One evening last week, John and I made a terrible discovery: Mary was getting too big to carry in the Snugli. We came to this realization when we tried to put her into the Snugli to go for a bicycle ride around the neighborhood. Mary screamed at the top of her lungs, and I pointed out to John that it looked like the Snugli was too tight for her, what with all of the bundles we had on her. "Oh, great," John sighed. "Now what are we going to do for backpacking?"

The answer, of course, was going to cost us about $230: we would have to buy a new backpack, one that was especially equipped to carry all of our gear and a child, too. We knew that Kelty made these types of packs, so John went to the Kelty web site to do the research. He found a model called the Expedition, which was designed to hold 3,800 cubic inches of gear as well as a child up to five years of age. The Expedition also had a sunshade with a rain flap to keep baby protected from the weather.

On Monday night (February 26) John went to Popular Outfitters to purchase his new pack. He took Mary and me with him. Although she was still battling a case of the stomach flu and had diarrhea, he needed to take the risk and put her in the pack to see if she would be able to ride in it. After a successful test ride in the store, John paid for the pack, and we took it home.

After packing and repacking the new backpack - and after taking Mary for more test rides in it when it was fully packed - John and I selected our next backpacking trip, which would take place March 3-4, 2001. We decided to do something in the Superstition Wilderness Area again, since we knew that the weather would be perfect there and that the creeks would be flowing with water (thanks to the nice, wet winter we had been having). John spent some time consulting The Hiker's Guide to the Superstitions and a map of the wilderness area, and from those sources, he carefully plotted out a loop for us to hike. This loop, which he would later call the LaBarge-Whiskey Springs Loop, would take us into regions of the Superstitions that we had not yet explored. We would begin at the Peralta Trailhead (where we had begun our last backpacking trip to Reed's Water in December 2000) and hike a series of trails that would complete a 13.5-mile loop up to Bluff Springs, down to LaBarge Canyon, up Whiskey Springs Canyon to Miners Summit, and across Barkley Basin.

We began our adventure at 6:00 a.m. on Saturday, March 3. With our backpacks fully loaded, we left the house and stopped at Einstein's bagels for breakfast en route to the Peralta Trailhead. Although the trailhead is located near town, it took us a little longer than usual to drive there due to freeway construction on US 60 - the Country Club bridge was being repaired, meaning that we had to detour. Since we knew about it in advance, we decided to take the Loop 202 instead to avoid US 60. We took the 202 to McKellips, took McKellips to Gilbert Road, then took Gilbert to US 60.

The detour did not delay us too much, though, because we still made it to the trailhead by 7:30 a.m. We took a few moments after we arrived to unload our gear from the van and to do a few last minute preparations (i.e. change Mary's diaper!); then, at 7:45 a.m., our hike into the Superstitions began.

We started on the Bluff Springs Trail #235, which leaves about fifty feet from the Peralta Trailhead, at a junction with the Dutchman Trail #104. Soon thereafter, the trail began to climb...and climb and climb! We gained 500 feet of elevation in the first half-mile! It was definitely a groaner for us, because we were so out of shape - that, and John was carrying sixty pounds on his back! Every time we reached a pass, we had to stop and take a breather so that we could continue climbing uphill.

When we reached the halfway point of our climb, Mary began to fuss a bit, so we had to stop to see what she wanted. That was when we encountered our first person on the trail: a European man wearing only a sweater and jeans and carrying a map of the Superstitions. He didn't have a daypack, nor did he have any water with him. He asked if we had seen anyone else on the trail and explained to us that he had been hiking with a friend of his. His friend was supposed to meet him at the trail junction for the Cave Trail but failed to show up. We replied that we had not seen anyone, so he continued on his way towards the trailhead.

With that, we proceeded to climb some more. Eventually, we "ran out of up" (so to speak) and began to descend into Bark's Canyon, where could hear the sound of water flowing in the creek - that is always a welcome sound when hiking in the desert! At that point, we took a packs-off break so that we could feed Mary and rest a bit before tackling the next major climb of the day: the climb out of Bark's Canyon towards the junction with the Terrapin Trail.

