Backpacking during the shoulder season can sometimes be difficult.  In the spring, when it starts getting too hot in the desert, we like to set our sights for the high country; but sometimes, the mountain regions are still too cold - and the ground still too snow-packed - for us to camp there.  And this spring was no exception. 

The solution, of course, is to try to stay between 3,000 and 5,000 feet in elevation during that time of year.  The challenge, though, is trying to find a trail with a reliable water source...and preferably one that is not going to be packed with winter tourists.  With those requirements, we didn't have many options. 

After much research, John narrowed our options down to two: the Red Rock/Secret Mountain Wilderness near Sedona (starting at the Secret Mountain Trailhead, off of Dry Creek Road), or the Deer Creek Trail #45, in the Mazatzal Wilderness Area. Both areas had a guaranteed water source, and we knew that they wouldn't be too difficult for us to hike, seeing as we were in bad shape.  In the end, we chose to do Deer Creek, for two reasons: 1) the tourist population; and 2) the drive to Deer Creek was much shorter.

We decided to do our backpacking trip during the weekend of April 24-25, which was the first available weekend that we had to ourselves.  And even that weekend proved to be a challenge.  John and I had tickets to the Arizona Opera Company's production of The Barber of Seville on Friday, April 23.  In order to make our backpacking trip work, we had to prep our gear early in the week; we also had to arrange to pick Mary up early from Bill and Erika's house on Saturday morning, to ensure that we could get started on our hike before it got too hot in the high desert.

Naturally, we made it work out for us.  On Thursday night, we completely packed up our gear.  With this being the first backpacking trip of the year - and with a forecast of beautiful, warm weather for the weekend - John and I had the opportunity to use our new down sleeping bags for the first time.  These sleeping bags - the REI Halo 25 - are rated at twenty-five degrees, are lightweight, and compress to the size of Mary's sleeping bag - basically, just smaller than a soccer ball.  They are so small that we had to put something else with them in the sleeping bag compartment of our backpacks, to fill up the dead space.  As a result, my backpack was the lightest it had ever been.  "I could carry this thing all day long!" I told John as I walked around the living room with it strapped to my back.

On Friday night, John and I attended the opera at Symphony Hall in downtown Phoenix.  The performance was exceptional, and John and I laughed our heads off.  Of course, it didn't help that we kept thinking about the Bugs Bunny spoof called "The Rabbit of Seville"; thank goodness we didn't have a bald guy sitting in  front of us in the audience!

After a late night at the opera, 5:00 a.m. Saturday came too fast.  John and I dragged ourselves out of bed and slowly started the day.  By 6:30, we had all of the gear loaded in the 4Runner; by 6:45, we were at Bill and Erika's house to pick up Mary.  And by 7:00 a.m., we were on the road, heading towards the Deer Creek Trailhead.

On the way to the trailhead that morning, we stopped to find two geocaches, hidden just off of the Beeline Highway.  John explained that there was also one geocache for us to find at the trailhead and another two along the trail.  "Didn't we already find one at the trailhead, three years ago?" I asked.  The last time we had hiked the Deer Creek Trail, in March 2007, we found a geocache at the trailhead and another at the junction with the South Fork Trail #46.  John wasn't sure if those two caches were still there but said that more had been added since then, and his intention was to find them.

We arrived at the trailhead at 8:45 a.m.  As soon as we pulled up to the trailhead kiosk, we realized that the geocache we had wanted to find was still a tenth of a mile away...back at the highway.  We had driven right by it without checking the GPS to see where it was.  That said, we decided that it could wait until the next day, after we were done with our backpacking trip.

Once we had our gear together, we closed up the 4Runner and stepped out onto the Deer Creek Trail #45, to begin what we hoped would be our first successful backpacking trip of the year.  (We had already aborted one trip, in January, when the weather didn't cooperate with us.)  Our goal was to hike to the Mazatzal Wilderness boundary, at 3.3 miles, and camp just beyond there at Windsor Camp, but we weren't locked into that.  If we were doing well, we would go beyond that point; if not, we would stop short, as long as we could find a good campsite next to Deer Creek.

As soon as we stepped onto the trail, we were taken into the wonderful world of wildflowers.  The wet winter had brought with it the fuel needed to produce the most vibrant display of wildflowers that we had seen in a long time.  There were bright purple hedgehogs, yellow and white daisies, bluebells, orange poppies, white calla lilies, and so many others that we couldn't even name.  It was absolutely amazing!

And along with the wildflowers came the ants...lots and lots of ants.  Every fifty feet or so along the trail, we came across another ant hill, teeming with large, black ants.  This worried us a bit; obviously, we didn't want to camp where there was a giant ant hill!

