In preparation for our upcoming trip to the Canadian Rockies, John suggested that we try to get in as many backpacking adventures as possible, in order to build the stamina that we would need to conquer the hikes that we had planned.  That said, we would be spending every available weekend in the backcountry to help us get ready for our trip.

We had one such opportunity during the weekend after Memorial Day - May 30-31.  After doing some research on trails, John selected for our hike the U-Bar Trail, which is part of the historic Cabin Loop on the Mogollon Rim.  We had already hiked sections of the Cabin Loop - Houston Brothers, Fred Haught, and Barbershop.  However, we had not hiked the U-Bar Trail yet - at least, not as a family.  John had attempted to do the entire Cabin Loop by himself while Mary and I were vacationing in Baltimore last year, but he had to abort his trip early due to severe blisters.  (That in and of itself was very odd, considering that his boots were already broken in and neither one of us had gotten a single blister from our hiking boots in a long time.)

Our choice of the U-Bar Trail would be good practice for the backpacking trips that we had planned for our trip to Canada.  From Pinchot Cabin, at Houston Draw, to Dane Canyon (where we planned to camp), the trail was 3.7 miles in length, according to one source.  The trek entailed hiking through several draws, which would involve some minimal elevation change; we would also have a steep drop into and an equally steep climb out of Barbershop Canyon.  Nothing that we couldn't handle, of course.

To prepare for our backpacking trip, we spent time Thursday and Friday night packing our gear.  One thing that I insisted on bringing was our rain gear, although John stated firmly that there was no rain in the forecast for the weekend in the high country.  I disagreed, citing that we needed to be prepared anyway, because the weather had been very odd.  Although it was only May, we had already begun to see weather patterns similar to the monsoons, which typically didn't start until late June or early July.  There had already been several thunderstorms in the Valley; and in the high country, there had been storms nearly everyday.  Given our luck with rainy weather and backpacking, I wasn't taking any chances.

On Saturday morning, May 30, John and Mary and I loaded the 4Runner with our backpacking gear and our new hiking sticks.  We then set out extra food and water for Bootsie, our eleven-month kitten, to make sure that he would have plenty to eat while we were gone.  Bootsie, however, was nowhere to be found when it was time to go.  Naturally, he was out carousing through the neighborhood and did not come when we called him back into the house.  That meant that we were going to have to leave him outside for the whole weekend.

At 7:30, we pulled away from the house and started down the street...and wouldn't you know it?  We found Bootsie two houses down, running towards home.  D'oh!  John stopped the car, and I got out to go get him.  He ran right up to me, of course, so I picked him up and brought him into the car with me, so that we could take him home. 

At 7:40, we left again; this time, Bootsie was safely in the house, so we were free to leave without having to worry about him while we were gone!

To get to the trailhead at Pinchot Cabin, we drove north on the Beeline Highway (SR 87), through Payson, Pine and Strawberry, to the top of the Mogollon Rim.  About ten miles past the gas station at Clint's Well, we turned right onto FR 95 and continued along that dirt road for about twelve miles, until we reached Houston Draw. 

A lot had changed since we last visited the Houston Brothers Trail, back in 2003.  There was now a fence and a gate at Houston Draw; it had obviously been placed there to keep all-terrain vehicles out of the area.  (We would find similar gates at different points along the trail.)  John stated that the gate was so new that it wasn't even there when he did the Cabin Loop the year before. 

We parked across the road from the gate and quickly geared up for our hike.  It was already 10:30 a.m. - a much later start than we had hoped - so we needed to get moving if we wanted to camp in Dane Canyon.  According to John, there weren't really any other places to camp along the U-Bar Trail, not even in Barbershop Canyon, which meant that cutting our trip short was not an option.

