Number of Attendees: 34
GENERAL INFORMATION:
· Ramblers Meetings are currently held every Wednesday at 5:00 PM in Forbes, Room 307.
· Unless otherwise specified, all hikes depart from the wall by the church on 4th Street and Tyndall Avenue.
PAST HIKES:
· Ben reported back on his Sunday hike out to Atascosa Peak, with eleven people having attended. Atascosa is about four miles away from the Mexican border, so it was only a small surprise when the group happened upon a gang of armed Border Patrol agents. Fortunately, no one was shot at (though perhaps a little shaken). The hike ascended about 1500 feet of elevation, and was topped off with the recent remains of the old Atascosa fire lookout where Edward Abbey used to dwell.
· Last Saturday Steve and his band trekked through "iffy weather" out to the Palisades. They made the hike without experiencing any meteorological mishaps, but Steve also notes that by the time they had gotten back the mountain "got nailed" with some heavy rains.
· Lenny went hiking out to some waterfalls that I wasn't able to accurately catch the name of...started with a T, but not Tanque Verde. Tanmar, maybe? My notes are crowded. Whatever their name, there was a lot of water and ample opportunity to swim.
· Will's Hugh Norris sunset hike did not quite go as planned, as weather turned rocky on the way up and by the time the group got on the trail they were face to face with some heavy lightning, wind and rain. Turn around. After some time spent behind a vehicular rescue operation, the group ended up at the top of Gate's Pass, and caught an extraordinary sunset anyways, with a deep orange sun and assorted storms and lighting all across the Avra Valley.
· Meanwhile, Nathaniel did a sunrise hike up Picacho with some non-Ramblers. He really enjoyed the trip, however, and notes that he'd like to lead a similar trip with the club a little later in the semester. If this sounds interesting, keep your eyes peeled.
· The meeting actually ended with Steve showing slides and photographs from the Grand Canyon backpack him and Hanna went on, but for the sake of organization I'll stick that here under Past Hikes. On the week of Labor Day the two went on a six days, five nights trip down the Bill Hall trail. Steve was surprised at how few people they encountered. There were many different opportunities to cool off, whether in waterfalls or the river, and there was also a lot of greenery along Thunder River. Hanna and Steve found nine rock thrones along the side of the canyon, and there was conjecture as to who had put those there and why they took all the effort. They saw a rescue helicopter in the canyon, but weren't sure whether it was there for business or they were just running exercises - in the end, the exercises theory won out. Steve did run afoul of a bird, however, and lost a bag of peanuts to it (the bird left him the empty plastic bag to pack out, of course). The images that Steve brought in were beautiful - thank you, Steve. He says that he is considering applying for a permit so that he can organize a Ramblers trip back there next year, hopefully before classes start up. Obviously it's going to be a while before there's anything definitive on this, but if you think you're going to be looking for summer plans next summer, keep this one in the back of your mind somewhere.
FUTURE HIKES:
· Well, at this point "future hikes" is not exactly accurate, but this weekend Roxana and Lenny both led Lemmon Pools hikes - both filled up instantly. It looks like these swimming hole hikes are pretty popular, so if you're looking for locations to lead a hike, you might want to turn your attention there.
· Since Colton was not at the meeting, Ben mentioned his Superstition backpacking trip, which will be from the 23rd - 25th of September. This coming meeting Colton is going to host a post-meeting backpacking seminar, so if you are interested in getting into backpacking then this might be a good place to be. Some folks seemed to think that this was being held at today's meeting, so if you were one of those people don't miss the actual date.
· Joe announced his overnight camping trip to Colossal Caves, Friday through Saturday. There was quite a bit of interest in this one, but at the time of the meeting he was still accepting any interested parties.
· Steve's hike to Hutch's Pool is also Saturday. This one will pretty much be like the cancelled trip from last weekend, except that instead of taking the tram up the group will be hiking the whole way - about fourteen miles, all in all. Once again, all these water-bound hikes fill up really fast, so if you ever see one posted that you'd like to attend, waste no time in signing up or else the opportunity may pass you by.
CLUB BUSINESS:
· Ben Smith and Ben Lewis took Smith's funding proposal to ASUA, but met a little bit of resistance. The proposal is about 26 pages at this point, complete with diagrams and graphs and bar charts and all sorts of crazy data. Revisions basically boil down to proving why it is so much cheaper (and so much more practical) for the club to buy its own gear rather than have members renting gear every time they go on Ramblers trips. In-meeting discussion took place regarding how the Ramblers club "facilitates self-developed skills," "increases student retention rate," "encourages land conservation," and "promotes outdoor fitness". As a side-effect of getting funding from ASUA for things such as t-shirts, etc. it also looks as though we will have to include both he ASUA and University Bookstore logo on our gear.
· Hand-over of club officer positions is now underway, with this semester's officers being:
President: Juliana Davies
Vice President: Mario Munoz
Treasurer: Jeff Benge
Secretary: Nik Safi
· Charles suggests creating an online Ramblers forum, so that club members can chat and discuss hikes, etc. outside the confines of the club meetings. This proved to be a popular idea and Charles was informally nominated to look into setting one up. This all led to mention of the new website design, and a reminder of the Ramblers blog where you can post hike photos, etc. Instructions for doing so are on the website - check it out.
Meeting adjourned at 6:03 by V.P. Mario.
Until next week,
Nik Safi, Club Secretary
University of Arizona Ramblers
http://ramblers.clubs.arizona.edu/
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