Although Mary was enjoying her new ride (it was much more comfortable for her than the Snugli), she still found reasons to fuss. At that point, she was hungry, so we had to take her out of the pack and feed her. Other times along the trail, she either wanted attention or she wanted to chew on something, like her teething blanket (did I mention that she is teething?). This slowed our progress quite a bit, because we would have to stop periodically to see to her needs, but this was to be expected when we began to take her on outings. We have now learned to compensate for that; we take frequent breaks while she is awake, and we make progress during nap times. We also have learned that, no matter how fast we do hike, it is still going to take us longer to complete our goal; we have already accepted the fact that it is going to take us five hours to complete seven miles.

After seeing to Mary's needs, we put her back in the carrier and continued our hike through Bark's Canyon, which I found to be very beautiful. Just before descending into the canyon, we were given some outstanding views of Weaver's Needle; and once we dropped into the canyon, I was amazed by the incredible hoodoos that made up the walls of the canyon. Then, as we began to climb out of the canyon, we found ourselves surrounded by wildflowers! They were everywhere, and it seemed that they were more here than there were at the trailhead. I stopped to take several pictures, even though I knew that the pictures could never do them justice - this was something that just had to be seen in person.

Having climbed out of Bark's Canyon, John announced that we had just completed our last steep climb of the day - that was good news, especially since I had twisted my ankle climbing out of there! Upon reaching the junction with the Terrapin Trail, we continued along the Bluff Springs Trail as it went down towards Crystal Springs, where we found the junction with the Dutchman Trail. Here, the Bluff Springs Trail ended, and John announced that we had already covered half of the distance that we were planning to hike that day, since we were planning to camp at Trap Canyon - more good news! On top of that, we were both still feeling good, despite the weight we were carrying, and we had made fairly good progress despite Mary's needs. I knew then that we were not going to have a problem completing our hike.

We stopped at Crystal Springs to take another packs-off break. This time, we laid out Mary's blanket and put her down on it so that she could play in the sunshine for a little while. While she did that, John left us for a few minutes to see if he could find Crystal Springs. Although the creek was flowing near the trail junction, he discovered that the spring itself was completely dry. With all of the rain that we had been having, we found that to be very unusual.

While we were stopped at the trail junction, we were suddenly met with heavy traffic. First, we were passed by a group of backpackers; then, a whole group of day hikers hiked past us! Although we knew that the Dutchman Trail was popular among day hikers and backpackers alike, we just weren't expecting to see so many people! We decided then that we needed to keep moving so that we could stay ahead of the crowds.

As we got moving again, we started hiking on the Dutchman Trail. From Crystal Springs, the trail flattened out as it wound through the desert along the creek. Then, it began to climb away from the creek and follow the contour of Bluff Springs Mountain as we bypassed Holmes Springs. (John pointed out that there is a spur trail that goes to Holmes Springs, but we would save that trip for another day.) Along the way, we were passed by a pair of backpackers who were on their way to LaBarge Springs, which, according to The Hiker's Guide to the Superstitions, was one of the most popular places to camp. The springs there are reliable, and there are lots of great campsites all along the creek. Had we been too tired to go on, we would have camped there, but we when arrived, we were still feeling very good.

At noon, we ate lunch at LaBarge Springs, under the shade of a mesquite tree. While John cut off chunks of extra spicy summer sausage and cheddar cheese, I fed Mary a jar of mashed bananas until she was completely full and ready to take a nap. At that point, we weren't far from Trap Canyon - in fact, we had already gone 5.6 miles, so we only had a little over a mile to go. Even though we were feeling good, we were definitely starting to get tired, so I was looking forward to finding camp and resting. I was also thinking of taking a nap, because I had not gotten much sleep the night before; for some reason, Mary had recently stopped sleeping through the night, so John and I were waking up several times a night to see what Mary wanted. (She was going through a developmental spurt and teething on top of that, so she didn't want to sleep. She resumed her normal sleep schedule later that week, though, much to our relief!)

As we left LaBarge Springs, we also left the Dutchman Trail and started hiking on the Red Tanks Trail, which would take us to Trap Canyon. While getting ready to resume our hike, we heard something that we would not have normally heard in the wilderness, something that made us glad that we had decided not to camp there: a loud stereo! What a way to ruin the wilderness experience!