We started hiking at 10:35 a.m.  Our trip began with a short walk to Pinchot Cabin (0.18 of a mile in length), where we found the trailhead for both the Houston Brothers and the U-Bar Trails.  Of course, we couldn't start off on the trail until we had paid a visit to the cabin.  The cabin was now boarded up, most likely by the Forest Service, which said to me that they were trying to keep vandals out of it.  Sadly, not even sheets of plywood could keep them out, though; someone had ripped out a large section of the board that covered the door - large enough for someone to crawl through to the inside. Pigs!

Having shown Mary the cabin site, we then continued on.  The U-Bar Trail started from the trail register and immediately climbed up to the top of the ridge by way of an old, closed forest road.  At the top of the ridge, we passed through another Forest Service gate and continued to follow the old forest road as it crossed over the top of the ridge.  This part of the trail was flat; it was also exposed, so we were out in the direct sunlight.  It was already a very warm day - much warmer than we anticipated.

The old forest road soon came to a T-intersection with another forest road - one that we recognized as the road that we had taken to Aspen Spring, where we had once done a multi-family camping trip with Bill and Erika and the Guckenburgs.  We turned right onto that road and followed it for about a quarter of a mile, until we found a trail sign.  At that point, we left the road and began following a narrow footpath through the forest.

We continued along the footpath for a while.  Except for the two draws through which we hiked, the trail was mostly flat; it was also well-shaded and cool.  Surprisingly, it was popular, too; along the way, we were passed by three bicyclists, who were out for a ride on the trail.  They kept going straight, down what looked to be the trail, so we followed, thinking that they were going in the right direction.  When they turned around, we realized that we were no longer on the trail; we had missed a turn several yards back; so we turned around, too, and returned to the point where we had last seen a cairn.  The trail had indeed turned to the right; once we were back on track, we didn't lose the trail again.

A few minutes later, the trail intersected with Forest Road 139.  By the time we reached that spot, it was lunchtime; we crossed the road and sat down next to a group of logs to eat our sandwiches.

In the ninety minutes that we had been hiking, the weather had changed drastically.  It had started out warm and sunny; now suddenly, there were storm clouds gathering in the distance, and a cool breeze had picked up.  John was still not convinced that it was going to rain. He looked at the clouds and said that they were still too far off; they probably would not reach us.

In addition to the change in the weather, there was also a haze in the air, over Barbershop Canyon, into which we were about to descend.  The haze had the appearance of fog, but we soon realized that it wasn't fog at all: it was smoke!  We knew that there was a prescribed burn in the area - we had seen the signs at the intersection with the Control Road, just south of Pine - so we figured that the smoke was coming from that.  Ironically, the first time that we had ever hiked Houston Brothers, there was smoke in the air, too - smoke that came from a wildfire near Washington Park, just below the Rim from the Cabin Loop. 

After lunch, we packed up our trash and started hiking again...and that was when it started raining!  It wasn't a heavy rain, but it was enough that we had to stop and pull out our raingear.  We were very glad that we had brought it with us!

As soon as we got underway again, we began our descent into Barbershop Canyon.  The trail descended gently at first; then, after passing through another gate, the grade became much steeper.  As we hiked, it continued to rain on us intermittently; the smoke also became thicker the further we went into the canyon.  It had the strong odor of burning pine, and it began to burn my eyes a bit.  It led us to wonder if there wasn't a wildfire in the canyon...

While we hiked, John helped take our mind off of the smoke and the steep descent by working on a history lesson.  He explained that the Cabin Loop had been established by the United States Forest Service to help protect the forest.  The rangers used the cabins as bases of operation to watch for forest fires.  That said, he asked us to guess when the Cabin Loop was created.  I guessed 1901; Mary guessed 1918.  About halfway into the canyon, we found our answer, engraved into a rock: "USFS 1920" - Mary was closest without going over!

After a very long descent, we finally arrived at the bottom of Barbershop Canyon, which was just as beautiful as John had promised, even with the haze of smoke that hung over it.  The canyon was lush and green, with a perennial creek running through it.  It would have been a wonderful place for us to spend the night, except that there were no campsites in the canyon and the smoke in the air would have made it uncomfortable for us.  Nonetheless, we did get to spend some time in the canyon, enjoying its beauty, before we had to climb back out of it.