After cresting the first ridge and passing by the junction with the Gold Ridge Trail #47, Mary started having problems with her pack.  She stated that it was riding funny and that it was hurting her shoulders.  We stopped in some shade so that John could do some pack adjustments for her, and that seemed to do the trick...for now.

Despite Mary's pack troubles, we still managed to hike at a good pace that morning.  By 9:20, we reached the first gate, a quarter of a mile from the trailhead; and by 9:30, we reached the junction with the South Fork Trail #46.  There, we stopped for another break, so that John could adjust Mary's pack again; it still wasn't riding right, so he decided to repack it to see if that would do any good.  She tried it on and said that it was fine, so with that, we continued on our hike.

From the junction with the South Fork Trail, the trail continued downhill and soon crossed over the South Fork of Deer Creek, which was mostly dry.  There, we momentarily lost the trail; the footpath had long since washed away, along with the cairns, so we had to take our best guess as to how to get across.  Once on the other side of the creek, though, we found the trail quite easily and didn't have any more problems.

At that point, the trail began to meander along Deer Creek, which was flowing with water.  Even with the fire damage from the Willow Fire of 2004, the area is still very pretty; a lot of the sycamores that once lined the creek are all gone, but there was an abundance of wildflowers and green grass to give new life to the area.  It is also one of the easiest sections of the trail; it's as flat as can be, and that made for a very pleasant hike.

We soon came to the site of David Gowan's farm, at which there is still an old windmill and a tank; there is also a geocache hidden nearby, and we stopped to retrieve it.  We considered taking our first break there as well, but with the ant population all around us, we didn't have a choice but to move on until we found someplace that was ant-free.

We stopped to take a break about five minutes later, under the shade of a mesquite tree, in an area where there weren't a whole lot of ants.  By that time, Mary couldn't wait to get her backpack off; it still was not riding well, and her shoulders were hurting.  John took a look at her pack, trying to determine just why it was riding so poorly, and it was then that he suddenly realized that he was making the wrong adjustments.  When we bought the backpack, Mary was only eight years old, and the shoulder straps had been adjusted to their shortest settings, to fit her small form.  Nearly two years had passed, but we had not readjusted her pack to account for the fact that she had grown several inches.  Once John figured that out and refitted her backpack, it was perfect, and she was able to wear it without any further issues.

As we continued our hike, we soon came to a place where the trail had completely washed away.  As a result, the trail had been rerouted on the ridge above it...and it wasn't any better either.  The new trail was steep, slippery, narrow, and treacherous, as there were sections that had already eroded.  It was not fun; but fortunately, it was short and we were soon back on good trail again.

Shortly after that, the trail began to climb away from the creek and up to the top of a ridge, where we passed through another gate.  At that point, we stayed high above Deer Creek for about a half of a mile, while we hiked through groves of manzanita and scrub oak.  It was very exposed, and it was starting to get a bit hot as well; Mary was already sweaty.

After descending from the ridge, we came to the site of David Gowan's grave.  David Gowan was once a prospector who lived in the area in late nineteenth-early twentieth century.  He was also the person who discovered Tonto Natural Bridge.  Gowan died in 1925 and was buried on the land that he called home; his headstone, however, shows that he died in 1928, because the wrong information was put there.  The last time John and I hiked the Deer Creek Trail, we saw that someone had set up a small fence around his grave; now, that fence was nothing more than a few charred stumps, after it had been burned by the Willow Fire.

Near Gowan's grave, there was another geocache hidden, but it was buried deep enough in the trees that we didn't want to look for it with full packs on.  Since it was almost lunchtime, we decided instead to search for a place to eat lunch; then, we would return there, without packs, to retrieve the cache.

While looking for a place to have lunch, John spied what appeared to be a campsite, across Deer Creek, at the junction with Bar Canyon.  It was, in fact, a beautiful campsite, set just above Deer Creek and shaded with sycamore trees.  There was even a fire ring, as well as logs on which to sit nearby.  And, there weren't any ant hills nearby!

So, the question was: do we stay there and camp, or do we continue on?  Although John and I were feeling great and could have easily gone on, we could see that Mary was getting tired.  The struggles with her pack had worn her out, and so had the scramble on the rerouted trail.  That was what swayed our decision to stay there for the night.

After lunch, we set up our camp, and right away, John and I laid down to take a nap - mainly because that late night at the opera was finally starting to catch up with us.  Meanwhile, Mary played in her tent - and later, by the creek - to keep herself occupied.  Surprisingly, though, she never once took a nap, even though she was just as tired!

Although our intention had been to take a day hike up the trail, it ended up being a lazy afternoon at camp instead.  Following our nap, John and I played with Mary in the creek, which was cold and refreshing in the hot afternoon.  At one point, Mary fell into the creek and was completely soaked; she stripped off her wet clothes and was soon naked in the woods!  (But not for long; we did make her put dry clothes on.)

