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| Hiking | 8.25 Miles |
1,288 AEG |
| | Hiking | 8.25 Miles | 3 Hrs 38 Mns | | 2.44 mph |
| 1,288 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Tracey has been wanting to finish off her last unfinished bit of AZT #19 for quite some time now just happened to be the time.
Her plan was to hike from the Reavis North TH on Reavis Trail #109 to Pine Creek, camping overnight near Walnut Spring and exiting at the Two Bar Trailhead.
For my end of the deal, I would drive her to the TH, do an out-and-back hike while she continues on, then drive around to the Two Bar trailhead where I would car camp overnight. For the second day I planned on hiking out on AZT #19, up to the summit of Pinyon Mountain (which I had last summited in September of 2014), drop back down to AZT #19, and continue on until meeting up with Tracey before returning to the Two Bar TH.
The FIRST part of Day One went according to plan:
* Drive up AZ #87, AZ #188 to Roosevelt, AZ #88 down to FR #212 and finally up to Reavis trailhead:
Although AZ #88 is still unpaved, due to the ongoing pre-paving road-work it practically as smooth as a paved highway all the way to the FR #212 turn-off. (We had to wait at one spot for 12 minutes while workers unloaded a cement truck manually with shovels!) And FR #212 was no different, making it practical for even a low-clearance car to drive to the trailhead.
Video of the drive to Reavis North TH on FR #212 from AZ #88
* Hike out-and-back on Reavis Ranch Trail #109:
This was the easy part. Weather was perfect, a sunny day in the upper 50's to start. I hiked out 4+ miles with Tracey, stopped for a quick lunch and soloed back to the trailhead.
* Drive FR #212 down to AZ #88, AZ #88 up to Roosevelt:
Being later in the day the return trip on AZ #88 was a bit more dangerous due to significantly more traffic of all kinds. More cement trucks, plus graders and scrapers using both sides of the road, but the worst was the civilian traffic, a number of which were from out-of-state and seemingly freaking out by the single-lane parts (none of which sported guardrails) as they were completely on my side of the road coming around blind corners.
* Drive on AZ #188 to FR #83, following it all the way up to the Two bar Trailhead:
Although I had driven all the way to the Two Bar TH in 2014, I didn't remember it at all so it must have been an easy drive... but then again, I drove a well-modified Cherokee back then.
Anyway, MOST of the drive with the TRD Off-Road 4Runner was simply being careful to avoid sharp rocks and a few eroded spots, but the last mile I would only average 3 mph due to layers of uneven loose rock... driving in 4-Low, center and rear lockers engaged with Crawl Control enabled it just took time... and adrenaline, as up to that point I had never engaged all the electronic aids so all the noises it made engaging and disengaging individual wheel braking were a bit disconcerting. But no worries, other than picking up the 4Runner's first AZ pinstripes. A fine baptism it was!
So far Day One was going according to plan... but the day isn't over yet:
Although the drive after my out-and-back hike seemed to have taken an excessive amount of time, it was just after 2 pm when I reached the Two Bar TH.
So now what will I do to eat up the rest of the day?
I had a book to read on my tablet but I was reserving that for once it got dark.
Ok, so Pinyon Mountain is right there in front of me, and rather than wait until morning for my up-and-over-and-back onto AZT #19, vividly remembering the rough next bit of the AZT #19 from our failed back-pack attempt in 2014, I figured I'd leave that all for tomorrow and just knock out Pinyon... after all, it's just a quick up-and-down, maybe a mile-and-a-half round-trip? Let's git-er-done!
(But not so fast... that will be in the Pinyon Mountain triplog) |
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The views over the first 4 miles are really quite spectacular, though largely the same over the entire stretch. And while it's definitely worth doing, I certainly refreshed my memory of why all my subsequent trips were from the south. Nonetheless, it was nice to set foot on this stretch of trail once again.
It's not too often that the forecast is off by 20 degrees. Powers Garden is another spot with similar conditions!
We arrived at Rogers Trough a little before 7 when I realized I had forgotten my shoes at home. ](https://hikearizona.com/dex2/images/smilies/eusa_wall.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}
Knowing that it was a 90-minute drive back to my house, I thought the day was over before it started. Andy had a pair of Hoka sandals that were two sizes too small but I tried them on anyway. They were extremely tight but I decided to give them a shot and we headed off. 