The trail continued on the other side of the creek and immediately began its ascent up canyon wall.  It was a steep climb - definitely a "groaner" - so we had to take frequent "breather-breaks" in order to keep going.

As we reached the first switchback, we stopped to take a five minute break, and that was when we figured out just where all of the smoke was coming from.  Across the canyon from us, there was smoke billowing from the trees!  At first, we couldn't see any flames, which meant that it wasn't a crowning wildfire; those types of fires tend to spread very fast, because the flames leap from treetop to treetop.  Using the zoom lens on our camera, though, we were able to see flames on the ground, meaning that it was just an underbrush fire.  We still weren't certain if it was a prescribed burn or if it was an actual wildfire, but at least now we knew where it was coming from.  The good news was, we weren't in any immediate danger.

One thing that we had to consider, though, was what to do if we couldn't make it back through Barbershop Canyon, because the whole canyon was on fire.  That is something that we have never had to think about before; at that moment, it was a possibility.  Fortunately, we were hiking on a trail with lots of "outs"; if we weren't able to hike back through Barbershop Canyon, we could always hike the road near McClintock Spring and try to catch a ride back to Houston Draw.  That was the same road that John had used as his "out" when he aborted his Cabin Loop hike. It was certainly a viable option; we just hoped that we wouldn't have to use it.

On the way out of the canyon, we passed by a group of four hikers - three women and a man - who were hiking the Cabin Loop, going the other way.  John was surprised that we had seen so many people on this trail, considering that he hadn't seen a single person while hiking it last year!  We stopped and chatted with them for a few minutes and pointed out the fire to them; they wished us a safe journey and continued their descent into the canyon.

We soon emerged from Barbershop Canyon - and the smoke-filled air - and crossed over yet another Forest Road - this time, FR 145 - just shy of McClintock Spring.  From there, the trail continued on an old Jeep road for another quarter of a mile before intersecting with another footpath, which would lead us into Dane Canyon - our destination!

By that time, we were all completely exhausted; Mary could barely hike fifty feet without wanting another breather.  It would have been understandable if we had been hiking uphill, but we were hiking downhill.  On top of that, it was getting late in the day, and it seemed kind of odd that it was taking us so long to hike only 3.7 miles.  We had already been hiking for four hours, and we still weren't there!  On top of that, we had dealt with smoke, rain, thunder, cold wind, and, yes, even hail - everything that Mother Nature had to throw at us - and all we wanted to do was get to camp and relax.

As we started our descent into Dane Canyon, we were finally able to see our destination, and that gave us just enough energy to keep going until we reached the creek.  Finally, at 3:30 that afternoon, after a long, five hour hike, we made it to the campsite!

Once we had our campsite set up, while John went to filter water and I gathered firewood, Mary crawled into her tent to read a book.  Minutes later, she fell fast asleep, snug inside of her sleeping bag.  John and I took full advantage of the quiet to spend some "adult" time together in our own tent.  Don't ask how we found the energy to do it after that difficult hike; we probably could have used a nap first, too.

Mary slept for about an hour; after she awoke, we passed the time by taking pictures down by the creek.  John attempted to take a picture of a spider working on its web between two rocks, just inches above the water; instead, he managed to get some beautiful pictures of the reflections of the trees on the crystal clear water.

At 5:00 p.m., John cooked dinner while I got the campfire going - not that we wanted to smell more smoke, but as it was getting chilly outside, we needed something to keep warm.  Unfortunately, getting the fire going was much more difficult than usual because most of the wood was wet from all of the rain that had fallen on the Rim.  Eventually, we had a nice fire going, and we all gathered around it to warm up before bedtime.

Bedtime seemed to come very late that night.  When camping, our rule is that we go to bed at first star and wake up at first light.  As tired as we were, we were disappointed to see that the first star didn't appear until after 8:00 p.m.  "What are we going to do in Canada, when first star doesn't appear until ten or eleven o'clock?" I pondered.  "And first light is at 4:00 a.m.?"