It wasn't a completely lazy afternoon, though.  Around 3:00 in the afternoon, John and Mary decided to hike back up the trail a tenth of a mile, to find the cache near Gowan's grave.  They found it, and then they returned to show me what they had found inside of it: a deck of playing cards, made on recycled paper, and a 2G USB flash drive!  Mary couldn't wait to play a game with the new deck of cards, so we promised that we would play with them after dinner.

As dinnertime approached, Mary and John and I went in search of firewood, in preparation for the evening.  Thanks to the Willow Fire, there was a lot of down wood lying about near camp, and we were able to gather a good pile of it.  As John brought an armful back to camp, he noticed that the wood had a distinct scent to it; and that was because it was cedar!  What a lovely smell it produced when burned; it was one of the most fragrant campfires we had ever had!

After dinner, John and Mary and I spent a wonderful evening next to the campfire, playing Rummy with the new deck of cards that Mary had obtained and enjoying the warmth of the cedar-scented campfire.  It was a perfect ending to a great day.

At 7:15, after eating her pudding for dessert, Mary decided to crawl into her tent to read before bed.  What was funny was, we never heard a peep out of her after that; in fact, she fell right to sleep as soon as she tucked herself into her sleeping bag.  Shortly thereafter, John and I decided to follow suit; at 8:00 p.m., after letting the fire die down a bit, the two of us retired to our tent...

All three of us slept peacefully that night, which was an amazing feat in and of itself.  I normally sleep poorly out in the backcountry; it's either too cold, the ground is too hard, or someone is snoring too loud.  On this particular night, though, the conditions were perfect, and I slept soundly all the way until 5:00 a.m.  And there's nothing like being bright-eyed and bushy tailed in preparation for a return hike...

...except that I almost had to do it with no coffee!  And no breakfast either...

With our gas camp stove still broken, following our Canadian adventure (the one that involved having to dismantle the stove in order to pack it in our checked luggage when we flew to Calgary), John had decided to bring our butane/propane stove instead, despite the fact that we weren't quite sure how much fuel was left in the canister.  It turned out that there was only enough to cook dinner the night before; by morning, there was only enough for it to sputter out a few flames before it died.  Fortunately, we had a nice, hot campfire going by then, so we were able to boil enough water to make my coffee and to prepare the MRE that we had brought for breakfast.

After breakfast, we packing up our campsite, while Mary put out the fire.  To do so, she took one of our Nalgene bottles and filled it up with creek water, then poured it over the coals.  She made several trips and was doing well...until her last trip, when she lost the lid to the Nalgene bottle!  It fell off and was washed downstream so fast that by the time we came to help her, it was already gone.  Unfortunately, it meant that we had one less bottle for water to take with us on the return hike; so I guess it was a good thing that it would only be a two and a half mile hike.

We set off just before 8:30 a.m., in hopes of completing our hike before it became too hot.  Within ten minutes, we started the long climb up the ridge: a climb that we were glad to do while the weather was cooler!  By the time we reached the top, Mary was already getting whiny; but at least that was the biggest climb of the day...and it was already over!

During our return hike, we only encountered one other person on the trail: a woman, who was out photographing the wildflowers with her Cannon DSLR.  We paused to talk to her about the various wildflowers that we had seen along the way; we also warned her about the rerouted trail, which had given us lots of trouble both coming and going.  She asked if we had seen any snakes, too; surprisingly, we had not seen any during the whole trip, and we were happy to report that!  Before we left her to finish her hike, we asked her to take a family picture of us, and she was happy to help.

As we drew closer to the trailhead, we began to find more of the bright purple hedgehog blooms that we had enjoyed so much the day before.  John stopped to take some pictures of them and noticed that there were caterpillars inside of them.  He was able to zoom in on one and captured a stunning, close-up shot of the caterpillar - so close up that we could see its mouth!

We completed our hike just after 10:00 a.m.  As soon as we were back at the 4Runner, we loaded our gear then drove over to the highway so that we could look for that one geocache that we had missed when we arrived.  The cache was not on the road, though; we had to stop short and hike 500 feet to it...thank goodness we found it!

There were two other caches that John hoped to find before we headed back to Phoenix.  Both of them were located along SR 188, just on the other side of the Beeline Highway from the Deer Creek Trailhead.  The first one was an easy park-and-grab and was attached to one of the highway signs.  The other one, however, was a little more difficult to find.  It was located next to a Smokey the Bear sign, but the GPS was starting to act funny, so we had to rely on our caching instincts to find it.  I eventually found it buried under a pile of rocks next to a sign.

Once we had found all of the caches that John had downloaded onto the GPS, it was time for us to head home from our first successful backpacking trip of the year!  Hopefully, there will be more trips like that one later in the year!

Return to Naked in the Woods.