megs’ daughter Hannah showed up with her partner, Hannah. The Hannah’s were like a well organized military unit. They had their tent up in about two minutes and then Little Hannah (aka McGuyver) built a fire in the rain. Then they built a lean-to using large sticks they found and a tarp. Meanwhile I got my tent up and furnished with Megs’ help. The lean to was going over the fire. It was at an angle so that smoke could escape. During the building of the lean to Megs and I were holding up the tarp while the Hanna’s finished off planting the poles and tying them down. It was then that Deb and Paul came in. They were thinking we were in 14 and 15 and kept going. They then came back around and we started yelling at them to stop. They kept going then stopped but we were all stuck hammering things and holding up tarps. They stopped a bit down the road then kept going. It was about then that Ken was trying to reconstruct the easy-up. They got the tarp secure and I hopped in my car to try and catch Deb and Paul. They were too far ahead of me and I found myself starting down the gravel road to hell. I stopped and did a very tight 3 point turn hoping to not crash into a rock or something.

When I got back Ken was still struggling with the easy-up, The Hannah’s were comfortable installed under the lean to and Ken says, “Fuck it, let’s go get a room in town!”. They didn’t have any blankets and Deb and Paul were supposed to deliver blankets. That was the perfect excuse to get the hell out of there and the freezing cold rain. Also, it started lightning.

As soon as we got into phone range I texted Deb to find out where they were. They said they got a room and said there were still enough rooms left. I texted Ray and told here where we were and soon we were all in Deb and Paul’s room having happy hour. It was nice sleeping in a warm dry room instead of the wet cold tent with lightning and thunder.

Next day we grabbed breakfast and headed up the mountain. The road wasn’t as bad as a passenger, I just have a phobia driving roads like that. The weather was clearing and things were looking promising. We went on a hike to Inner Basin and got as far as one of the many watersheds on the mountain and had lunch. there was a huge aspen grove that was stunning and when we got to the basin there was a great view of some of the peaks.

Photo courtesy of Deb

The next day was even more beautiful. We stayed till about 11:45 and then got headed out. I was once again white-knuckled, hyperventilating and crying with fear as I drove down that steep ass bumpy road. I was never so glad to get to the bottom. Next time. I am definitely riding with someone else driving.

Until next time

The Scubajedi

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Photo courtesy of Deb