"I don't think we're going to care," John laughed.  "We're going to be too tired!"

Finally, that first star appeared in the sky, and at 8:15, we all retired to our tents to go to sleep.

After a good night's sleep, John awoke at 5:00 a.m. and got the campfire going again.  I was up less than an hour later, and Mary a half an hour after that.  We all had a good breakfast to fuel up for the long, difficult hike that we had ahead of us.

Knowing that we had a hard day in store for us, we knew that we had to be efficient in getting our gear packed up, in hopes of being on the trail by 8:00 a.m.  We all worked together to accomplish that goal, and as a result, we were off and hiking by 7:50 a.m.!

Our day began with the climb out of Dane Canyon.  Unlike the climb out of Barbershop Canyon, this ascent was not nearly as steep, though it was just as long.  It took us nearly half an hour to make it to the top of the trail, where we rejoined the old jeep road.

We stopped to take a break at FR 145, where the trail crossed over and continued on the other side.  During our return hike, we took frequent, short breaks but insisted that we try not to dally too long.  We had already made plans that afternoon to take Mary and her cousin Joshua to see the new Disney-Pixar movie Up, but in order to do so, we would have to hurry.

And that was how we learned another valuable lesson: never try to hurry an eight year-old on a difficult hike.  When hiking with a child, slower is better for your sanity.  It was a lesson that we would have to take with us to Canada.

At first, Mary handled the hike quite well.  She made it all the way into Barbershop Canyon (which was now smoke-free) without a single complaint.  During the climb out, she made it to the gate without a single tear.  After passing through the gate, though, all bets were off.  The meltdown began, and it lasted for the rest of the hike.

To be fair, it didn't last for the entire hike; we did manage to distract her from her agony a few times, especially when the trail was flat.  As soon as we entered into another draw, though, the meltdown began anew, and it took everything that we had to calm her down again.

Despite Mary's woes, we still managed to make it to the trailhead in just three hours, which was excellent time considering how long it had taken us to hike in.  Of course, it helped that we didn't have any rain to deal with or any forest fires to distract us.  We also didn't stop for lunch; we had brought along Top Ramen, just in case, but after that difficult hike, we were ready for a good meal and a beer! 

We had that good lunch at the Long Valley Café in Clint's Well.  By that time, Mary was back to her old, perky self again, but we could tell that she needed a long nap.  Fortunately, we had a long drive home ahead of us, during which time she could sleep and get her energy back for the movie.

Mary did sleep during the drive home, but not until after we had passed through Payson.  Not that she could sleep while we were in Payson; as we drove through town, we suddenly found ourselves in quite the hailstorm!  We were hammered by hail the size of dimes, but considering the sound that they made when they hit the windshield, they might as well have been the size of golf balls!

And then, as we crossed through the intersection at the edge of town (at the Mazatzal Casino), the storm suddenly stopped!  It was very odd...

We arrived home around 3:30 in the afternoon, about an hour and fifteen minutes before the next showing of Up at Desert Ridge.  That gave us just enough time to buy our movie tickets on-line and shower before going to pick up Joshua for the movie. 

Up was a great movie; all four of us enjoyed it a lot; but there was one scene in particular that hit home and summed up our day.  In the scene, the Wilderness Explorer - Russell - is helping the old man - Carl - hike through the jungle to bring his house to the top of Paradise Falls.  And along the way, Russell complains constantly: "Are we there yet?  My feet hurt!  My knees hurt!  My elbow hurts!"

And as we laughed, we pointed at Mary, who was also laughing.  Yes, we could all relate!

*   *   *

Several days later, we learned why it had taken us so long to hike the trail; the information that John had read about the trail was wrong.  John studied the topographical maps and discovered that we had actually hiked 5.2 miles!  Lesson learned; I guess you can't always trust everything that you read!

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