Books read:
- Germinal by Emile Zola
- Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche
- A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
- Gilead by Mailynne Robinson
- The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende
Trails walked:
- Superstitions Black Top Mesa (Feb 8th)
- Superstitions Charlebois Springs 17-mile loop (Feb 13th)
- Camp Creek Falls (Feb 17th)
- White Tanks Ford Canyon Willow Canyon Loop (Feb 19th)
- McDowell Sonoran Preserve North (Feb 26th
Granite/Cholla loop).
- McDowells Tom’s Thumb/Windgate Pass/East End Loop (Feb 28th)
Other stuff:
- Valley of the Snow drive (Feb 22nd)
I sure did walk and read a lot for such a short month. February is just about the best time of year to walk in the desert, especially if there have been good rains during the fall and winter, and there have been this year. On February 21st and 22nd we had epic
snow in the deserts around Phoenix. Even
the McDowell Mountains in northeast Scottsdale had 7 inches of snow! Unheard of.
I decided to take a drive around the “Valley of the Snow” the last day
of the storm to see some desert snow. It
was a Friday afternoon and let me tell you, I was NOT the only one with this
idea. All along Cave Creek road north of
its namesake town there were cars pulled over to the side of the road
everywhere! Kids, parents, grandparents
playing in the snow, making snowmen, and careening down hills using their silver
window sun screens as toboggans. Here’s
a few shots from New River to Cave Creek to North Scottsdale:
 |
| Tom’s Thumb in the McDowells |
 |
| New River |
 |
| New River |
 |
| Cave Creek Road |
 |
| Cave Creek Road |
The month’s first walk was up to Black Top Mesa in the Superstitions. It’s about a 12 mile out and back from the
First Water trailhead. From what I’ve read in
the past there are two reasons for taking this walk: 1) the views are
incredible and 2) there are some Spanish petroglyphs, if you can find them. There are several stories about lost gold in
the Superstitions, and many of them include stories of the Peralta family. Some say they discovered gold near Weavers
Needle and were then killed by Apaches who sealed the mine. Other stories say the Peraltas were
transporting their gold from California to Mexico when they were massacred.
There are petroglyphs on Black Top mesa that supposedly indicate the location
of their mines. People have been looking
for over 100 years and still haven’t found the gold…. we didn’t either. Hiking Buddy (HB) and I headed up the
Dutchman trail for the umpteenth time (it’s a great walk no matter how many
times). At about 4 and half miles we hit
the major intersection where several trails cross and took the Bull Pass trail
uphill to locate the use trail that would lead further uphill to Black Top Mesa
(Not to be confused with Black Mesa in the Superstitions which is to the
northwest). There is a great view of
Aylor’s Arch from the Bull Pass trail, looking west. Once we made the top of Black Top, and
made it to the southern edge, our jaws were open with the spectacular
views. I’ve seen the Superstitions from
many vantage points, and I have to say this may be the best. We stopped here for lunch. We have had lunch at some of Arizona’s best
locations, and sometimes, it’s the most memorable part of a hike, whether it’s
the views, a nice stream, or high mountain, resting and eating your lunch in
the great outdoors is hard to beat. After
lunch we started searching for the petroglyphs.
It was tough going and required some boulder scrambling and sometimes
with a very long drop down if you take the wrong step. Did it mention it was windy? Yeah that.
Well we were able to find a couple. One that
looked like it could be a map of some sort.
So, we were satisfied, wishing we could have spotted more, but we had
about 6 miles left to get back to the car and decided to say goodbye to Black
Top Mesa.
 |
| Spanish Treasure Map Petroglyph? |
 |
| Weaver’s Needle and Bluff Spring Mountain looking south from Black Top Mesa |
 |
| The End of the trail on Black Top Mesa |
I’ve always heard of Emile Zola but had never read anything
by him, nor anything about him. He’s a
French author (thought he was Eastern European or Italian from his name). He was a prolific guy, with about 30 of his
works translated to English, so I imagine he wrote many more than that. The
book I decided on is considered by many to be his best. It’s called Germinal and it’s one novel in a 20-novel series he wrote
portraying the distinctions of rich and working-class life in France. I read the 2004 translation by Roger Pearson
on Penguin Classics. This is really a
depressing book (and only 500 pages😉).
From what I understand, Zola did extensive research on the coal mining
industry and coal miners for this novel. His brutal descriptions of the poverty
lived in by these miners is just gripping.
And he offsets it brilliantly with his depictions of the life of the
coal mine owners, managers, and shareholders.
