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| Hiking | 18.70 Miles |
950 AEG |
| | Hiking | 18.70 Miles | | | |
| 950 ft AEG | | 29 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | So, this is my first post as a newbie to the forum as well as a Cabin Loop first-timer. This was an incredible backpack that my 14-yr old son and I thoroughly enjoyed, despite some mistakes in navigation! The weather was perfect- 65-70 degrees, sunny, with a nice breeze.
I checked the Coconino road closures ahead of time and the web site noted that nothing was closed. The plan was to park at Fred Haught trailhead and begin the East loop from Pinchot Cabin. However, 139A is closed about 1/2 mile from trailhead so we parked in a little clearing off the road side. [I am not at all familiar with the area, and didn't know that there were so many access points to the loop that would be accessible to my Honda CRV- now I know better!]
We had downloaded an excellent GPS route by GPSJoe, as suggested by many members. We arrived about 11:30 AM and hiked from the car to Pinchot Cabin, started off on Ubar Trail, and almost immediately got off the trail (hey, did you know that you have to actually look at your GPS for it to lead you in the right direction?). We didn't even realize- I just thought, "wow, there's no trail whatsoever here. Must not be well-traveled." We accidentally got back on the trail and were on our merry way. Traveling along a portion of Ubar that coincided with a forest road, we went along and shortly realized that we were way off trail AGAIN, having missed a turn at about 34.48638 N, -111.15238 W. We had diverged from the trail about 1.7 miles earlier, but were determined to get to Dane Springs, which we could see was straight across our diverged distance. So we bushwhacked down into a canyon 300 feet, then back up the steep other side. Then we went down into another canyon (lots of water in this one), seemingly just as steep, and went back up the other side. There may have been a moment of panic there for a minute as we climbed past mountain lion scat, piles of bones (including an intact (elk? deer?) leg complete with hoof and hair, and it seemed we were getting no closer to our waypoint for Dane Springs.
Anyway, as we climbed out of the second canyon, never was there a sound so welcome as that of barking dogs. We soon saw Dane Cabin and the people that went with the dogs- a group of 4 from Friends Hiking (moveyouraz, I believe?). They gave us great information, calmed my newbie nerves, and pointed us in the right direction. What a sight for sore eyes, and many thanks to these folks if they happen to read here. Before moving on, we filled up on that amazing Dane Springs water- I wish I had brought extra bottles!
From that point on, we never turned off the GPS and checked it often. Made camp about 1/2 mile north of Coyote Springs in a meadow of big bunch grass that made for a great mattress. The next morning, finished Ubar, started Barbershop. Went west a little ways and filled up water. Continued to the end of Barbershop and stopped for lunch, then turned north onto Houston Brothers trail.
We made camp about 1.5 miles south of Pinchot Cabin at Aspen Springs (?). [It was early afternoon, but we wanted to stay a second night to fulfill one of the requirements for the backpacking merit badge that my son is working on]. Took our time the next morning, and hiked back out to arrive at the car about 10 am. [Mileage of 20.2 miles includes our off-trail wanderings  ]
The tl;dr -- Zoom into your GPS to 120-300 ft. Watch it. Follow it. Awesome hike, plenty of water. Tons of great campsites. |
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Wildflowers Observation Moderate
Littleleaf pussytoes, Senecio, American yellowrocket, Astragalus, Mountain goldenbanner, woodland strawberry, Canadian white violet, wild pansy/violet, peavine |
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Aspen Spring |
Quart per minute |
Quart per minute |
| | | Plenty of water in the channel, but not flowing at a great pace |
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Coyote Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | Enough in the channel to filter, slow flow |
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Dane Spring |
Gallon per minute |
Gallon per minute |
| | | Excellent straight from the tap | | _____________________
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