During our stop at LaBarge Springs, it had started to get a little cold out there - in fact, it was cold enough that I had to put my jacket back on. As we got moving again, we noticed that there were quite a few clouds gathering overhead - clouds that looked like thunderheads. There wasn't supposed to be any rain in the forecast, but the more we looked at the clouds, the more we realized that the weather forecast could have been wrong. John was becoming very concerned and urged us to continue on at a quicker pace.

We reached Trap Canyon around 1:30 p.m. Although it had not started raining, the clouds were still looking very fierce. We started looking for a campsite in hopes that we could quickly set up camp and have shelter in case the skies opened up on us; however, we could not find a decent camp site at all. All of the spots that we found were very exposed and would not have given us adequate shelter from the weather. At the mouth of Trap Canyon, we stopped to take our last packs-off break so that John could scout out a campsite for us. When he returned, he announced that there wasn't anything ahead of us.

"Well," he said, "we could do one of two things. We could just camp here, or we could go onto Whiskey Springs. There are supposed to be plenty of good campsites there, and if we do get weathered out, we'll be one mile closer to the end of the trail."

Although I was very tired - and so was John - we decided to hike the extra mile to Whiskey Springs to seek out a campsite there. After all, John had a perfectly logical point: if we did get rain, wouldn't it be better for us to be six miles from the trailhead instead of seven? So we put our packs on again and continued to hike for another half-hour, until we reached the junction with the Whiskey Springs Trail.

After filtering water, we set up camp in a small but sheltered area right on the Red Tanks Trail, on the edge of a ten-foot cliff that overlooked the creek. We pitched the tent on one side of the trail and set up our campfire ring on the other side. Unfortunately, that meant that if we had any foot traffic, they would have to pass through our campsite, but as it was the only site we could find we would have to make do. (I was just so relieved to have that pack off of my back that I didn't care if a whole parade went through there!)

For most of the evening, John and I rested our tired bodies while we kept Mary entertained. Having been unable to do any backpacking in over two months, we were badly out of shape, so carrying our backpacks had been quite the challenge. We also had not done any hikes with a lot of elevation gain in a long time, so the steep climbs along this trail were challenging to us. And on top of that, John was "test-driving the limo" (as he called the new backpack) and had found that he needed to do some more experimenting with the way he had packed it. It was riding badly on his hips and on his right shoulder. He even had a little bruise on his waist where the pack had dug into him. (Part of the reason for that was, Mary kept leaning to her left in the pack, so that she could sightsee.) In addition to that, he had been carrying sixty pounds on his back - forty pounds of gear and twenty pounds of baby - and that took its toll on his feet. As for myself, my ankle was bothering me off and on after I had twisted it early on during the hike, and the weight of my pack was also causing my feet to ache.

As we sat around our campsite and rested our tired feet, two groups of backpackers passed by us. Both groups stopped to chat with us about where they were coming from and where they were going; both of them had been through Upper LaBarge Box, which we had planned to explore that day, had we gotten to camp earlier. They confirmed what we had read about the area: that it is just stunning!

Around 5:00 p.m., we started dinner. While John cooked our meal, I fed Mary a container of applesauce, which she devoured quickly. Then, as we ate our dinner, Mary sat in the doorway of the tent and watched us intently - she was very interested in our food, and every now and then she tried to grab for the pot or she made chewing motions with her mouth.

Sometime after dark, we managed to get her to take a nap, but by that time, John and I were too tired to fool around - and it was starting to get too cold for us to take our clothes off anyway! It had been a little chilly all day long, but once the sun went down, it really got nippy outside. Instead of taking our clothes off, we found ourselves putting on our thick winter jackets and huddling next to the campfire to keep warm. Then, once Mary was awake, we got her bundled up for bedtime - and this was something like a Chinese fire drill, as we both worked together to dress her as quickly as we could, to minimize her exposure to the cold. We started with a clean diaper, put thermal underwear on over that, then came a Carter's sleeper, then a bunting over that, and to top it all off, a cotton cap. When we put her into the tent at bedtime, we put her onto one of our camp chairs, which was covered by my lightweight jacket. Then, we put a comforter and her fleece blanket on top of her and, to add one more layer to be on the safe side, we put John's lightweight jacket on top of her comforter. Mary was not going to have a problem with warmth, not with all of those layers!

