Sometimes, even the best laid plans fail. Sometimes, it’s not the plan itself but the little things that happen along the way that spoil everything. That was definitely the case on June 30, when John, Mary and I attempted to do a holiday weekend backpacking trip to Wildcat Springs.

Our whole weekend had been meticulously planned out to the slightest detail. On Saturday morning, June 30, we would drive up to the Mogollon Rim, where we would hike one of three trails: the Houston Brothers Trail, Kinder Crossing, or a jeep trail that John had found on the topographical maps of the area. Then, we would backpack into Wildcat Springs and set up camp at the beautiful campsite that we had found during last weekend’s day hike on the same trail. Finally, on Sunday morning, we were going to explore Tom’s Creek, in an attempt to follow it to West Clear Creek.

Needless to say, we were very excited to be getting out of the house. Last weekend was the first time we had been able to hike since Mother’s Day, and now we were aching to do a little more hiking, as well as a little backpacking too, to get ourselves back into shape. During the week leading up to this much-anticipated trip, we carefully packed all of our gear – even made some adjustments to what each of us would carry – and John printed up all of the topographical maps for the hikes that we were planning to do. Then, on Saturday morning, it was time to go.

We awoke at 4:45 a.m. on Saturday morning and did our last minute preparations before leaving the house. There were still a few things left to pack that morning; for example, John’s Therma Rest was still sitting outside, where we had cleaned off all of the mud left over from “Mudder’s Day”. As I went outside to retrieve it, I noticed that there was a sparrow in the Arizona Room – obviously, Calvin (the cat) had captured it and brought it in there, but it had somehow escaped and was trying to get out of the room. John rescued the little bird with a hand towel and release it in the backyard, where it flew away to safety.

We left the house at 6:00 a.m., but we weren’t more than two blocks from the house when we realized that we had forgotten the GPS, the topo maps, and our hats! We returned home immediately to retrieve our forgotten items; then, after the traditional stop at Einstein’s for breakfast, we finally got underway.

Our journey took us north on SR 87, through Payson, Pine and Strawberry, and to the top of the Mogollon Rim. For the most part, the trip was quiet and uneventful, except for one strangely ironic incident, in which a lost bird smacked into the windshield of the van. How very sad that we had accidentally taken the life of a bird, after John had saved the life of another earlier that morning.

Around 8:30 a.m., we arrived on the Mogollon Rim; our first destination was the jeep trail that we were hoping to hike that day. According to the topographical map, the jeep trail would take us to a spring; and, if we went cross-country, we could hike all the way to Potato Lake. That sounded like a nice place for us to have lunch, if we could do it.

The hard part, though, was finding the right road. The topos did not provide us with a road number, so we had to look for it based on GPS coordinates. The closest road to those coordinates was blocked by a forest service gate, though which we had to pass to access the road. After a half of a mile or so, the road dead-ended, as it was supposed to do, but the jeep trail was nowhere to be found.

"This isn't the right road," John announced. "Let's go try another road."

Just then, a bee came towards him. I saw it, but he did not. What followed was like that moment when Randy Johnson (pitcher from the Arizona Diamondbacks) accidentally killed a bird with a baseball, as it flew into the direct path of one of his fast balls. The bee flew up to John's arm at the exact moment that he flexed his elbow; as it became trapped, it stung him in the forearm.

Despite the fact that John is not allergic to bees, the sting caused him a great deal of discomfort for the rest of the day. By the time we got back into the van to leave, his arm had begun to swell up until it was as hard as a rock. I suggested that we stop at Clint's Well to get him some Benadryl, or at least some ice, but he insisted that he was fine, in between expletives and "ouches".

After failing to find the jeep trail on another forest road, we gave up on it and decided to go hike the Houston Brothers Trail instead. To get there, we continued north on SR 87 for several miles, until we came to FR 95, which was a quarter of a mile north of the Blue Ridge Ranger Station, and a few miles north of Blue Ridge Reservoir.

According to the trail description that we had read in Flagstaff Hikes, by Richard and Sherry Magnum, access to the Houston Brothers Trailhead entailed driving on about twelve miles of dirt road. The trail itself is 3.5 miles in length (seven miles round trip) and is in the same general area as the Barbershop Trail. Among the sights to see along the trail are historic cabins, something which always interests me.

After four miles, we saw a sign indicating the turn-off for the Kinder Crossing Trail #19. As soon as John hit the brakes, I knew that he was considering doing that hike instead. I wasn't sure, though, if we were ready to do that hike. From what we had read, it sounded like it was similar to the Maxwell Trail #37: a steep descent into a canyon, it drops about five hundred feet in about a half of a mile. The trail ends up at East Clear Creek.

Since we were already there, we decided to do Kinder Crossing after all; had we continued on to Houston Brothers, we would still have about eight miles to go. So, we turned onto the access road and parked at the berm, a quarter of a mile from the trailhead.

