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| Backpack | 52.00 Miles |
1,260 AEG |
| | Backpack | 52.00 Miles | 4 Days 14 Hrs | | |
| 1,260 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This was only my second backpacking trip, the first being only 2 days and 16 miles. My self my buddy Doug and 3 14-15 year old boy scouts made the whole trip in 4 and a half days. We started at the 260 trail head on Monday May 23 about 10 am and reached the Pine trail head by 2pm on Friday May 30 where we camped another night to await our ride back to the car on Saturday. This has to be the best hike I have done so far. The trail is a bit diverse thanks to the fire damaged areas. Our goal for the first day was to make it from the 260 trail head to Horton Springs. However, we did not acomplish that and ended up camping around the bottom center of Promitory Bute just past the spot were there are two signs about 50 feet apart giving totaly different milages to Horton Springs. We found out the first night that it was alot colder at nights than we had planed for given the recent drop in temp. Due to the ban on camp fires we just had to suck it up. It took us longer to get to Horton Spring than we had figured, but when we arrived it was well worth it. If you go here you have got to take the extra time to walk to the top of the creek where you can see the water coming full forsce out of the rocks, pretty amazing. We tried to make up time the second day by hiking on in to the night but still did not reach our second days destination. I do not know exactly where we camped that night but it was about half way between Horton Springs and Washington Park. Probably the coolest thing on the hike was that second night. right after the sun set as we were still hiking we started to see elk. At one point we came to a spot which was rather grassy with mostly bushes and few trees where I noticed some elk on a hill not to far from us. The boy that was at the front of the group with me and I started sneeking around to get abetter look at them when we kept noticing more and more elk headed to the area. A couple of the elk came within about 100 feet of us and then continued on with the others. We went a little ways further where we could see where they were going when we saw that there was a large group of youn elk sparring while larger elk stood higher on the hill watching. We coulnted at least 14. I feel pretty lucky to have seen this. The third day we finaly caught up to were we wanted to be and spent the evening at the Washington Park trailhead, despite one extremely long climb during the hottest part of the day. The following morning when I crossed the road there to go dig my morining cathole I jumped three elk out of the bushes. Our forth day was rather short ending at Bray creek. We spent the afternoon there improving the campsite so that the boys could get some service hours while on this trip in order to earn there 50 mile patch. Well rested after that night we made the entire rest of the trip by 2pm on Friday. That night we walked into town and rewarded ourselves with dinner at the Rimside Grill were I am surprised they did not kick us out becouse of body oder and being rather roudy. The funniest thing about that is that for fun we broke out our water filter and began pumping water from our glasses to our water bottles.
Overall, we did not have a hard time finding water until after the camp Geronimo area. The nights were cold and the days were very pleasent. The portion of the hike that goes through the dude fire area really wasnt the hottest, and gave an opporitunity for great views and to watch the wildlife. We saw 5 snakes; 2 different kinkds of rattlers, 2 sonoran kings, and 1 bull snake. We also saw tons of elk, and we did see a large bear on our drive back along the top of the rim. The hottest, dryest portion of the trail was the last day. The creeks and springs at the end had very little if any water and the forestry service or some one has cut almost all ot the trees down near the Pine trail head making it very hot and uneventful. The biggest improvement that I could see would be putting large trash cans at each major trail head, especialy the Washington Park trailhead. Overnight campers have left a ton of trash at these areas.
Trails like this one really make me love hiking and backpacking. I just might make this an annual event. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
. Left friday evening around 5pm and returned the following day around 4pm. There is alot to see along this trail; Charleston ruins, Millville ruins, tons of petroglyphs, Boston mill ruins, the ranch, Fairbanks ghost town, the San Pedro River, and of course illeagals. Crossed paths with 7 illeagals, 5 of them ducked of the path and hid until we passed and the other 2 just waved at us. The trail was fairly simple and flat aside from a few small hills. We got to see some deer and even a ringtail. The trail was quite cool near the river yet rather warm on the rest of the trail.