As we had discovered during our last backpacking trip, we now had a space issue in our tent: our two-man tent was not big enough for two adults and a baby. That meant that one of us would have to sleep outside of the tent. This time, John volunteered to make the sacrifice and sleep next to the campfire, while Mary and I slept in the tent.

Unfortunately, the only one who slept comfortably that night was Mary. John just could not get comfortable at all. The next morning, he found that he had been sleeping on twigs and rocks that somehow managed to become wedged between his sleeping bag and his camp chair. I couldn't get comfortable either, because for some reason I was very cold. It wasn't until 1:00 a.m., when I got up to answer nature's call (and to feed Mary, too - she had been waking up every night since she had the stomach flu) that I stopped shivering. During that time, I did manage to get some sleep, but it was very restless sleep. Then, I was awakened two more times after that - once at 2:30 a.m., and again at 4:00 a.m. - when Mary began to wail for no apparent reason (we think that it was due to her teething). She went back to sleep quickly, but I didn't.

Finally, sometime between 5:30 and 5:45 a.m., John and I both gave up on sleep, so we crawled out of our sleeping bags and started the day.

Due to lack of sleep and the cool morning temperature, we were all a little slow that morning. Both John and me were very sore from the hike the day before, and Mary was cranky from teething and from being wet (her diaper leaked all over her sleeper, thermal underwear and bunting). Again, we had to do a Chinese fire drill to get her changed out of her wet clothes and into her warm sweatsuit, and she was not happy about it. After that, though, we were able to get her to take a nap long enough for me to start packing my backpack, while John was at the creek filtering water for our camelbacks. Then, once she was awake again, he packed up his gear while I kept her entertained. Eventually, sometime after 8:30 a.m. - a little later than we had hoped - we were ready to go.

Our trek that morning began with a cool hike to Whiskey Springs, along the Whiskey Springs Trail #238. This part of the hike was very pretty, as we hiked upstream along the creek towards the springs. Part of the trip took us through a beautiful area that was sheltered with bright green mesquite trees; under these trees were several nice campsites. Apparently, like LaBarge Springs, that part of the Whiskey Springs Trail is very popular among backpackers, though we didn't see any campers there that morning. (In fact, John bet me that we probably wouldn't see anyone until we came to the junction with the Dutchman Trail.)

As we left Whiskey Springs Canyon, the trail began to climb towards the highest part of the trail: we would climb four hundred feet over a half of a mile. Although it didn't sound as steep at the first section of the Bluff Springs Trail, the numbers were deceiving. The first half-mile of the Bluff Springs Trail was just one, long, drudging climb uphill. This one was a long, drudging climb uphill with several short but steep sections; there was one section in particular where we climbed one hundred feet in one switchback! It was quite the groaner.

At 10:00 a.m., we reached the high point of the Whiskey Springs Trail, so we stopped to take a packs-off break and to enjoy the scenery. From this high point, we had an incredible three-sixty degree view of the Superstitions. On one side, we could see Picacho Butte, with its sheer red rock cliffs, and on the other, we could see Barkley Basin and Miner's Needle. While we were there, we also took off our jackets, because it was turning out to be a very warm day. The cloud cover from the day before had finally passed us by without any precipitation (for which we were grateful), giving us a sunny day for our return hike.

Once we were rested, we began our descent towards Miner's Summit. "Our descent?" I asked John when he mentioned it. When he said Miner's Summit, I was certain that that meant another climb uphill, but instead we would have to go downhill to get there. Of course, once John explained it to me, it made perfect sense. We were at the highest point of our hike (elevation 3,420 feet) which was on the Whiskey Springs Trail, and we were heading towards the highest point on the Dutchman Trail, which is much lower.