Preparations for our hike should have been easy. While John was busy looking for the jeep trail during our first stop, I had put sunscreen on myself and on Mary, and I had changed her diaper, so all we had to do was grab our day packs and go...or so I thought. Naturally, it wasn't that easy; I guess I had managed to jinx myself by thinking that it would be.

Even though the diaper bag (or what is now known as my day pack) was already packed for the day, I still had to put my water bladder into it - and it was stuffed into the top of my backpack. When I pulled it out of there, I noticed that there was water leaking out of it; upon closer inspection, I found that there was a small hole at the base of the tubing. (John indicated that the same thing had happened to his bladder while hiking in the Superstitions with his father last March.) Fortunately, we did have an extra bladder with us, so we were able to make do.

After dealing with that minor crisis, we were ready to go, so we hiked down the road to the trailhead. That was when I realized that I had left the digital camera at the van. "Well, did you at least bring a camera?" John asked me when I announced what I had done.

"Of course," I replied, showing him the throw-away camera - as long as we had one camera, it didn't matter that we had left the digital one behind. With that, we shared our new trail kiss and began to hike the Kinder Crossing Trail.

The trail began as a very gentle downhill descent into East Clear Creek canyon. As we stepped onto the trail, we entered into a forest filled with pine, spruce and oak tree, which grew thicker as we made our way further along the path. About ten minutes later, we emerged from the forest and began to switchback into the canyon. I had expected these switchbacks to be similar to those on the Maxwell Trail, but in fact they were nowhere near as steep. Except for a few slippery areas, the descent was rather easy, and twenty minutes later, we were in the canyon, walking along East Clear Creek.

According to the map, the trail continues off to the right and begins to climb out of the canyon after crossing the creek. However, we didn't consult the map after finding our way into the canyon. As soon as we saw East Clear Creek and all of the swimming holes to be found there, we decided that we were going to stick around there for a while.

At the first swimming hole that we came to, we found that there was someone fishing, so we decided not to disturb him. Going off to the left, at the bottom of the trail, we found a sandy path, lined with rocks, leading downstream, so we followed that instead to see where it would take us. After a tenth of a mile or so, we ended up at a beautiful sandy beach, next to which was a rather inviting swimming hole and a set of rock steps leading to a lovely campsite that overlooked the creek. "This is gorgeous!" I exclaimed, and with that John and I removed our hiking boots to go take a dip. (We left Mary on the beach, in the shade, because she had fallen asleep in the backpack.)

The swimming hole was one of the best that I had ever seen. The water was very clear, and the creek bed was sandy, not rocky like most, so it was very easy to walk on with my bare feet. There was, of course, one thing that we had to beware of as we waded into the water: there were lots of crawdads crawling in the sand underwater, so I had to watch my step to keep from crushing those little guys.

Being the explorer that he is, John decided to go see what was further downstream - we could hear what sounded like a small waterfall, just beyond the boulders. While I stayed close to the shore to keep an eye on Mary, John ventured on ahead to see what he could find. As he approached the boulders, he stepped onto the slick-rocks...and, just like the old banana-peel gag, John slipped and fell flat on his back with a big splash! D'oh!

When John finally made it to the other side of the boulders, he found a small waterfall and another swimming hole, one that was deeper than the first. As soon as Mary awoke from her nap, we all ventured over there - avoiding the slide rocks, of course - and enjoyed a warm afternoon sitting on the boulders next to the waterfall and swimming in the cool, refreshing waters of East Clear Creek.

Before we decided to leave, John had another bad fall - once again, while trying to climb on the slick-rock in the creek. This time, he hurt his knee; but fortunately, it was only a bruise, because we still had to climb out of the canyon!

It soon started to get a little crowded at our swimming hole. Around lunchtime, we were joined by a family of day hikers, and a few minutes later, a group of backpackers settled into the campsite above the creek. That was when we decided that it was time to leave Kinder Crossing and return to the van so that we could have lunch.

The return hike was uneventful, and, even though it was all uphill, it wasn't as steep or as strenuous as I thought it would be - in fact, it was quite an easy climb. We managed to finish hiking in about a half an hour.

As we drove away from the trailhead, I tried to look for the digital camera, in hopes that I could at least take pictures of our backpacking trip into Wildcat Springs. However, the camera was no where to be found. We are still uncertain to this day what happened to it. We think that it may have fallen out of the van while we were dealing with the broken water bladder, but I guess we'll never know. It's not like it was a major loss, considering that it was a free camera (for signing up with Earthlink) and that we now have a scanner anyway. C'est la vie!

It was lunchtime by the time we finished hiking. All three of us were getting hungry, but instead of eating the cheese and sausage that we had brought for lunch, we decided to have a real lunch in Clint's Well instead, at the restaurant where John and I have eaten twice before (both times during the same trip!). It was surprisingly not crowded, despite that it was a holiday weekend, so we sat down at a table and ordered a lunch and a round of beers.

