Just two weeks before embarking on our Alaskan Cruise in honor of our six-year wedding anniversary, John and I - along with Mary - decided to go on a three-day backpacking trip for the 4th of July weekend.  It would be a nice way to get away from it all before we got away from it all.  (We also wanted to spend some quality time with Mary before we left her with her grandparents for a week.)

Since it was Independence Day weekend, we knew that everything was going to be insanely crowded, no matter where we went, so getting away from it all was going to be tough.  We would have to go someplace remote, where few people would dare to tread.  That was what led us back to the Blue Range Primitive Area, for the first time in six years.  In fact, it was nearly six years to the date; we had last visited the Blue Range Primitive Area a few weeks before our wedding, during 4th of July weekend in 1999. 

When I say that it had been six years since our last trip to the Blue Range, that isn't exactly true.  John had been chomping at the bit for several years following that trip to return to the area.  In 2003, John did a solo backpacking trip along the Chitty Falls Trail in the Blue Range Primitive Area.  For three days and two nights, John didn't see another living soul; he was in an area that was so remote that he would have been surprised to have seen anyone else there.  He did, however, encounter his first bear in the woods.  For many years, when asked by non-hiking folk what he would do if he ever met a bear in the woods, he has always said that he never had to worry about outrunning the bear; he only had to worry about outrunning the person who was with him (usually me).  That very thought was running through his mind when he stumbled across a young bear - old enough to be away from his mother, but not quite fully grown - along the trail.  Unsure of what to do, John decided to snap a few pictures of the bear in hopes that, if the bear did attack him, at least there would be pictures of the bear on the camera so that there would be proof of what happened.  Fortunately, for John, the bear was more scared of him than he was of it; and in the next instant, the bear ran away into the trees, leaving John to complete his hike in peace.

In the two years that had passed since John had hiked Chitty Falls, the Blue Range Primitive Area had been hit by a forest fire - the Steeple Fire.  We had no idea what kind of damage had been done to that beautiful wilderness area that we loved so much, but we would soon find out.

Our adventure began at 3:00 a.m. on Saturday, July 2, when we loaded the backpacks into the Jeep and started towards the White Mountains - a six-hour drive from Phoenix.  There are several different ways of getting there - none of them have a time-advantage over the other, though.  The route that we selected took us north on SR 87 to Payson, then east on SR 260 to Show Low.  From there, we continued east on SR 260 through Eager and Springerville; then, we turned south on US 191 through Alpine towards Hannagen Meadow.  To save us time, we tried not to stop too many times en route - only when necessary - and that helped us make it there by 9:00 a.m., as we had hoped.

When we arrived at the trailhead, we found that there were only a couple of cars parked there; that was a good sign, that we weren't going to encounter a whole lot of people out in the wilderness - truly, we would be getting away from it all! 

For our backpacking trip, instead of doing the trip that we had done back in 1999, John had selected a loop hike for us to do.  The loop consisted of the Foote Creek Trail #76, the Grant Creek Trail #75, the Grant Cabin Trail #306, the Upper Grant Creek Trail #65, and the Steeple Trail #73 - a twelve-mile loop, which we would accomplish over three days.  Twelve miles in three days would certainly be doable with a four (almost five) year-old...right?  Well, we would soon find out...

We began hiking shortly after 9:00 a.m. on the Foote Creek Trail #76.  The first mile or so was easy enough; the trail was easy to follow and was well-maintained.  Although it was a climb, it wasn't a steep climb...but to a four (almost five) year-old, ANY climb is a steep climb.  So, within the first hour of our hike, it was already time to take a break, because Mary was tired.  In fact, once an hour, we took one, ten-minute packs-off break, because it was the only way to keep Mary going.

After our first break, she decided that she was done carrying her own backpack; though it was a very small one, apparently, it was just heavy enough that she wasn't able to carry it anymore.  So, I ended up attaching it to my backpack to carry it for her.  This was in addition to her camp chair and her lantern, which were also attached to my pack.  I was going to regret this later...

