First time on Los Burros. I've been eyeing it for a while for the mountain bike because its part of the tour of the white mountains course and I wanted to see if I could do it.
The majority of the trail is single track, there are some sections that are old roads, and I could tell there had been some small reroutes here and there. Not sure how recent those are. Trail is well marked, should be no issues staying on course. Started at the trail head in the camp grounds and logged 14.2 miles. Ran into a few hikers at the beginning, one other guy on a bike, a couple people on horses, and a few locals roaming the woods.
The campgrounds seemed nice too, I wouldn't mind staying there down the rd. Weather was great, in the 70s, clouds rolled by most of the day, rain held off until we were on the highway leaving town.

note on my pictures, somehow the settings got messed up on my phone so the pictures came out weird. Looks like I used a filter, but I did not.

Video: [ youtube video ]

My wife and I were looking for a hike around the Pinetop area. We found the Los Burros loop hike. We started out much later than planned, about 9:00. The plan was to do the whole 14 mile loop, so we left the Los Burros camp ground and headed down the trail with our 2 dogs leading the way. The trail was easy to follow and a lot of it was on an old jeep 4x4 road. There were elk tracks and also turkey tracks all over the trail as we went along. We seemed to have the whole trail to ourselves, did not run into any other hikers till about 6 miles in, a mountain bike rider buzzed by as we were taking a break having lunch and there was a cowboy fixing some fence at the 1st water hole "reservation tank" we arrived at. The 2 water tanks we passed had lots of water in them, we actually grabbed some water from the bear wallow tank for the dogs as the temperature was getting pretty hot. The trail crossed a few nice open meadows and did not gain very much elevation, stayed pretty flat the whole way. We decided to take the shortcut trail that headed back to Los Burros C.G. because the dogs looked like they had enough of the heat and hot trail on there paw's. After all said and done we did about 8.25 miles and are planning on coming back and camping at Los Burros so we can do the other part of the loop only much earlier in the morning to avoid the heat.

White Mountains Winter 2013


I needed to feel some snow beneath my feet - so having heard from my neighbors Terry and Giselle about their New Year's trek to Sunrise Ski Park (check out => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=1307 ), I thought a couple of days in the White Mountains would be "just the ticket". I couldn't take advantage of my Marriott Rewards or Priority Club Rewards booking a hotel since none of their hotels in the vicinity of the White Mountains are "pet friendly". Luckily the Best Western in Eagar AZ will accept dogs in the room, so we had our base camp.

Wednesday 1/2 - Arrived in the White Mountains late morning via Hwy 260 with our first stop near Sunrise Ski Park and FR112 and the Railroad Grade Trail #601 (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=15451 ). Lots of snow fun on the slopes of the Railroad Grade. FR117 was unplowed so our afternoon plans to explore Green's Peak and the Four Knolls (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=792 ) were thwarted. Our back-up plan was to explore trails near the village of Greer. Mini-hikes on West Fork Trail #94 and Butler Canyon Trail #98 (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=784 and http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=2250 ) and exploring some real estate poking around the village. You can see the scarred forest and how close it came to torching all of Greer from last summer's Wallow Fire (see => http://wildfiretoday.com/2011/06/09/wal ... r-arizona/ and http://hikearizona.com/map.php?QX=769 ). We ended the day with a sunset hike of the G&F Grasslands (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=963 ). Grasslands lived up to the hype for surefire wildlife encounters as we met up with a herd of mule deer.

Thursday 1/3 - After a frigid night, arrived at the South Fork Trail #97 (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=602 ) trail head with my truck thermometer indicating 19degF (neglected to get photo evidence, but did capture the noon time temperature of 23degF). We hiked the 3 miles to the bridge with the dogs enjoying the snow. Once again scars from the Wallow Fire could be seen along the hiking route. Next up was Pole Knoll (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=802 ). Hiking was challenging post-holing your route beside the set track for cross country skiing. I was very impressed with the skiing conditions at Pole Knoll - makes me want to break out my skis! We Wrapped up our White Mountain tour with some photo ops at Horseshoe Cienega (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=17512 ) and Los Burros (see => http://hikearizona.com/decoder.php?ZTN=603 ). We had a late day dinner in Show Low and returned home via Hwy 60.

