Hi there. Pretty new here, but also new to Arizona. It's a hellscape, yeah, but I personally think it's not too bad. Came here a year or so ago, and some notes are:
- It is a dry heat.
- The people here are usually the nicer kind of redneck if they must be one, but that may just be me being white.
- I have not met a single person who didn't live within a couple dozen miles of either Phoenix or Tuscon. Out of those who live here, of course.
- The national parks are pretty beautiful at the right time.
Now for the weird shit.
Just under a year ago, around November, my (now) girlfriend and I went out camping up at White Tank Regional Park. Not at any of the prespecified areas; nooooo, we were too confident for that. We were gonna have a friend drop us off with some gear in two backpacks, and pick us back up later. We were gonna stay for about a week, tops, so we had some MREs (corny, yeah, but we had some tasty ones from when I accidentally bought a pallet of 'em a bit back), plenty of water in both camelbaks sitting in our backpacks and some extra bottles of water in them, too. We brought the essentials- maps, compasses, solar power banks for our phones (with offline maps - our primary navigation tool), etc etc. We also each had a small pistol on us, in case the 'yotes wanted to take a chunk from a helpless ape. I'm a chronic preparer, and luckily have a strong (though frequently hurting) back, so I got an extra couple dozen rounds on me, not to mention the smallish tent and a bit of bedding. I must've had at least 80 extra pounds of weight on my back- not that I minded. I also had a fold-up drone. I actually had a legit use for it- I frequently flew it around when we stopped to rest and took pictures. I've lost them all, or belive me, I WOULD post 'em.
The point I'm trying to make here is that we were soft-glampers (a type of camper who has a bunch of modern conveniences with them). I don't have any problems with them, but I will say that we weren't in an RV, and we weren't totally clueless. We knew what to expect, at least! We weren't gonna go sticking our hands or feet into any holes, we were putting on sunscreen and finding shade and resting frequently. We kept track of where we were and made sure our phones were charged for the GPS. The first couple nights were a breeze, but on the third day we hiked into a spot where we wouldn't be able to see any signs of civilization until the night, where the light pollution from Phoenix would prevent us from seeing nearly as many stars as if we were out in the real desert. That was what I thought, at least.
That was the first night I saw the Milky Way.
That was the night she told me how she felt, and I kissed her.
It was beautiful.
We woke up at 10:00, and crawled out of the tent to find it was still dark out. Now, to say this was unusal would be an understatement. Someone from, say, Idaho or Maine would probably freak out if dawn was a couple hours late for seemingly no reason, but I had intentions of experiencing any more of the "dry heat" than I had to, so I was okay with it. She didn't say anything, either, at any rate. So we restarted our hike, and the day slowly broke. It was a damn fine sunrise, and we slowly made our way to a radio station nearby. It was an arduous trek, but we were about ready to phone it in and ask a worker to take us down at the end of their shift. Night fell at 7:30ish, and we made camp for a little bit.
There was still no light pollution, so we turned on our UV lights as well as our usual headlamps, and carefully made our way about in the dark. Some of you are shaking your heads at this, I know, I know, and the others are wondering "Why the UV lights?". To answer your questions:
- I know we're dumb as hell, and that was risky as hell. I'm surprised we didn't get hurt.
- Scorpions glow in the dark like when exposed to UV light. Check it.
So we made our way uphill, and eventually stopped at the radio station when dawn broke. Except... there was nobody there. Nada. It was about 5:00 PM on a Wednesday. We called it a day, ate MREs, played games, and then slept.
We woke up at 11:00 PM to the sound of howling coyotes. I immediately found my pistol, drew it, and went out of the tent. They were a pack of 3 or 4, but all it took was a bullet in one to make the rest scatter. I didn't know what to do with the body, so I dragged it off to the side of the road, and noticed something... odd.
We were around the peak and didn't see any light pollution from Phoenix still. She was already out of the tent, and I had her get the drone. I took it up.
Phoenix was completely black.