1MoKast Adventures: Byous Butte

It's been a challenging last few weeks, preventing us from getting out and enjoying the outdoors. With the passing of Mark's paternal grandmother in late February and the sudden, tragic death of one of Shanna's very close friends who was killed by a drunk driver March 6th, going on our next family adventure was low on the list of priorities.

But, as it always does, life moves on and it was time for us to get outdoors. Hard to imagine getting cabin fever in AZ but it was starting to happen! We were going to do the Peralta Trail yesterday but it didn't seem to be in the cards (again!) so we executed Plan B which was checking out a large granite monolith deep in the superstitions named Byous Butte.

We hit the road about 10:30am and after some problems with traffic, arrived at our turn off the highway a little over an hour later. After a brief unplanned detour, we found the right forest road and arrived a Byous Butte. We were treated to several stream crossings, the deepest of which was about 2ft deep and 25ft across. The rest were all measured in inches.

Once we arrived a Byous Butte, we found the place I was looking for - a nice primitive camp which I had read about. We took the opportunity to explore a little and then tried our hand at lighting a campfire without matches. After about an hour, we packed it up and headed back home. Without the traffic issues that bothered us on the way in, we made it back home in less the an hour...

One of the reasons we wanted to explore this area was to find a location where we could try out some basic survival skills in the field. We tried fire-starting today and it worked out well. We'll probably come back in a few weeks for an over-night trip so today was worth the effort since we identified a great spot.

As always, you can click on any picture to enlarge it...

When we left Chandler, the temp was hovering around 65 degrees. As we pulled off the dirt road I glanced at the temp reading and it indicated 49 degrees. Our elevation where the kids are standing is about 3000' so Byous Butte must be over 4000' at least...

Byous Butte with Shanna and the kids, as well as a tribute to our friend Leigh Ann who passed away last Saturday.

We hiked up the little road as it continued on from the primitive camp.

Obligatory Brina pose...

Sophie by a saguaro.

Tom..

Mark rendering support to an angst-ridden Savannah.

You can see the suburban in the middle of the shot...this is where the primitive camp is. Shot was taken at the end of the road we were on. (Be sure to click on this picture so you can see where the suburban is)

Tommy by the biggest saguaro he could find.

Hiking up the jeep trail.

Lots of healthy saguaros around. See the helicopter? No? Click the pic.

Before we tried starting a fire, the kids built a small fire ring.

Tender ready and petroleum-soaked cotton balls.

Fire steel and striker...capable of producing 5000 degree sparks.

Success after a few strikes...

The soaked cotton balls burn for about 10 minutes, which is about 9 minutes longer than reguaar cotton balls. Very important when it raining or windy.