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Hello, we had our annual "Man Camp" guys getaway scheduled for the weekend of June 10th. We are coming from Phoenix and there are 5 of us. We were originally going to do our usual easy hike up Horton Trail and camp by the stream, but fire restrictions are in effect. It looks like the Coconino Forest has no restrictions, so we're probably going to need to go somewhere over there. The problem is I'm having a hard time finding a hike that fits. Here are the requirements:

1: We just have normal 2WD sedans, so it needs to be car friendly to the trail head

2: The hike from the car to wherever we end up camping needs to be between 1 to 5 miles

3: We have a water filter and plan to filter our water after arriving so it needs to be close to running water

4: We need to be able to have a fire.

We were looking at some of the Fossil Creek trails, but I see that you have to be 1/4 mile from the stream to have a fire. I've camped in the West Fork of Oak Creek Canyon before, but I think that is about 8 miles each way and probably a bit too far for a couple of the guys.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Speaking of "Leave No Trace," this would be a good time to review those ideas. Which generally discourage the building of fires. Some of us have spent a lot of time REMOVING fire rings as part of restoring an area's natural features. I have done this in the past with Boy Scouts and other conservation-minded groups, and also on my own, to remove the unsightly things. We'd hike an area, find the fire rings, scatter the rocks and burnt wood, smooth the area, and recover it with pine needles and other duff. The results are amazing. You can really make it look like no one has ever camped there before. Like it is actually wilderness...like it is supposed to be.

The ashes from repeated fires in these fire rings will last there in that spot for 10,000 years.

azbackpackr wrote:The ashes from repeated fires in these fire rings will last there in that spot for 10,000 years.

Yeah, they'll mix well with the ashes from when the forest burns every 50-300 years throughout that 10,000 year period.

Some areas have far too many of these campsites. Another tactic used by people working to restore a more natural look to areas is to remove several rings in a given area, but leave the most obvious and popular campsites and rings in place, since those who insist on having giant fires will tend to build them again anyway. Leave No Trace priniciples suggest building a smaller fire, however, and to not build much of a ring, to scatter the rocks, etc., when breaking camp.

Leave no trace principles would advocate not creating a fire in the first place, maybe Leave Some Trace principles allow you to have a fire, leaving the ash and fire blackened scattered rocks.