Summiting Mt. Baldy

A friend and I summited Mt. Baldy, the highest peak in the White Mts., partly for the joy of the hike and partly as a scouting operation since we want to take our students on the same trek. Technically, we were breaking Apache law, since the peak is sacred tribal land open only to members of the tribe. The only way a non-native is supposed to be up there is if she's accompanied by someone from the tribe. But we hiked on state land for almost 7 miles, and when we crossed onto reservation land for the last part of the climb, we saw no signs barring us.

From the base to the summit, we hiked 7.23 miles and climbed from around 9,000 ft. to 11,429 ft. It was chilly and rainy at the bottom, with scattered sun and showers, and at the top, we stood in a giant, cold, blustery cloud. I could feel the intensity of the mountain and the weather as we stood up there, feeling like we might be blown off.

We want to take the students up there for several reasons, the primary one being that Mt. Baldy is part of the cultural history of the White Mountain Apache Tribe. It's considered sacred land, the source of food and water and creation. Few, if any, of our students have summited Baldy. Plus, we're planning a unit enveloping the themes of cultural identity and environmentalism in the upcoming months, so we're trying to pull in the study of nature conservation, local ecosystems, native plants, elevation and plant life, and even possibly navigation. It's a lot, but we're really excited about pulling this together. We're even thinking about taking a few kids out to backpack and camp on Baldy.