Just after our food arrived, John suddenly asked me, "Do you have any money?"

"I have about eight bucks," I replied, but when I checked my purse, it turned out that I only had five dollars. That was when John noticed that the restaurant did not take checks or credit cards...oops! Fortunately, we did have enough money to cover the tab, because the closest ATM machine was in Strawberry!

Once we paid for our lunch, we were cash-poor, so John suggested that we drive into Strawberry to use the ATM machine...and to buy a little wine for our backpacking trip. (Days prior to our trip, he had suggested that we skip the wine, but given the troubles that we had had so far...) While in Strawberry, we purchased a four-pack of the little bottles of wine - not exactly the best wine, of course, but what else could we expect to buy in such a small town? We also bought a box of Ritz crackers to enjoy with our cheese and sausage - and for Mary to have as a snack. With that, we drove back up to the Rim.

Since it was getting late in the day, we decided to go into Wildcat Springs and set up camp. So we parked at the Pivot Rock Canyon campground and unloaded all of our heavy gear. Having made some changes to what we usually carried, we were in for quite a surprise when we tried to put those backpacks on our backs: they nearly broke us! Even though the hike to camp was only about a tenth of a mile, we were exhausted by the time we got there!

After I set up the tent, John suggested that we give Mary her medication, since we had not done so yet that day. (We had to put drops in her ears three times a day, because her ear tubes had become clogged after her illness.) Naturally, that was when we discovered that I had left the drops back in the van. D'oh! John volunteered to hike back to the van to get them; and by the time he returned, I had finished setting up camp. It was a good thing, too, because he was ready to lie down and take a nap. Soon thereafter, Mary did the same thing.

I, however, had gotten my second wind, and I was feeling quite good. While John and Mary slept, I went for a little hike by myself through the "rainforest", which began just feet from our campsite. It was very peaceful and quiet as I walked through the ferns and pines; I considered hiking all the way to the spring, but I didn't want John to worry, so I only hiked about ten minutes each way.

By the time I returned, he was awake and feeling a little better, but not much. I was actually a bit worried about him, because it is not normal for John to feel so lousy after an easy hike - he is usually the stronger of the two of us. As the afternoon progressed, he did start to feel better, although the bee sting still bothered him every time he flexed his arm; for a while, though, I thought he was getting sick.

Just as soon as John started feeling better, Mary awoke from her nap and started wailing for no apparent reason. Mary, being the mellow child that she usually is, does not do that unless one of two things is wrong with her: 1) she is sick, or 2) she is cutting teeth. When she started coughing and sneezing, and when her nose started running, we feared that she was getting sick again. Instead of packing up camp, though, we decided to wait a little while to see if her symptoms improved, just in case it was a fluke.

Around 5:00 p.m., John started cooking dinner, and I fed Mary a jar of baby food. While I fed her, she played with the lid from the jar; in between bites, she shoved the lid into her mouth and chewed on it, which lead me to believe that she was cutting teeth, not getting sick again. Naturally, I was hoping that that was the answer, because I didn't want my little girl to spend another night in the hospital!

Then, during dinner, I started feeling ill. I had a dull headache, and I felt a little queasy - it was probably the wine, even though I didn't have very much. I also couldn't stop sneezing - I became very congested, to the point where I couldn't sit down because my sinuses would stuff up. And if that wasn't bad enough, Mary filled her diaper, and when I went to change her, I discovered that she had loose stool.

At that point, John said something that I thought I would never hear him say: "Let's just call it quits."

He was right, though. So many little things had gone wrong during the day, and now we were all feeling sick. It just wasn't worth risking our health over one night in the backcountry.

We began to tear down camp at 6:00 p.m. While I took down the tent, John brought a few of our supplies back to the van, in order to make the trip back a little lighter. When he returned, it took us another five or ten minutes to finish packing, and by 6:25 we were ready to hike. We managed to make it back to the van around 6:30, and soon thereafter, we drove away.

We made it home just before 9:00 p.m., making only one stop in Pine along the way to get a couple of Diet Cokes for the drive home. Mary was asleep by 7:00, and she slept all the way home; I was certain that she was going to wake up several times throughout the night, having fallen asleep so early, but she slept straight through until 7:00 a.m.!

The next morning, the three of us were back to normal. John's bee sting began to hurt less, and I felt fine, too. Most importantly, Mary didn't get sick again. In fact, it wasn't until that morning that we discovered the real reason why she was being a fussy child: she had cut her fifth tooth!

Okay, so our adventure was full of little misfortunes - just enough misfortunes that we decided to call it quits before things got worse. We did have fun, though - we loved Kinder Crossing so much that we decided that we are going to return there in a few weeks...

Return to Naked in the Woods.