We descended a half a mile towards the junction with the Dutchman Trail, which was at Miner's Summit. I fell behind about a hundred feet because I stopped to take pictures of the scenery. Suddenly, I heard John yell out, "Shit!" and run back towards me. I continued towards him, completely convinced that he had seen a rattlesnake - it wouldn't have been a surprise! For one thing, the weather was perfect for the rattlers; second, that was John's typical reaction to seeing a snake on the trail. As I approached, I could hear the buzz that, at first, sounded like a rattler's tail.

Then, John came back to where I was and made me stop hiking and listen. That buzz I was hearing was not a snake at all; it was coming from an active hive of bees! John had walked into the middle of the hive before he knew what was going on; when he realized where he was, he turned tail and went back the way he had come, because he didn't want Mary to get stung. Fortunately, the bees didn't pursue him.

But that left us with a big problem: how to get past the bees! The swarm was huge; it was about the size of a small room, and it was focused around a large bush of wild daisies at the base of a young saguaro, about five feet to the right of the trail. They had also taken over the trail itself and would not let anyone pass through them. In addition, we did not know if they were Africanized. Fortunately, to the left of the trail, there weren't any bees at all, and we were able to cut a path around the swarm to get to the other side of the swarm.

Once we were safe, we breathed a sigh of relief then tried to put some distance between us and the bees. Minutes later, we arrived at Miner's Summit, where (just as John predicted) we encountered our first group of hikers, at the junction with the Dutchman Trail. After we warned them about the bees, we continued on our way without stopping to rest.

As we made our way down the Dutchman Trail, we began to feel like a fish swimming against the current. Every five minutes or so, we passed by another group of day hikers or backpackers. After a while, the trail became ridiculously crowded, as the Dutchman Trail usually is. And I could tell that they were all there for one purpose: to see the wildflowers! And they did not go away in disappointment, because Barkley Basin was covered with flowers. It was absolutely spectacular to see all of the wonderful colors; there were orange Mariposa poppies, yellow wild daisies, pink and purple and red Indian paintbrush, purple and blue flowers, in every size and shape, from the tiniest bloom to huge bushes of flowers. Even the scrub oak had little yellow flowers on them! I had never before seen so many colors in the Superstition Mountains, so it was quite the show. In fact, I almost didn't mind seeing all of those people; it was worth it to see all of the flowers.

As we made our way downhill towards Barkley Basin, we came upon a group of horseback riders, who had stopped at a pass to let their rides take a break. We paused there for a moment to let another group of hikers pass us; they, too, stopped to admire our little girl, who was completely fascinated with the horses. John asked permission of one of the riders to approach the horse and let Mary pet him, but the horse got spooked and backed away.

Once we reached the junction with the Coffee Flat Trail #108, we decided to stop and have lunch, so that we could rest up before attempting the last two miles or so of our hike. While John fed Mary applesauce, I cut off chunks of sausage and cheddar to eat. Then, we put a fresh diaper on Mary and put her back in the backpack. By 12:30 p.m., we were back on the trail and ready to conquer the last little bit of the trail.

It was a good thing that we had hiked this portion of the trail before, because we were getting very tired, and the heat was getting to us. It made it easier on us to have some sort of familiarity with the trail, to know exactly when it was going to start climbing. It was also nice to know where the water sources were, because we ran out of water only one mile from the trailhead, just before the last climb out of Barkley Basin. We stopped again for a packs-off break so that we could filter enough water to get us back to the car and so that we could rest up before we tackled that climb.

Fortunately, it didn't seem as long as it did last time. We trudged up that last little hill with very little effort, and as we came around the bend and saw the van for the first time, we were relieved to see that we were almost there! With only a third of a mile left, we caught our second wind for just a moment, just long enough to get us back to the trailhead. Just before 2:00 p.m. that afternoon, we finished the loop and arrived at the van, totally elated that we had completed such a nice backpacking trip.

We stopped for sodas and snacks at the Texaco in Gold Canyon on our way home. Then, when we got home, John prepared another one of his nice, Sunday meals to celebrate a somewhat successful test drive of "the limo". That evening, we relaxed with a bottle of wine and watched The Simpsons, but we were so exhausted that we were in bed soon after!

And that night, Mary slept all night - I guess we wore her out, too!

Return to Naked in the Woods.