There is a scene where a miner's wife and 2 children come to the home of
a shareholder hoping for money or food and the way he describes the shareholder’s
viewpoint and then the miner's wife's viewpoint of the same meeting and the
events leading up to the meeting are heartbreaking and revealing. I feel like he spent too much time describing
the misery of the miners, especially during the strike...I mean one day they
are down to their last crumb of food, yet 2 weeks later there they still are,
somehow managing to live, then again 2 more weeks later....The premise is that
a new person comes to town (Etienne) and looks for work and finds some down in
the coal mine. The life of a miner in
those days is ridiculously hard, with few safety concerns. Etienne sees this and eventually leads the
miners to strike for a fairer wage and better conditions. The
strike devastates the miners (no money, no food), but also hurts the owners. Emotions get high, riots ensue. More misery.
Eventually nothing changes, but the trail of dead bodies leaves some to
hope that change will come someday.
I’ve always wanted to get to Charlebois Springs (pronounced Charlie Boy here in AZ of course) in
the Superstitions, but it seemed so far.
So, I asked HB if he was up for a 17-mile day hike through rugged
mountains. We decided to go anyway. Got up early in the dark and headed east to
the Peralta trailhead. One of the rare
times we beat most people up to that busy trailhead. We combined the Dutchman, Whiskey Springs,
Red Tanks, and Bluff Springs trails to make this loop. It was tough, but fascinating, as we worked
our way through many different landscapes.
Starting out through the saguaro filled Barkley Basin, then up and
around Miner’s needle, up to the saddle for great views of the interior of the
Superstitions. Then down Whiskey Springs
where a moonshine still was discovered in the mid-1900s and can be seen today
in the Superstitions museum near Apache Junction. Whiskey Springs had lots of water and a beautiful riparian area
where we stopped for lunch #1 (this was definitely gonna be a 2-lunch walk). After lunch #1 we followed Upper La Barge Creek
which was an easy flat walk through a nice riparian area with LOTS of
water. We probably could have done this
hike with a filter straw and a water bottle for all the water we found. I don’t recommend that, but for all you
Ironman athletes out there, it’s possible after a wet winter. Next, we picked up the Dutchman’s trail and
headed northwest to Charlebois Spring which has some outstanding looking
camping spots for normal people not interested in walking 17 miles in one day….
The spring itself is nice, but nothing worth writing home about. We stopped
there for lunch #2. It was shady and
cool with lots of big Sycamores and Cottonwoods. After lunch #2 we headed back southeast on the
Dutchman to the Bluff Springs trail. We
were getting pretty tired at this point.
There is supposed to be one of the largest saguaros in the world off
this trail (supposedly with 57 arms!).
It was only hundred yards or so off the trail, but with a climb over a
hill and we just didn’t want to add any additional inch on our way back to the
car or we may not have made it. I think
it was a good decision and we can find this legendary saguaro on another,
shorter, hike. Back at the car we
congratulated our 60 something old selves for being able to still do this kind
of hike and headed home in the dark.
 |
| Superstition Wilderness Scene |
 |
| La Barge Creek |
 |
| La Barge Creek with lots of water |
 |
| Bloomin’ Lupin |
I’ve read some great things about Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche,
the author from Nigeria who has been getting rave reviews for her writing. I decided to start out with Americanah. I can you tell you right
now, I will read as much of her other works as I can. This book just blew me away. A thoroughly enjoyable book from beginning to
end. Rich characters, deep philosophical
issues on race, immigration, international politics, family, friendship, love,
etc. It's the story of Ifemelu, an
intelligent Nigerian woman who tries to get a college education in Nigeria, but
due to political strikes is unable to, so she heads to the US where her aunt
and cousin live and struggles to find herself and develop herself into who she
feels she should be. By the way, she
left the love of her life, Obinze, behind in Nigeria. She gets her education, works various jobs,
finds new loves, starts a blog on race (something she never had to deal with in
Nigeria) and then, after 13 years decides to return to Nigeria to live. Obinze meanwhile has his own story about emigrating
to London, being deported back to Nigeria, and then starting his life anew. Eventually they meet again, but is it too
late due to marriage, children, differences in their more mature personalities?
You'll have to read this great book to find out.....There is a scene in this
book at the end of chapter 51 where Ifemelu describes to Obinze (after she's
returned to Nigeria) why she stopped all contact with him while in the
US....it's a heartbreaking and incredibly emotional scene....one of the best
I've ever read....Wow.
