the boat at coyote central
Posted by Zonie on February 14, 2021 at 05:29:50
A transhumance of a sort is still practiced in Arizona, though in this day and age a 150 mile truck trip is more cost effective than a 150 mile cattle drive, and some areas near Phoenix are sometimes suitable as pasture in winter, whereas the high country is suited better in summer. There's a tract of state trust land that I've hiked often since the 1990's, and during that decade it was used as winter pasture. Since cattle were kept there, I had to crawl under barbed wire to hike there, but it wasn't considered trespassing as long as I had a recreational use permit from the State Land Department and followed their rules.
Sometime during or prior to this period the sometime waterhole I know as "coyote central" came into being. It was man-made. The natural drainage of the arroyos was blocked on the south and west sides by a berm. I assume the purpose was to collect the winter rains as a source of drinking water for the herd. It is near the intersection of two power line trails, one the latitude of Happy Valley Road and one the longitude of 56th Street near the border between Phoenix and Scottsdale.
I call this depression and sometime water hole "coyote central" because of an incident on a summer night some years ago when I tried to go mudding at night to escape the worst of the heat. Having evaded a jeep being driven at high speed at night and having traversed a cloud of mosquitoes, I found some mud and began wallowing when over the ridge I heard the howls of a whole pack of coyotes. I decided it was best to leave the area.
Sometime around the turn of the millennium, they stopped grazing cattle there, and nobody else leased it, and the State Land Department didn't sell it, and soon there were gaps in the barbed wire, and it became an unofficial garbage dump and off road vehicle recreation area. I still maintained my permit, though ironically once I as interrogated by the police in 2003 for wallowing in a mud hole when I was probably the only person who was authorized to be there.
Today I came there in daylight, spending four hours of the afternoon hiking that land, going from Dynamite Road southeastward to coyote central, then headed westward to Tatum Boulevard and back again. It was partly cloudy, windy and about 70°F. I noticed no mosquitoes or coyotes, and the off road vehicle riders could see me well enough.
Last weekend I had hoped to find mud in the east segment of Reach 11, but it had all dried. I knew the ruts on state trust land trails would be deeper and preserve the mud from the rains longer. Soon I found a puddle that was knee deep. Unlike Charlie I had expected this, only I couldn't see exactly where the deep spots were, so I was shifting around a lot and had to do some fancy footwork. I found a few other shallower mud puddles and enjoyed those.
Then the trail was dry for a long while, but I was hoping for a mud hole near Jomax Road. When I got there, the depression was dry. I wondered if maybe this area hadn't received as much rain or if the jeeps, trucks and ATV's had just splashed the mud hole dry. Still, I continued the hike and found a patch of deep thick mud about a mile further south on the Happy Valley latitude power line trail. After heading to Tatum and doubling back, I decided at last to visit coyote central.
On the way there I found a nice patch of thick, deep mud, and after stomping in that, I hiked over the berm and beheld that coyote central had three water holes and some thick mud areas and that floating on one water hole was a badly damaged fiberglass boat. As I came nearer, I saw a fire extinguisher floating in the water near it.
I waded in about thigh deep as I approached the boat. There was quite a lot of charred material in the boat but no human bones, and as it was fiberglass rather than wood, I figured it was probably not an impromptu Viking funeral but some kind of floating campfire. I assume it had been towed into the area by a truck and that the fire was some kind of farewell ceremony for a boat that was too badly damaged for reservoir service.
I then waded through the other water holes, which were also about thigh deep and slogged through some of the deep creamy mud near them. Going through a water hole again got me mostly clean, and I headed back north and then northwest to Dynamite Road. The other puddles helped wash me, and I was surprised that there wasn't a whole lot of cleanup to do when I got home.
- Re: the boat at coyote central Wetnboy 17:59:49 2/14/2021
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- Re: the boat at coyote central Zonie 20:00:47 2/14/2021
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- Re: the boat at coyote central Zonie 20:00:47 2/14/2021
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