Over the years, I’ve learned to expect nothing stable from Spring, but I have figured out a way to out-fox her a bit. The trick is to start the season low and, as the weeks progress, move higher. As such, this year, I decided to follow the advice of Horace Greeley and “Go West!”

Fortunately, within our diverse Rim Country, this doesn’t mean that I had to travel far. There would be no need to pile high the Conestoga and head to distant lands. No, I was able to quickly assemble some camping and backpacking gear; top off the gas tank and, by mid-morning, I was on my way.

The only advance planning required for my trip consisted of coordinating with a friend who had recently moved to Flagstaff, so that we could join forces in our celebration of the first few days of the Equinox. My comrade-in-arms was my old chum Magill, of whom, I have written about once before in the pages of this magazine.

Magill, serving as the advance guard, had taken a new job back in Arizona, while his wife wrapped up her work in Idaho. In the meantime, circumstances dictated that they maintain two households until such a time when they could reunite in their new, southern digs. I was certainly happy to have outdoor loving friends moving within a few hours’ drive of me and so, before long, I suggested we meet for a couple of days of canyoneering.

The western side of the Mogollon Plateau is rich with rugged, deep canyons -- many of which carve narrow descents down through the Rim and eventually drain into the wide valley of the Verde River. I’ve known these drainages well since the early 1990’s when, in my first few years with the Game and Fish Department, we often conducted fisheries work throughout the Verde Basin and its associated headwater streams.

Over the years, however, many of these riparian areas have been discovered by the teaming masses of Arizona’s growing metropolitan areas and, sadly, some are in the process of being “loved to death” (Fossil Creek, being a prime example). But you can hardly blame any of us for our attraction to lushly vegetated streams as they flow from the high pines on down into arid thorn-scrub country. The best we can do is to strictly follow the rules and restrictions that are clearly enunciated by our public resource managers and to always keep in mind the timeless wildlands wisdom of: “take nothing but pictures; leave nothing but footprints.”

I arrived at the rendezvous site by early afternoon on a Friday. Magill, given the demands of his new job, would not be joining me until Saturday morning so my first evening would be solo. The temperatures were wonderfully warm when I arrived but I knew that the night would be cool so I had brought along some firewood from home.

After unloading, from my pick-up’s bed, a few choice oak logs and some smaller kindling, I decided to unpack my cot so that it could soak up some of the sun’s warm rays. As I unstrapped the cot and began to unfold it, who should I awaken but a sleepy black widow spider, tucked somewhere in the creases of the fabric. I watched her unfurl her legs and creep slowly along, looking like beautiful black pearl. I offered her a twig to climb onto, as obviously I wasn’t about to share my bed with such a lethal bunkmate.

After I carried her off a safe distance and deposited her into the craggy base of a yucca plant, I walked back to my cot and spread out my sleeping bag. I weighed the bag down with a rock in case the wind picked up while I went for a stroll to size up the local terrain.

Starting at about 3600 feet in elevation, I made rapid progress to the top of a nearby hill. Judging by my map, I figured that I might be atop “Cactus Mountain,” appropriately named given the prickly pear and cholla cacti that adorned its southwestern face. I had absent- mindedly left my GPS back at the truck so I wasn’t sure of the summit’s elevation but the view was spectacular regardless. I stared out over rolling hills awash with orange poppies and purple filaree flowers. I could also see numerous gullies that drained into the canyon in which we would be hiking over the next two days.

What I could not see were any people which was naturally A-Okay by me. I was reminded of a line from a Henry Miller novel I had recently read: “Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance, they appear negligible; close up, they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything, they need to be surrounded with sufficient space -- space even more than time.”

I meandered about for an hour on north slopes made green by our wet winter. In addition to the swaying grasses, engorged cacti and multi-hued floral displays, there were also budding ocotillo, leafless mesquite trees, blue-tinged agaves, chlorophyll-barked Palo Verde and, somewhat incongruously, plenty of juniper.

When I returned to camp, I rustled up some grub; re-packed my gear into a backpack for tomorrow’s exploration of the canyon; selected a safe spot to build a small campfire and gave my sleeping bag a few vigorous shakes to roust any unwanted visitors (I was a bit nervous in that regard, given the black widow incident).

As twilight enveloped the land, a lone coyote, perhaps only a quarter-mile away, began to vocalize in a most peculiar way. Now I have heard plenty of coyotes in my day. I’ve heard them yip, yowl, whinny, whine and make just about every type of call imaginable but this forlorn fellow truly had an unearthly wail to his song. I fancied that he was the ghost of Robert Johnson, keening over his lost and wandering soul, traded away in a bum deal with the devil.

Once the campfire had transitioned to a quiescent state, I fluffed a fleece sweatshirt to make my night’s pillow and lay down to sleep. The mournful coyote had long ago been replaced by the plaintive calls of poor-wills, and I considered the poor-wills superior to ocean waves for lulling me into a restful night’s sleep.

Sure enough, when morning came, I was fully restored and ready for whatever the new day might bring. By the time I had finished my second cup of coffee, Magill was driving into camp. Given the tranquil beauty of the morning, we were both grinning from ear to ear as he stepped from his pick-up and gave my hand a hearty shake. It had been a couple of years since our last camping trip (in the San Rafael Swell area of Utah) and it was good to see my old friend.

Magill is virtually always in tip-top condition and, in fact, looks rather like he belongs in an MMA ring. But his imposing physical appearance is belied by his good-natured personality and I doubt that I’ve ever known a person who is so perpetually affable and light-hearted. I have noted, however, that those contrasting traits do seem to be more common among the Irish. Given the explosive flows that had surely (and recently) ripped through the canyon we had chosen to explore, I figured that some of that famous “luck of the Irish” could only be a bonus to our excursion….

After we had conducted a final check of our gear and cinched up the laces of our hiking boots, we began walking cross-country towards the Wilderness Area boundary where we would begin hiking on the official trail into the canyon. Periodically along the one-mile route to the trailhead, Magill would announce the various species of birds that were calling from nearby rocks and vegetation. Although I’m a competent birder using a pair of binoculars, Magill is better -- for he had taken the time to learn the vocalizations made by many of our North American bird species.

As we picked our way through the mesquite and cacti, Magill would matter-of-factly call out: “black-throated sparrow singing over yonder; rock wren chattering up on the boulders over there; Townsend’s solitaire, calling from his perch on top of that juniper down in the swale.” It was just what I needed to improve as a birder: someone to hike with who had memorized the sounds coming from both the common and the less frequently encountered species.

Similarly, I was also once again reminded that, when it comes to western plants and trees, Magill was much more skillful than I in his identification of the local flora. And this was a good Spring for both the desert species as well as the riparian plants -- both of which would be budding and blooming along our canyon-bound route.

SSpeaking of which, given limitations of space, I will save the canyon portion of our trip for a Part 2 of this story. If you are a bird watcher, rest assured that, in the second half of this account, I will happily regale you with several uncommon sightings that we were fortunate enough to make on our all-too-brief outing. into one of Arizona’s sublime, stream-fed “ribbons of life.” Till then, I bid you adieu.