Every now and then I can convince my better half to “waste” a day of her weekend to go on a hike. I was mainly able to convince her because she wanted to take her dog on a hike (it’s OK, I’ll take it any way I can get it…). Well, it was more like an afternoon, but we headed up to Camp Creek Falls to see how much water was flowing with all the rains we’d been getting. We weren’t disappointed and this was before the big snow. It’s a fairly easy 2-mile walk along some washes north of Cave Creek. Saw a few other hikers and some folks on horses out enjoying a beautiful day.
 |
| Camp Creek Falls |
 |
| Camp Creek |
A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess was next up on the reading list. This has always been a very controversial
book. It was banned in several US
states. Even the author was not sure he
should have ever written it. The Stanley
Kubrick film on the book is considered an art house masterpiece. And the book has been included on several lists
of best novels ever written. It's a
difficult book to start reading for two reasons: it's written in an invented slang language of
the ultra-violent teens of this futuristic London city and it's incredibly
violent with brutal beatings and rapes of young girls. There are 3 parts to the book. Part 1 is this violent rampage that gang
leader Alex leads his gang on. In Part 2
Alex goes to prison and then is reformed using a controversial method
consisting of medication and brainwashing.
Part 3 has Alex returning to society to see if the reformation
works. Parts 2 and 3 were much more
interesting and made clear why part 1 was necessary. There are many themes addressed in the book,
including free will, government intervention, teen boredom and violence,
criminal reformation, and adult apathy.
It was written in 1962 and set in 2023 London. The author was partially inspired by the
brutal beating of his first wife by US servicemen in England which resulted in
her miscarriage.
The White Tank mountains west of Phoenix always surprise
me. They don’t look like much, but the
interior is larger than expected and lusher and more varied that you’d
think. HB and I hiked the 9-mile Ford Canyon Willow Canyon Loop. Ford Canyon is a beautiful canyon and the
trail goes up! The mountains are named for the white granite rocks that catch
water when it rains. In the early days
of the Arizona Territory they used to contain the only known water for 20 miles
around. There are 11 Hohokam Indian sites
throughout the mountains so that tells you there was enough water to
survive. Eventually we clamber out of Ford Canyon and up over a ridge with nice views of the surrounding area. Lots of wildflowers on this walk. We connected with the Willow Canyon trail and
then spent some time at this spring where you see evidence of an old cattle
corral where ranchers used to water the cows.
You can find old tin cans, barbed wire, and fence posts in the area if
you poke around a bit. Headed back to
the car after another perfect Arizona day.
 |
| Mexican Gold Poppies with a view of Phoenix |
 |
| White tanks in the White Tanks |
 |
| Spring near the Willow Canyon - Ford Canyon junction |
I have been reading a fun book by Nick Hornby called "Ten
Years in the Tub." It’s a compilation of
articles he wrote for a magazine in which he reviewed books he’d read. He recommended a book from Marilynne Robinson
titled Gilead, saying "there
are complicated and striking ideas on every single page." It's written as a letter a Congregationalist
pastor is writing to his son. The pastor
is 76 and dying, it's 1956, and his son is only 7 years old…. This is all
discovered very early in the novel. The
letter (novel) is part family history, part philosophy on life, family, and
friendship, part description of Midwest life in the late 1800s/early1900s, and
part personal confessional. And it's
beautiful. The history dates to the
pastor's grandfather's exploits in the Kansas Missouri border war before the
civil war, then the reconstruction, World War I, the depression, and World War
II. The pastor's grandfather was a
militant abolitionist, yet his father was a pacifist (both preachers), and on
top of this, his brother was an atheist!
So, lots of room for many viewpoints.
The section describing the pastor's travels from Iowa to Kansas as a boy
with his father to find his grandfather's grave was astounding. The pastor used biblical verses to try and
understand the world and form his thoughts, and some non-religious people may
find this uncomfortable, but it almost gives one hope that a religion can
actually be used to understand life and to live a better life, rather than used
for exclusion, hatred, and war.... I would like to read other books by this
author; she was able to give this voice to a 76-year-old pastor that was sad
and beautiful.
With all the snow the previous week we thought it might be
interesting to explore the northern section of the McDowell Sonoran Preserve. This
area is bounded by Dynamite Road on the south, Stagecoach Pass road on the
north, Pima on the west, and 136th street on the east. We made a 9-mile loop around Granite Mountain
and Cholla Mountain via the Granite Mountain trailhead. There were still patches of snow on the
ground from the previous week’s snows, but the highlights were the views of the
snow-covered mountains to the north and east.
