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| Hiking | 7.80 Miles |
1,325 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.80 Miles | | | |
| 1,325 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | After Monday's nice hike on the Barbershop Trail http://hikearizona.com/x.php?I=4&ZTN=427&UID=42706, a nice night at Camp Thunder Elk and a hearty breakfast we arranged our vehicles to hike the U-Bar east to west.
Some bow hunters had set up camp at the east end trailhead, but they just waved as we set off. Made Dane Cabin quickly and stopped to enjoy the spring. The elk were bugling off and on but no thunder yet even though the skies were pretty dark. Lots of water down in Dane Canyon but someone had placed a thick log across the stream to make fording dry and easy. The elevation and a summer of not hiking much was showing on the climb up the other side of Dane.
By the time when we reached where the trail joins FR9616A, sprinkles had begun. Got the rain jackets on and hoped for the best. Fifteen minutes later the bottom fell out of the sky. I grew up in the southeast, so I've seen my share of heavy rain. This rivaled any experience to date. Huge wet cold drops fell so heavy that they felt like a punch.
Pulled out a small tarp and threw up a field expedient shelter and wished immediately the tarp was twice the size. Even with the rain gear, we were totally drenched by the time we crawled under it. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees and there luckily only a little wind. Found one of those cheap Mylar space blankets hiding, well swimming actually, in the bottom of my pack and wrapped that around us to save what body heat we had. Luckily our hastily chosen refuge was on a slight knoll because water soon pooled on the flat ground and impromptu streams formed on anything with a slope. We shivered and waited it out, and waited, and waited.
We still had to cross Barbershop Canyon and then a good hike yet to the end of the trail and the other vehicle. Several times the rain lessened a bit and we thought we'd get underway only for the downpour to come back with a vengeance. Finally it became just a steady hard rain and we decided enough was enough, took down the tarp and began to wade to freedom.
The trail was now a flowing stream a minimum of ankle deep and often deeper. My Moab Ventilators had ventilated long ago. MJ's feet we miraculously dry, but that wasn't going to last long. As we started down into Barbershop Canyon I was worried about how flooded it might be. MJ smiled, the first time in a while, pointing out a rushing waterfall alongside the last switchback where no stream normally exists. I knew there were now thousands of these new flows feeding Barbershop Creek and told her we might not could cross. The smile evaporated.
The normal Barbershop crossing is a delight -- skip over the 4 foot wide creek on 3 small rocks and stay dry and love the beauty of it all. We now faced angry racing water about 12 feet across and of an unknown depth. Still raining and runoff feeding the creek everywhere you turned, I knew this was as good as it was going to get for a while. Turning back was a lot of wet hiking and an unknown crossing at Dane. Or we could backtrack and bail onto FR145B and hope for a passing hunter to have pity and drive us back to one of our vehicles. I opted to try the water crossing, slowly and deliberately. Not too bad, a little over knee deep except for one hole. I faced up stream, kept my pole behind me and the other hand over to help MJ keep stable against the current. At least now her feet were as wet as mine. Made it across without incident.
Going up the west side of Barbershop Canyon was like climbing a waterfall. The runoff sheeted off the larger rocks up into the air soaking you even more. Everything was slippery and physically the environment was taking its toll. But I knew we were going to be fine so actually it was just an amazingly grand display of nature's force at this point. I tried to take some photos but the camera (a waterproof one) had fogged up and I had nothing dry to fix that.
We made the truck eventually and tossed the wet gear in back and climbed in hoping the heater worked SOON. Stopped by camp on the way to pick up the other vehicle and it hadn't even rained there. Miracles do happen we thought, a premature celebration as it turned out. By the time we drove back from retrieving the Jeep the deluge was hitting camp. We parked close, shed our wet gear and clothes, grabbed some snacks and crawled into our sleeping bags inside the dry tent.
The tarps kept the tent and most of the gear fairly dry. The sound of the rain on the tarp was soothing once we were warm. We napped until about an hour before sundown when the rain finally stopped. Decision time. Stay the night and hike again tomorrow as planned or chalk this one up as a learning experience and break camp and head down the hill to home. We broke camp. |
| _____________________
All you have is your fire...
And the place you need to reach |
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