Fun and Games Near the Border

A few years ago, on May 26th, I headed out to do some climbing. From Tucson, I went way out west on Arizona Highway 86, then south through the village of Pisinimo, and by the time the sun rose I was parked near the base of Peak 2539 on its east side. This is in a pretty group of peaks which straddle paved Indian highway 21, about 16 miles south of the village of Pisinimo and about 7 air miles from the Mexican border. It was a cloudy day, so it was a nice cool start (later, the clouds would burn off, but it never got above the low 90’s, so it was a very pleasant day). I parked as close as the road allowed, got my pack ready, and headed over to the mountain. I always try to exercise greater caution when I am climbing this close to the border, as there is an increased chance of running into some bad hombres.

It was a nice climb, and I was enjoying every minute of it. As I neared the summit, I realized that I was walking through a series of ancient rock walls which had been built long ago by the O’odham people as a defence from attack from below. I also found a few metates, round depressions in the native rock which had been used to grind food such as corn. These metates were about six inches in diameter and two to three inches deep. The O’odham must have spent a lot of time up there to have worn such deep holes into the solid granitic rock. I was so fascinated by all of this that as I walked up on to the level summit ridge, I was looking more at the details on the ground than anything else. I don’t know if I heard a faint sound, or perhaps caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye, but all of a sudden I looked up, and straight ahead of me, not 100 feet away, I saw a young Hispanic male. Then another, and another, and one more. They were walking quickly away from me, then running. They had obviously seen me before I had spotted them. Thankfully they were running away from, and not towards, me. I was shocked and surprised to see them, but probably not as surprised as they were to see me. My heart was pounding and I was pretty scared. They headed straight down the steep southwest side of the mountain, and they were moving pretty quickly. I thought that I might as well reinforce my situation, try to gain the upper hand as it were, so I shouted “Alto, Migra!” after them a few times. I’m sure they heard me but they ran like hell down the steep, loose mountainside. I watched them go, and they were on the desert floor, 700 feet below, in probably 3 minutes or less. It’s a wonder that somebody didn’t fall and break their neck. Then the thought occurred to me “what if there were others nearby, hiding behind rocks or brush?” I looked around, but didn’t see anyone else. I’m sure they thought I had come to arrest them, but I bet they never thought someone would actually climb a mountain at daybreak to catch them! When they reached the desert floor on the south side of the mountain, they kept running. This part of the desert is remarkably flat and featureless, and is aptly named “The Great Plain” on topographic maps. How flat is it, you ask? It is so flat that the elevation only drops 100 feet in those seven miles as the land slopes away to Mexico.

Well, folks, I had wandered right into a really dangerous situation. This was a lookout for drug-runners. They park themselves up on a mountaintop and watch for any law enforcement, which in these parts would be U.S. Customs, the Tohono O’odham police, or the Border Patrol. They keep in touch with their cohorts on the ground who are moving loads of marijuana or cocaine into the country from Mexico. And they are up on these mountaintops for long periods of time. Those lookouts I had surprised could have been armed, but I think they were so surprised to see me that they decided to just get the heck out of there and not take any chances. Who knows, they may have thought that there were others coming up the slope right behind me. I still wonder today if they remember their surprise visitor, the old Desert Mountaineer.

There was stuff everywhere. Sleeping bags, blankets, water, canned food, propane torches, cigarettes, clothing,  backpacks, binoculars, you name it. Maybe others had also camped out in the same spot before them. It would have taken a herculean effort to have lugged all those supplies up there. I figured that those four guys had been so scared that they weren’t coming back. All they left with was the clothes on their backs. If they hustled, they could be back in Old Mexico in 2 hours, easily. So I started rifling through their stuff. I didn’t want to leave anything there that would help them further their plans to get drugs into the US. I took all of the food and hid it in crevices in the rock. I emptied all their water jugs. I took their propane, clothing, binoculars, the biggest backpack, and all their cartons of cigarettes (if that smoker ever did come back, and was expecting to find his smokes, he’d be going through some serious withdrawal). Some of it I hid lower down the east slope where they wouldn’t find it, the rest I carried down to my truck and later disposed of in a dumpster, (except the binoculars, which I kept in my truck to use against other bad guys!). Naturally, before I descended I left a cairn and register, because at the end of the day I’m still a peakbagger, no matter what excitement I may run into.

Once back at my truck, I drove back out to the pavement, then south a few miles, then east another two miles on a good dirt road and parked by Molenitus Benchmark. It was a short walk to the top. I found the usual surveyor trash, and left a cairn and register. Some creative surveyor came up with the name “Molenitus”. I have checked a dozen on-line dictionaries to no avail – I still have no idea what it means. It sounds like a Latin word. Anyway, it sure is a grand name for a tiny bit of rock out in the desert. I saw four deer right at the base.

Back out to the highway, a 4-mile drive to the north, and then east on a dirt road. I parked, and headed southeast a short distance to the top of Peak 2142. It has a nice rocky ridge on its west side, with several short fun routes that could be taken to the top.

After the cairn-and-register routine, I called my friend Dave in Los Angeles. He helped me configure my GPS to lat-long coordinates for the peak where I had encountered the drug lookouts, then I called the Border Patrol. They don’t use UTM, only lat-long. I told them my story and gave them the location of the incident and they said they’d send agents out to look.  I called my wife to check in, but didn’t tell her about the incident with the drug lookouts. She’d worry too much.

I went over to my last objective for the day, Peak 2105, about 1 1/2 miles due north of where I had my brief encounter with the drug lookouts. This next photo shows the south side of the peak. From its summit, the Mesquite Mountains dominate
the entire western skyline, rising almost 2000 feet above the desert floor. It was a quick climb, and I was
 back at my truck by 10:30 a.m.

Dang, I shoulda brought more maps so I coulda climbed something else! I was back home shortly after noon.

In retrospect, my run-in with those guys could have turned out much worse. This was just one of many dangerous occurrences that I’ve been part of over the years. Arizona’s border with Mexico is becoming increasingly lawless. But more on that later.

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