Four Peaks was covered with snow from peak to base and the Superstitions
had more snow than I can remember seeing on them. It was beautiful. And the walk itself was really nice. This is a fairly new section of the preserve
and they’ve done a great job of creating a nice set of interconnecting trails
to explore the area. Very cool rock
formations, similar to the Tom’s Thumb area, but with very little elevation
gain. There were quite a few mountain
bikes for a weekday, so I’m pretty sure the weekends would be full of mountain
bikes which would make for an annoying hike.
 |
| Balanced Rock/unbalanced person |
 |
| Trail art |
 |
| Flowers, saguaros, snow |
 |
| A peak at Four Peaks |
 |
| Saguaros pointing to the snow |
The final book of this shortened month was Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, translated by
Magda Bogin. I guess I just love Latin
magical realism books. And this one is
terrific. The book was first conceived
by Allende when she received news that her 100-year-old grandfather was dying.
She began to write him a letter which eventually turned into this novel. The story details the life of the Trueba
family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and
political upheavals of an unnamed South American country (probably Chile since
Allende's uncle was eventually one of its presidents....). It is truly a family epic, entwining family
upheavals with South American political upheavals. Much like Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude. The
characters are so well described that you can just see and touch them, and care
so much for them, or hate them. The spirits
in the title refer not only to the ghosts that Clara can see and talk to, but
also the spirits of family members past, present, and future. It's about love, politics, war, and
ultimately, family. Maybe that's why I
love Latin American works.... they focus so much on the importance of
family....
After the big snows, the Tom’s Thumb trailhead was closed
for nearly a week in order to protect the condition of the trails. On the first day it opened I decided to make
an 11-mile loop to explore the impact of the snows combining Tom’s Thumb/Windgate Pass/East End Loop trails. The day was crisp and cool with quite a few
people on the main Tom’s Thumb trail (spring baseball is starting and there
were lots of visitors). The only real
impact I noticed was that some of the supports that were made of rock and wire
had come loose and required some repair, but otherwise you couldn’t tell that
there was 7 inches of snow here a week ago, other than a few patches of snow
here and there. The views from on top
were great, with snow on all the same peaks we had seen a couple of days ago
from the northern part of the preserve.
The trails themselves were great and I saw very few people beyond the
first 2 miles of the Tom’s Thumb trail.
The last climb up the East End trail was the only part that I hadn’t
walked before. It’s a nice, rocky canyon
and the trail is extremely steep, so I was getting pretty tired by the time it
finally hit the Tom’s Thumb trail for the final 1.5 miles back to the car. The highlight of the walk was the profusion
of wildflowers!
 |
| Flowers and cactus with a view of the valley |
 |
| Flowers, rock! |
 |
| Lots of flowers mixed with the teddy bear cholla |
I’ve always heard of Emile Zola but had never read anything
by him, nor anything about him. He’s a
French author (thought he was Eastern European or Italian from his name). He was a prolific guy, with about 30 of his
works translated to English, so I imagine he wrote many more than that. The
book I decided on is considered by many to be his best. It’s called Germinal and it’s one novel in a 20-novel series he wrote
portraying the distinctions of rich and working-class life in France. I read the 2004 translation by Roger Pearson
on Penguin Classics. This is really a
depressing book (and only 500 pages😉).
From what I understand, Zola did extensive research on the coal mining
industry and coal miners for this novel. His brutal descriptions of the poverty
lived in by these miners is just gripping.
And he offsets it brilliantly with his depictions of the life of the
coal mine owners, managers, and shareholders.
There is a scene where a miner's wife and 2 children come to the home of
a shareholder hoping for money or food and the way he describes the shareholder’s
viewpoint and then the miner's wife's viewpoint of the same meeting and the
events leading up to the meeting are heartbreaking and revealing. I feel like he spent too much time describing
the misery of the miners, especially during the strike...I mean one day they
are down to their last crumb of food, yet 2 weeks later there they still are,
somehow managing to live, then again 2 more weeks later....The premise is that
a new person comes to town (Etienne) and looks for work and finds some down in
the coal mine. The life of a miner in
those days is ridiculously hard, with few safety concerns. Etienne sees this and eventually leads the
miners to strike for a fairer wage and better conditions. The
strike devastates the miners (no money, no food), but also hurts the owners. Emotions get high, riots ensue. More misery.
Eventually nothing changes, but the trail of dead bodies leaves some to
hope that change will come someday. 
