|
| | | |
| |
|
| Backpack | 14.80 Miles |
2,748 AEG |
| | Backpack | 14.80 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 2,748 ft AEG | | 25 LBS Pack | | |
|
|
| |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | What a great weekend of backpacking! I don't think I've ever seen so much water in the Superstitions. My group of 4 started from Peralta Trailhead onto Bluff Springs on Saturday morning, making it up Cardiac Hill in pretty good time. We saw water flowing down the trail in a few spots and knew we were in for a lovely trip. Tons of water at the bottom of Barks Canyon. Then we headed up Terrapin, which we wanted to revisit because our first experience of it was on our first ever backpacking trip — a hot and cloudless day in which that trail felt endless. I highly recommend coming down, not up, this one! Views were awesome with lots of big clouds, some of them looking a little stormy but never quite intersecting our path. We then headed onto Dutchman #104, a stretch that was new to us. We intended to scope out Charlebois and then camp farther on but in the end we peeked around and then missed the turnoff for it.  Oh well, we'll see it next time.
So far, none of the creek crossings were anything to sweat. Not so on the next 7. The first, just past Charlebois was the widest bit of water I've ever seen in the Superstitions. We all had opted to leave our camp shoes behind to allow for warmer layers (we reasoned we would be too cold to wear our sandals at camp) which we realized was a big mistake. We ended up crossing this creek, and the next few, barefoot.  It was cold but the sharp rocks were worse. Some of the crossings were deeper than you could see bottom of, others had strong currents. And all of them had some stepping stones, but nothing anywhere near resembling a path you could hop across. Sometimes looking across to where the cairn showed the trail picked back up was just hilarious.  Lesson learned. We found a great campsite on this stretch and warmed up with hot food and some strong cocktails after over 9 miles of hiking and negotiating cold creek crossings. We were beat.
Sunday morning hike out was beautiful. We were worried we would see rain but it was a really nice day. We finished Dutchman back over to Bluff Springs. In the crook of Barks Canyon, on the way out, there is a little cairn and trail leading up...anyone know where that goes? Anyway, we continued up out and in good time, still enjoying all the water along the way and the views up on the bluffs. I added a couple water reports. Unfortunately we had to switch between devices on the way and some data got lost. But basically, it's all flowing. Almost all the creek beds we walked through had flow. Really great trip overall. |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
so I was happy to keep it short and sweet. We paid and parked in the Sabino Canyon visitor's center lot then took the tram to the end to start out hike. We hiked up Sabino Canyon Trail #23 up then hooked onto the East Fork Trail towards Hutch's Pool. We ended up finding a great creekside campground enroute and set up camp. The icy creek was perfect for aching feet and chilling beers. After getting settled, and realizing how cold it felt sitting in the shade of the canyon, we grabbed our daypacks and continued on to Hutch's Pool. There were a few interesting campsites along the way but ours seemed the best. Lots of water in the creek from the visitor's center, all along our trail and tons at the pool. 
The night got really cold — we woke up to frost on our tents and chunks of ice in our nalgenes, and a strong determination to gear up before our next cold weather trip. The hike out was perfect weatherwise. We enjoyed the short hike and tram ride back to the car. We stopped at Tanias33 in Tucson for (vegan!) burritos and then headed back home. Great trip.
