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| Hiking | 10.30 Miles |
2,812 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.30 Miles | 6 Hrs | | 1.83 mph |
| 2,812 ft AEG | 23 Mns Break | | | |
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| partners | | Finally got some new tires on the Stillermobile, so I'm good to dare out on the rougher roads of the eastern Supes. This was one I had my eye on to do for a little while, and this time of year is probably the best. At the end of last week's hike to Broadway Cave, I mentioned it to Wally and he liked it. I told him I would send my usual follow up confirmation email next week to confirm. But, sometimes, things fall thru the cracks.
I arrived at Wally's darkened house at 5:28am, with no Wally outside. Uh-oh. Oh yeah, I forgot to send that email. I decided to go ahead and ring the doorbell, as soon as I could find it in the dark. The door opened just enough for him to stick his head out, no glasses and squinty eyes.
"You weren't gonna do it. It's not on the Wishlist."
"I forgot to email you. I'm sorry. My fault. I almost forgot to message Andy until yesterday afternoon. I kept meaning to email you..." 
"No problem. I meant to email you."
"Yeah, I was supposed to email you, anyway, my bad, I'm sorry.  "
"ok"
and the door was closed.  Now, if I hadn't known Wally for 13 years now, this might seem rude. But I knew what the abrupt shutting of the door meant. He wasn't going back to sleep. And he knew where we were going. We was going to catch up with us. there was a precedent set for this 11 (OMG, THAT long ago?) years ago. I had to move, Andy was waiting.
Andy said to meet at the Safeway at Ellsworth and Baseline. I pulled in and saw no Safeway. then I could tell after a few minutes that the Safeway had closed. After a few more minutes, Andy pulled in. I drove over to him.
"I forgot to do the confirmation email to Wally, so he might be out. But, maybe not. He's probably going to catch up with us."
"we can call him to see"
"yeah, that's not how this works.  "
We arrived at the trailhead about 7:30am, and got ready. Within 5 minutes, I could hear a car driving up.
"Here he is."
"You guys haven't started yet? I even stopped for gas."
"Oh man, you were right!"
And we did the hike.
Bull Basin is kind of overgrown. Not terrible. Uphill with the overgrowth, loose rock, and steep. At the saddle we all felt pretty spent. On the way up to the saddle, Wally pointed out some not at all obvious ruins and casually found several pottery sherds along way and set them on rocks so we could see them. Andy and I had to concentrate on keeping our balance and breathing. We noticed the faint trail shortcut over Govt Hill to Paradise along that ridgeline. Another day. 
Downhill felt better at first, then it seemed like a slog until the low point. The lower we got, the worse the overgrowth at points. Finally I reached the bottom with Wally waiting and had lunch while we waited for Andy. He had some work related satellite texts to deal with that held him up, so Wally started to head back up the trail before he found him almost immediately (after I wolfed down my lunch).
The hike back uphill wasn't so bad. We knew we did 1700' out of 2600', this should be a cakewalk.  Bit of a slog in places, not very bad. At the 2nd saddle it was all downhill from there. the trail was much less overgrown, but still a bit in spots. A protruding branch smacked me in my temple on the way down at one point. Other than, that, the last mile the soreness kicked in and slowed me down a bit.
Lots of water out there still. Very nice to hear the running water and make the many stream crossings necessary. Several spots on all the trails seemed to follow the stream bed at times, making it a little confusing at first, but easy to navigate. Very fun day in the Supes with great weather and great company.  |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
Pretty decent water out there and saw no one on trail, just campers at Miles TH. Probably wouldn’t do Bull Basin all the way through again unless there’s future maintenance.
We noticed the short cut route at the fence line that goes over Government Hill ridge but saved that for another trip. No critters on the hike but I did slow down for 4 mules does on the drive out. All in all a successful hike with good company.
only one spot left to set up camp 
We made the best of the situation and it turned out, no problem, was all quite around us. 
After we set up camp, gathered all the camp wood, we set out on West Pinto to Cuff Button and returned. Met a young lady heading up to Oak flats to set up camp, found out she was part of the Arizona Conservation Corps, and rest of the group was joining her on Tuesday. The plan was to scout out all the trails in the area, and process them for future trail maintenance this summer and have work done by next fall. 
. Kidding.