I’ve read some great things about Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche,
the author from Nigeria who has been getting rave reviews for her writing. I decided to start out with Americanah. I can you tell you right
now, I will read as much of her other works as I can. This book just blew me away. A thoroughly enjoyable book from beginning to
end. Rich characters, deep philosophical
issues on race, immigration, international politics, family, friendship, love,
etc. It's the story of Ifemelu, an
intelligent Nigerian woman who tries to get a college education in Nigeria, but
due to political strikes is unable to, so she heads to the US where her aunt
and cousin live and struggles to find herself and develop herself into who she
feels she should be. By the way, she
left the love of her life, Obinze, behind in Nigeria. She gets her education, works various jobs,
finds new loves, starts a blog on race (something she never had to deal with in
Nigeria) and then, after 13 years decides to return to Nigeria to live. Obinze meanwhile has his own story about emigrating
to London, being deported back to Nigeria, and then starting his life anew. Eventually they meet again, but is it too
late due to marriage, children, differences in their more mature personalities?
You'll have to read this great book to find out.....There is a scene in this
book at the end of chapter 51 where Ifemelu describes to Obinze (after she's
returned to Nigeria) why she stopped all contact with him while in the
US....it's a heartbreaking and incredibly emotional scene....one of the best
I've ever read....Wow. 
A Clockwork Orange
by Anthony Burgess was next up on the reading list. This has always been a very controversial
book. It was banned in several US
states. Even the author was not sure he
should have ever written it. The Stanley
Kubrick film on the book is considered an art house masterpiece. And the book has been included on several lists
of best novels ever written. It's a
difficult book to start reading for two reasons: it's written in an invented slang language of
the ultra-violent teens of this futuristic London city and it's incredibly
violent with brutal beatings and rapes of young girls. There are 3 parts to the book. Part 1 is this violent rampage that gang
leader Alex leads his gang on. In Part 2
Alex goes to prison and then is reformed using a controversial method
consisting of medication and brainwashing.
Part 3 has Alex returning to society to see if the reformation
works. Parts 2 and 3 were much more
interesting and made clear why part 1 was necessary. There are many themes addressed in the book,
including free will, government intervention, teen boredom and violence,
criminal reformation, and adult apathy.
It was written in 1962 and set in 2023 London. The author was partially inspired by the
brutal beating of his first wife by US servicemen in England which resulted in
her miscarriage. 
I have been reading a fun book by Nick Hornby called "Ten
Years in the Tub." It’s a compilation of
articles he wrote for a magazine in which he reviewed books he’d read. He recommended a book from Marilynne Robinson
titled Gilead, saying "there
are complicated and striking ideas on every single page." It's written as a letter a Congregationalist
pastor is writing to his son. The pastor
is 76 and dying, it's 1956, and his son is only 7 years old…. This is all
discovered very early in the novel. The
letter (novel) is part family history, part philosophy on life, family, and
friendship, part description of Midwest life in the late 1800s/early1900s, and
part personal confessional. And it's
beautiful. The history dates to the
pastor's grandfather's exploits in the Kansas Missouri border war before the
civil war, then the reconstruction, World War I, the depression, and World War
II. The pastor's grandfather was a
militant abolitionist, yet his father was a pacifist (both preachers), and on
top of this, his brother was an atheist!
So, lots of room for many viewpoints.
The section describing the pastor's travels from Iowa to Kansas as a boy
with his father to find his grandfather's grave was astounding. The pastor used biblical verses to try and
understand the world and form his thoughts, and some non-religious people may
find this uncomfortable, but it almost gives one hope that a religion can
actually be used to understand life and to live a better life, rather than used
for exclusion, hatred, and war.... I would like to read other books by this
author; she was able to give this voice to a 76-year-old pastor that was sad
and beautiful. 
The final book of this shortened month was Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, translated by
Magda Bogin. I guess I just love Latin
magical realism books. And this one is
terrific. The book was first conceived
by Allende when she received news that her 100-year-old grandfather was dying.
She began to write him a letter which eventually turned into this novel. The story details the life of the Trueba
family, spanning four generations, and tracing the post-colonial social and
political upheavals of an unnamed South American country (probably Chile since
Allende's uncle was eventually one of its presidents....). It is truly a family epic, entwining family
upheavals with South American political upheavals. Much like Marquez' 100 Years of Solitude. The
characters are so well described that you can just see and touch them, and care
so much for them, or hate them. The spirits
in the title refer not only to the ghosts that Clara can see and talk to, but
also the spirits of family members past, present, and future. It's about love, politics, war, and
ultimately, family. Maybe that's why I
love Latin American works.... they focus so much on the importance of
family....
