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| Backpack | 13.13 Miles |
2,981 AEG |
| | Backpack | 13.13 Miles | 2 Days | | |
| 2,981 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Great overnighter with my cousin, and friend (who don't have HAZ accounts, yet...). Originally we had planned this to be a 2 night, 3 day trip, extending into the Happy Jack segment, but the storm on Friday put us up in a hotel in Payson. We knew we were going to wet this weekend (and we did), but we didn't want to be completely miserable.
Day 1:
Getting to the trailhead in the morning was an adventure within itself. We had to park one vehicle down at the Washington Park TH and the other on top of the Rim at the end of Segment 28. We eat breakfast and started heading up the Rim, and not 10 minutes outside of Payson there were car troubles and we were back in town fixing a broken alternator. We fixed the truck and headed back up the Rim. Once me and my friend got to the trailhead we were planning on ending at, we waited for my cousin to show up in the Jeep and eventually realized that there had been some miscommunication about exactly which trailhead we were ending at. This led to an hour and a half long search for each other (and cell service) on the 87 between the 138 and Clint's Well. Eventually we met up and decided to cut the Blue Ridge segment short by 5 miles because of lost time and parked the Jeep at the trailhead right after you climb out of East Clear Creak.
We head down to Washington Park Trailhead in the truck and met a thru-hiker named Richard there. He was waiting for some people to come bail him out of the rain, and he warned us of the cold/muddy conditions ahead on the trail. We decided to continue anyway.
As we climbed up the Rim (read: as I was huffing and puffing...) via the Colonel Devin Trail it started to rain and it eventually turned to snow as we reached the top of the Rim. There were still small patches of snow at the top, left over from the storm that happened that day and the day before, but mostly it was just muddy. We crossed the 300 and headed to General Springs Cabin. Since we only had another hour of sun light left, we started looking for a camping site as soon as we hit the single track. We found a nice little spot not too far down the trail, set up our shelters, and started working on getting a fire started. With how wet everything was it took quite a bit of babying to get a fire going, but we eventually got it. The night wasn't as cold as I thought it would be, but around 4-5 am it got a little too nippy for my clothing system (I really need to work on clothing...)
Day 2:
After waking up, preparing for the day, and breaking camp, we were off on the AZT again. The sun was shining, the sky was clear, but the trail was still pretty muddy due to melting snow. As we progressed through the day, the mud wasn't as big of a problem. The section along General Springs is awesome! The water was flowing great and the vegetation near the spring was very lush. As the sun warmed us, our spirits were lifted as we cruised through the pines. This was a great payoff after a wet and cold night.
We climbed out of the canyon and continued towards East Clear Creek. We stopped along a forest road, had some lunch, and enjoyed the wide open spaces dashed with Ponderosa along this section of the trail. Eventually we descended into the canyon which East Clear Creek flows through and crossed the creek. On the climb out we ran into another thru hiker named Mark, who was leap frogging with a bike and a car along the AZT. We stopped and talked with him for a while. He turned out to be a very experienced thru hiker, he said he was "one state short of a triple crown", so I tried to pick his brains as much as possible about pack weight, shoes, and other things related to backpacking. He was a really nice guy and we wish him the best on his adventures! We were all pretty stoked to have met someone with that much experience along the trail.
We finished the climb out of the Canyon and headed towards the Jeep. The views which extend to the other side of the canyon were spectacular! You could see the tops of pines for miles along the top of the Rim. We eventually reached the Jeep and headed back to the Washington Park TH to pick up the truck, before returning to the valley.
We all really enjoyed this hike. It wasn't too strenuous, but at times it had me catching my breath. The Rim is one of my favorite places in Arizona, so it was really fun to be able to climb it and hike back into it. Meeting 2 thru-hikers along the way was also a huge plus for the trip. We got wet and cold, but we still had plenty of fun! |
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