Article By Rob Bettaso

Photos By Doug Forsha

When my alarm sounded at 7 p.m., I had to think for a few seconds as to why I had set it. I turned off the shrill dinging noise and recalled that early evening was the time I had said that I would call Rhonda to discuss whether tomorrow’s weather looked promising for a hike. She and Doug would have been checking the radar and forecasts, so would have a reasonably good idea of what we might face tomorrow. Me, well, I’m both old and old-fashioned (in as much as I still don’t have a smartphone), so only know what the weather might be like when I look out a window and/or roughly gauge barometric changes based on the aches and pains I feel in my joints.

I made the call to Rhonda. When she picked up, I started off the conversation by setting the stage for cancelling the hike: “Well,” I opened, “given all the rain we’ve had lately I’m sure it is going to be impossible to find a trail anywhere near town that isn’t muddy; and, anything up higher in the mountains is probably going to start off icy and then turn to mud as the day warms.” Rhonda replied matter-of-factly that she and Doug had spent the afternoon up in the high country and that the precip was coming down in the form of snow and that it seemed likely to accumulate through this evening. She concluded by saying: “So, with the season’s first new snow, I think tomorrow morning sounds like a perfect time to take a hike.” I stammered for a few seconds, as I had expected her to agree with postponing our outing; but, I quickly re-grouped and said: “Ohh-kay, if you guys wanna try it then I’m game too.”

Uncharacteristically, my heart really wasn’t keen on tomorrow’s outing, as I truly had been doing some hikes lately in our cold, wet, and windy weather and my designated “mud-boots” were soaked through. But, I didn’t want to be a wimp and so I stepped outside, where I had left my muddy boots, whacked them together a few times, and then brought them inside where I set them down near the gas-burning heater I have in my den. Next, I made up a couple of sandwiches for tomorrow and then arranged the food, canteens, a GPS, and some basic survival gear into my largest daypack along with several layers of warm clothes I might need for our hike. With these simple actions, I felt my mood shift and, by the time my head hit the pillow later that evening, I was excited about tomorrow’s adventure.

When I awoke in the morning, it was still two hours until first light, so I passed the time by savoring coffee while reading Hampton Sides’ popular history about Kit Carson and the “Army of the West.” The ~600-page tome goes into amazing/horrifying details regarding the Polk-era doctrine of “manifest destiny.” The focus of the book, which I was about one-third of the way through, describes the westward expansion of Anglo-American into the vast, Mexican-held territories — still primarily occupied by indigenous tribes, including the Comanche, Kiowa, Navajo, Hopi, Utes, and Apaches — in what would eventually become the southwestern U.S. Since much of the historic action takes place in the lands between Santa Fe and Flagstaff (including significant portions pertaining to our very own White Mountains area), both the coffee and the reading material very much primed me for the day’s upcoming journey.

At 7 a.m. I met Doug and Rhonda, and we took their big F-150 to head the 30+ miles east of Pinetop. I was grateful to be surrounded by all that heavy Detroit steel as we cruised along Highway 260, because, while the roads in town were only wet with last night’s rain, once we reached McNary we were already encountering icy road conditions. Moreover, from McNary, we would continue climbing another couple of thousand feet in elevation before reaching our destination near Greer.

We stopped once en route, near the Sunrise turnoff. Until that point, the landscape had received only a dusting of snow, but there, it had fallen during the night to a depth of two inches and, because of the nocturnal winds, it had drifted into odd white waves and other rippling shapes. Additionally, because the rising sun was still fairly low, its rays illuminated portions of the terrain into snowy fields of sparkling diamonds while other portions of land lay in shadows of arctic-blue.

There was minimal traffic when we pulled slightly off the highway and stepped out of the vehicle. Doug went one direction with his professional-level camera gear, Rhonda went another with her camera, and I strolled camera-less and used my binos to pick out fluffed-up juncos foraging in the snow. I hoped that one of our uncommon winter raptors would appear, a Ferruginous or Rough-legged Hawk, since both species are known to hunt the open, rolling countryside in between the chunks of forested pockets and mountain slopes. Alas, the only large birds I saw were ravens, although, given the incredible charisma of that species, I am always happy to watch them in whatever business they are doing.

Soon, we finished up the final stretch of highway and arrived at our destination: a densely wooded area that surrounds a prominent knoll that is popular with cross-country skiers and snowshoed hikers. The snow wasn’t so deep that we would need either of those modes of locomotion, and, given how chilly it still was, I wondered if we might keep our hiking boots somewhat comfy, since the powdery snow might remain relatively dry for most of the morning. I also noted that last night’s storm must have really been blustery in these parts, as the deep grooves in the bark of the Doug-fir trees had been embedded with blowing snow.

We hadn’t planned our day with any route in mind and, as such, I took the lead and started off along a trail which initially remained along a level contour-line for about a mile before it began heading up the knoll. I hadn’t travelled this direction in a few years so I wasn’t at all clear in my mind how we would make our ascent, but, since all of us were out for the sheer joy of experiencing the season’s first snow, none of us really cared about such petty details as where we were going, when we would get there, or how we would get back….

Although there had been a lone set of human tracks in and around the parking lot, our entire morning’s hike took us through new and pristine snow, and it was exhilarating to know that we had the entire realm to ourselves. I wound up staying in the lead for the trek because Doug and Rhonda made frequent stops to take photographs. I have seen some of their shots of wildlife, including many amazing bird photos; but, I have been most impressed because they often focus their cameras on the micro-world, and have incredible images of colorful jumping spiders, bright but minuscule slime-molds, and obscure flowering orchids nestled deep within our untrammeled coniferous forests. Frequently, I would look back behind me and see one or both of them down on their knees in the snow, aiming their cameras at some soft swirl of snow as it gently feathered around a fallen sprig of spruce needles.

Because our progress was wonderfully slow, we could maintain our bodies at a nearly perfect temperature, even as we made our way up the steep and heavily wooded slope of the knoll. We occasionally had a view of the surrounding countryside, but for the most part, we were content to be immersed in pines, firs, spruce, and aspen. While Rhonda and Doug would stop to study the details of both upright, living trees and the dead and downed trees that were in various stages of decay, I focused my attention on trying to identify and read the stories of various animal tracks in the snow and look and listen for birds, which, for whatever reason, were in short supply on this particular day.

We made it to the top of the 9,700-foot knoll about noon and stayed quite a while on the broad and sprawling “summit.” As we ate our lunches, I thought about how so many of our White Mountain area peaks are often not really peaks at all; not, at least, in the sense of the craggy tops you see in other mountain ranges of the world. Even our Arizona desert mountains generally seem to have more in the way of spires, pinnacles, and ramparts than our high elevations ranges. Oh well, I suppose if, as the legendary alpineer Mallory said, we climb mountains “because they are there,” then it is also just fine if we scale them whether they are smooth hills, steep summits, or any other type of prominence. After all, for some of us, it is not about the shape or height of the mountain, but about the view you get from the top. For that matter, plenty of us have had many a fantastic trip just futzing around on the slopes, without ever feeling compelled to reach a mountain’s highest point.

Because all of us had things we needed to attend to back in town, in the early afternoon we started back down the slope. We made a few stops along the way because the steepness of the knoll, combined with the snow-slick substrate, was treacherous; but, thankfully, things went smoothly. On the quiet drive home, we each dwelt in our own inner thoughts, and I recalled a slice of simple verse penned by John Updike: “First snow! The flakes, so few, so light, remake the world in solid white.” That had proved very true on this, our first snow of the season.