Not sure how the 14-mile full loop could be only 500 AEG when I did 800+ on just the 10-mile medium loop ...

Anyway, barely slept on Saturday night. Slept about three hours, then aching knee made it hard to get back to sleep. So, after I finally gave up and got out of bed, I had to make a decision: Do the two schedule 6.5 milers (Ice Cave Trail and Timber Mesa Trail) today and hope the knee help up for the 10+ miles of Los Burros on Monday morning, or do my weekend's main event today. Given the location of this triplog, you know the decision I made. Good one too, as otherwise I would not have gotten back to Phoenix until after 8 p.m. Monday, due to a late start and this hike being so long (for me ... Joe or Booneman might have done laps. ) So, sleepless, blistered and with aching knee, off I went.

Had hash and hashbrowns at Darbi's Cafe, as the trip was as much about trying some new restaurants as it was hiking. Good eats.

Drove past the turn in McNary and had to double back. I don't know how the road usually is, but it is the worst washboarding I have ever experienced. 5-10 mph at best, in a normal car, for all seven miles. (If I had known how bad it would be, I probably would not have gone.)

By the time I got to the trailhead, it was about 10 a.m. Nice temps, but sun felt much warmer, maybe because of the thinner air?

Lots of tree clearing going on throughout the whole hike, but especially between Hill 8022, Hill 8304 and Pierce Mountain. Really nice trail surface most of the way, and it showed evidence of MTBs and horses in the 48 hours since the last rain.

Very large elk darted across the trail in the saddle west of Pierce Mountain. Disappeared before I could get a picture. I waited awhile hoping for more elk, but did not see any. (It had no antlers, so I assumed it was female, and I was under the impression females tend to hang out together when not in breeding season.)

Highpoint of the normal 10-mile loop is 8300 feet, on the small ridge .8 miles north of the logging operation. By noon, it had clouded over, and thunder was in the east again. (I found out later from the motel owner, who lives in Eagar, that it was very heavy rain between Pinetop and Eagar.) No rain at all on Los Burros, though. Took my first break, and was disappointed to discover my Darbi's Blondie Bar was missing. At least I had a Circle K murderwich to get me by.

After eight miles, I arrived at the Lake Mountain split, which is also the connector trail to Four Springs Trail. I was feeling good, knee not hurting, and blister not feeling any worse. (I deliberately walked more on my toes to avoid any excess heel rub.) Since I felt so good, I decided to go up Lake Mountain, which adds about 600 feet to the AEG. In doing so, I set my personal best for high hiking elevation of 8529 feet (at the lookout). No one home, and tower fenced and camera'd. I waved. No water in the lake, which is an obvious volcanic caldera, but great views! Best flower display of the hike was along the gravel road down from the lookout.

Passing over the Hill 8022 ridge, I heard an odd sound. Then realized it was my cell phone. You get great reception out there.

Only saw humans four times the whole way: An old guy trailer camping at the trailhead, some logger/rancher types on ATVs near the logging operation, some guy with a dog and truck on the Brown Wash jeep trail, and a couple on horses going up the gravel road to the Lake Mountain lookout. (Me across wash to Dog & Truck Guy: "Howdy!!!", in the hope if he was shooting he would not think I was a deer coming up the trail.)

Finished at 3:50 p.m. Post hike BP was 129/78, pulse 120. (Scary part was it was still elevated three hours later.) Blister was quarter-sized, but felt no worse, and neither did my knee. Took 35 minutes to drive the seven miles back to McNary, showered and then dinner at Los Corrales. (Great salsa and service.)