The Death March

About twenty five years ago we had one of those memorable hikes that has long since passed into legend and has been referred to as the Death March. First of all, and right out of the chute, no one died. This was a Stake Camporee. The organizers, who will remain anonymous to protect the guilty, decided that all of the eight or so Scout Troops should have a real hiking experience. Since the hike was planned for November, they decided to hike to Charlebois Spring, probably named for a cattleman named Lou Charlebois who was the President of the Arizona Cattlemen's Association, deep in the Superstition Wilderness area, just east of Apache Junction, Arizona.

http://archimede.mat.ulaval.ca/pages/morin/charlebois.web/RR01/RR01_003.HTM

If you want more information, do a search on Charlebois Spring and you will find hundreds of references. Others claim that the Spring was named after Joseph Fernando Charlebois.

See http://genforum.genealogy.com/charlebois/messages/83.html

But as my son Jared would say, I digress. Now, depending on the reference it is anywhere from 6 to 8 from any access road. It just so happened that very few of these potential Scout hikers had actually walked that far in their lifetimes, especially not in Superstition Mountains. It also happened, as is possible at any time in the desert, that the temperature during the day was about 95 degrees. Unfortunately, they set the time for departure about 4:00 in the afternoon, guaranteeing that most of the participants would have to hike in the dark. (This is the tie-in to my previous post). If you do go looking for pictures of Charlebois Spring, you will note that most of the people in the pictures are wearing coats. This is not because they are crazy, it is because no one, in their right mind, would go hiking out into the middle of the Superstitions if the temperature is not down in the low 70s or 60s, with night time temperatures in the 40s or below.

At this time, my sons were not old enough to be in Scouting, and I had little contact with the Scouting program. (Of course this changed dramatically and I have spent the last twenty years or so in Scouting). We left later than the rest of the Scouts and their leaders. I remember that there were three or four of us hiking in together. I went along, essentially, for the ride.

We hiked in from the west end at the First Water Trailhead following the Peralta Trail. Keeping to the right (south) we got to the junction with the Boulder Canyon trail (if you follow this trail you go past Weaver's Needle and then to the northwest side of the Fremont Saddle). At this point the trail follows a wash for a ways and it is difficult to tell where the trail splits off so, of course, we missed the Peralta Trail. I figured out that we weren't on the right trail after a few minutes. We circled back in a large circle until I found the trail part way up a hill. Now, to understand this story, you have to realize that circling back to find a trail in the Superstitions isn't not very straight forward. You can never tell if you are going to run into a canyon or a cliff or something and you have to avoid cactus and catclaw.

It was starting to get dark when we were moving down the Peralta and soon it got really dark. I didn't have much of a light and I don't use a flashlight unless it is absolutely necessary, so I just kept moving. When we got to the main group, it was about 8:30 or so and the scene looked like that part of Gone with the Wind where all the wounded soldiers are laying all over the ground. It was pretty grim. A lot of people were injured and had blisters or back problems or whatever. They were spread along the trail for a couple of hundred yards, since there really isn't a clearing or anything to camp in large enough for Scout Troops. Some of the Troops never made it to the gathering area and just camped along the trail.

I went to sleep and in the morning it was even worse. The area of the Spring is pretty, especially with 100 or so Scouts running around. I worked on filling my water bottles with my filter pump. There was plenty of water. Those in charge decided that they had made a mistake and told everyone to just leave. They had a bunch of activities planned but all of them seemed irrelevant given the condition of the leaders and Scouts. We started hiking out the Peralta towards the Peralta Trailhead. We were supposed to have people come and pick us up about 4:00 in the afternoon. This was pre-cell phone and so we had no way to coordinate the pickup time with the rides who were coming. I walked out by Bluff Spring and still had most of my water. Bad decision, I should have filled up there. Making the climb over the ridge by Miner's Needle, the Scouts and leaders started to run out of water. I found some to filter, but my filter clogged up. I have given away most of my water and so I decided I better get out so I could be of some help to the rest on the trail. I was like the second or third person out, but there is no water at the Peralta Trailhead so I begged water off of people leaving in their cars. Finally, someone gave me a two gallon jug full, so I drank the whole thing and started back up the trail with one other leader. We found people all along the trail so we passed everyone to find out who was in the back of the group. We found a couple of leaders in really bad shape, almost passing out from the heat and dehydration. We gave them some water, took their packs and made them keep moving. I literally had to push my guy down the trail. We finally all got out.

When I got home, I found out I had lost six pounds of water in one day. Some of the Troops didn't get back until late that Saturday night after being lost all day. It was interesting.