As we made our way along the trail - and as we got closer to lunchtime - Mary began to fade; so we tried to find ways to distract her from the urge to whine about her situation.  We tried to get her to "kill wombats", as she had done when we were hiking the Inner Basin Trail a few weeks before, but she wasn't up for that.  We tried doing a scavenger hunt, but she wasn't up for that either.  Eventually, John gave her his hiking stick to distract her, and that was what did the trick.  She straddled the stick, grabbed a hold of the wrist strap, and pretended to ride the stick like a horse.  She called her "horse" Casey, naming it after my friend Marcheta's horse of the same name.  So, with Mary well-distracted, it was time to make some tracks.

Around 11:30 a.m., we finally arrived at P-Bar Lake, at mile 3.5; since it appeared that we would have a water source there, we were hoping to be able to camp there the first night.  In the morning, we would then start our day out on the Grant Creek Trail #75, the junction for which was nearby.

What we found, however, was not a lake but a small body of sludge that may have once been water, but we weren't sure.  Apparently, the "P" in "P-Bar" stood for "pond-scum", because that is exactly what was floating on the brownish-gray water.  We were afraid to filter that water, lest we completely destroy our water filter cartridge on the first day!

"I don't think we're camping here," John announced, staring at the pond. 

Instead of camping there, we decided to take an extended break there, to have lunch and to rest before moving on.  We dropped our packs, unpacked our food bag, and prepared a lunch of macaroni and cheese.  Then, we set up the tube tent and Mary's sleeping bag for Mary's nap.  As long as she got a good one to two hour nap, then she would be good to hike another two hours, until we found a better campsite.

While Mary slept, I decided to wander.  I walked a tenth of a mile down the trail, past the junction with the Grant Creek Trail, and found myself in an area that had obviously been burned in the Steeple Fire.  Most of the tall pine trees were still standing, but they were all charred.  It was sad to see.

Mary awoke an hour later, refreshed and ready to hike again; so we loaded our gear back into our packs and continued our trip.

The next leg of our trip took us along the Grant Creek Trail #75, 1.5 miles to the Grant Cabin Shortcut Trail #306.  Although it wasn't a particularly long leg of the trail, it did seem much longer, probably because our pace slowed down considerably as we made our way downhill.  True, Mary was still very much distracted by her hiking-stick horse and she continued to ride it along the trail; but we just couldn't get a good pace going again after our long break.  On top of that, my backpack was beginning to feel heavier and heavier, and camp seemed so far away.  There were no campsites - and no water - along that portion of the trail; it just wasn't looking good...

Just before we arrived at the Grant Cabin Shortcut Trail junction, we finally found water from which we could safely filter - there weren't any campsites nearby, but at least we could stop there and top off our water supply, since we weren't sure that we were going to be able to camp near water.  By that time, it was 3:00 p.m., and we were getting very tired, so we had already resolved to stop at the first campsite we could find, whether it was near water or not.

Once we had plenty of water for our journey, we kept going, this time on the Grant Cabin Shortcut, which switchbacked further down the rim for another mile to the Upper Grant Creek Trail #65.  By the time we reached that junction, we were so exhausted that we could barely go on, so it was a good thing that we found a campsite - a nice campsite - right next to Grant Creek!  What a sight for sore eyes...and legs!

We quickly set up camp then rested a bit.  That was when John took out the topographical maps and the GPS to determine exactly how far we had traveled and how far we had to go on day two.  He determined that we had hiked a total of six miles that day.  Six miles!  That was a lot for a four year-old to walk in one day!  On top of that, we had already hiked half of the distance of our loop, meaning that we had less mileage to do on day two - only four miles on the Upper Grant Creek Trail #65.  And we had hiked that trail before, so we were familiar with it.  What a relief that, after such a difficult first day, our second day would go much smoother...or so we hoped...

It wasn't long after dinner that night that we decided to go to bed.  The 3:00 a.m. start time and the long, difficult hike had taken its toll on us, and by 7:30 that night, the three of us were sound asleep.

Of course, that meant that we were awake early the next morning.  As usual, we were up at first light, ready for another day of hiking.

