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| Hiking | 12.22 Miles |
2,138 AEG |
| | Hiking | 12.22 Miles | 7 Hrs 57 Mns | | 1.62 mph |
| 2,138 ft AEG | 25 Mns Break | | | |
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[ show ]
| partners | | It’s kind of an unwritten rule that if you get invited to hike in a remote part of the Supes and someone volunteers to drive FR213, you have to say  . I hadn’t figured out where to hike yet when Andy told me he and Jason were going to Peter’s Mesa and that Jason would drive. Easy choice to make. I hiked this trail one time before 18 years ago and it was my first official HAZ hike in that I hiked with and met 3 HAZ members and also made my first triplog. A lot my memories of it were hazy, but they came back as I did the hike.
Driving FR213 is hard enough. Driving it in the dark adds an element of difficulty.  Even as a passenger it’s not an easy ride. Two gates have been installed on the road now, which seems to be a pretty recent development.
We started off from the trailhead with the temperature at 36. Jason was about to start hiking down a catclaw choked drainage that was next to the trail marker that almost looked like a trail until I pointed out the arrow on the sign pointing to the left, down the near dirt road that continued a little further. It narrowed soon enough and followed Tortilla Creek. Just after the first mile it starts to climb up the first saddle. That climb was pretty rough with how steep it was, combined with the loose rock. The entire hike for me was very slow going. It didn’t really seem very strenuous for me, but the rip rap on the majority of this trail just slows me down. Y-Bar seems to be a good comparison. 
After the first saddle the trail descended a little bit and was easier to hike, then ascended a little bit to the 2nd saddle. Just below the 2nd saddle I lost the trail for a bit to one of the several side cattle/game trails that branch off. You have to keep your eyes open for most of this to make sure you’re still on the trail.
After the 2nd saddle (directly south of Tortilla Mountain), the trail makes a rough, steep descent into Peter’s Canyon and then levels off. The level part is a little easier to hike but we all lost the trail in a couple spots due to the overgrown catclaw. I had my sweatshirt on so the catclaw didn’t really bother me that much, especially after our experience with the Story Mine earlier this month in the Mazatzals.
The trail heads up out of Peter’s Canyon to Peter’s Mesa after a couple miles. Andy and Jason waited for me to catch up before we made it up. Jason originally had the idea to hike the entire trail out to the Dutchman Trail and back, but by this point none of us were really feeling that. We got to the overlook just as the trail makes the final descent down to the Dutchman Trail and had lunch there. Looking down at the creek in LaBarge Canyon we knew there was no way were walking down another mile just to turn around and come back up.  
The hike back was also very slow going for me. I usually speed up a bit more as the day goes on, but the loose rock and steep parts of the trail were bad. The hike back up the 2nd saddle was some work, the higher you get the steeper the trail is. The worst part was the hike down from the first saddle back into Tortilla Creek. It’s the 2nd to last mile of the hike for the day and it took the longest. Once I got past that, the last mile along Tortilla Creek wasn’t so bad.
Got to the trailhead about 3pm with Andy and Jason waiting. The ride back on FR213 was a little easier in the daylight, especially since I wasn’t driving. Along the last brutal segment on the bare rock Andy and I got out of the car and made some video documentation of how to successfully navigate the steps on that road. Jason might make an instructional video on his YouTube channel so everyone can learn.   |
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