I snuck a camera onto the trail.......

........and these are some pictures that I took. I was only out there from a Friday evening to a Monday afternoon, and I had to hide my camera, so these are some pictures I took while I was making radio check-ins, et cetera--anytime I was wandering around by myself. These may be interesting or they may not be. Either way, here they are.

Due to some dental-emergency-type errands I have to run repeatedly in the next two weeks, I found out I don't have any more full weeks on the trail left. Just a couple more Friday-to-Mondays. It's bittersweet, but we're on fire restrictions now anyway....fires have been replaced by stoves. We still have to bust a coal with saguaro and seep willow and blow the coal into flame with tinder, but once the stove is lit, the tinder bundle is stamped out. It's actually a positive thing, in some ways. Everyone learns to bust coals quickly and efficiently and you never run out of tinder since you can re-use the same bundle a half-dozen times. I busted two coals a day the last week I was out. Anyway, blah blah blah. Pictures of the desert, for anyone with the time to glimpse them:

Here's a picture of my pack. The straps are made out of my army-issued sleeping burrito--what I put my sleeping bag in at night for added warmth. Mine is pretty ripped up.

People claim you can use hooked needles from this cactus to go fishing.

Along with stoves, gaiters are also back for the summer. They supposedly protect against rattlesnake bites, but considering a high majority of bites occur on the arms, face, and hands of men between the ages of 15 and 35 (I'm making half of that up, I think) I'm not sure why our ankles are at such a huge risk. But I like mine because they make me look like I'm wearing bellbottoms and I can run through catclaw mimosa with them.

Much of the wildflowers are clamming up for the summer, but they are being replaced by blooming cacti. Really, really beautiful. And many are edible. Ocotillo is blooming, too.






Oh, and grape leaves are EVERYWHERE. They are a sour treat for any summer hike...they are literally everywhere. I am never not eating grape leaves during summer hikes.

Here's Squaw Butte.

And this is the picture of me when I was in that polygamist colony in southern Utah. I was fourteen and was the seventh wife of a man named Isaiah Jacob Brenneman. Surely I told you guys about that before, right?