Shortly after sunrise, we packed up our camp and started on our day's journey along the Upper Grant Creek Trail.  Just after we began hiking, we came to the Grant Cabin site, where we found the remnants of an old cabin, as well as a corral.  The cabin site had not changed much in the six years since our last hike there, except that someone had placed a pair of animal skulls on the threshold of the cabin. 

Our hike started out smooth enough that morning; we were rested and refreshed and feeling good.  Mary started out the day by riding "Casey", her hiking-stick horse, and she was quite happy.  Things changed quickly, though, when we started the creek crossings.  Some of the crossings were easy; some were not, and those crossings slowed us down.  To make matters worse, some of the crossings were choked with poison ivy patches that were almost as tall as Mary.  John had to carry her through those areas to keep her from coming in contact with them.

What really slowed us down, though, was the trail itself.  Six years and a major forest fire had really changed the conditions of the Upper Grant Creek Trail.  It was no longer a beautiful, well-kempt trail; instead, it was overgrown and obstructed with downed trees, about every fifty feet or so.  As a result, the best pace that we could do was a half of a mile an hour.  By lunchtime, we had only gone about two miles.

In order to ensure that we could keep Mary going for the rest of the day, we decided to do the same thing that we had done the day before: take an extended lunch break to allow Mary the chance to nap.  Unfortunately, we couldn't find a nice meadow - or even a nice bench above the creek - on which to spread out our stuff, so we had to set up the tube tent and Mary's sleeping bag right there in the middle of the trail.  Good thing there weren't any other hikers on the trail!

After Mary's hour-long nap, we packed up our backpacks and started hiking again.  We still had two miles - and several more hours of hiking - ahead of us.

The trail didn't get any easier after our break.  There were still giant logs about every fifty feet on the trail, and maneuvering over them with full packs on was a bit of a challenge, especially since some of them were waist-high to me. Our legs were scratched and bruised and covered with soot from crawling over these fallen charred trees.  And if it was difficult for us to get over these logs, imagine how it was for Mary!  It was a two-person job to help her get over these trees: one person to hoist her up, and another to lower her down on the other side.

The trail continued to meander back and forth across Grant Creek for the rest of the day.  We counted about 36 creek crossings in all; some were easy, and some were very challenging.  All of them required John to carry Mary across the water.

By the end of the day, we were all very frustrated and completely exhausted.  Tempers were flaring, and Mary was so cranky that we had to take several breaks an hour just to keep her going. 

Finally, just after 4:00 p.m. - after having hiked all day long - we arrived at the junction with the Steeple Trail #73.  At the junction, there was a large, beautiful meadow; and that was where we decided to camp for the night. 

We were completely exhausted by the time we reached camp, but there was still so much work to do.  After setting up the tent, John had to hike about a quarter of a mile away to filter water from Grant Creek, because the creek did not flow through the meadow.  While he was gone, Mary and I finished setting up camp; then, I had to clean her up, because she was covered in dirt and soot. 

When John returned, it was time to cook dinner.  Later, after we had eaten our delicious one-pot meal, John cleaned up the pots and pans and hung them in a nearby tree.  Suddenly, we could hear a very loud squeaking sound; John had inadvertently disturbed a squirrel, who resided in that particular tree, and that creature was now scolding him...loudly!  It was one of those moments that you would only expect to see in cartoons.  In the end, the enraged squirrel, having finished his tirade against John, ran off into the woods and left us alone for the rest of the night.

That evening, just like the night before, we went to bed when the first star came out; and the next morning, we were up at first light, ready to finish our hike.

Having already hiked ten miles over two days, our third day was going to be a breeze.  We only had two miles to go on the Steeple Trail #73; and, as long as the trail conditions hadn't changed much in six years, our hike was going to be an easy one.  Nonetheless, we didn't waste anytime getting packed up to begin our hike...just in case.

We started hiking the Steeple Trail around 7:30 that morning, early enough that we hiked in the cold shade for the first mile.  Since we were rested and refreshed - and since the trail was easy and unobstructed - our pace was much quicker than it had been over the last two days.  So, we finished hiking around 9:00 in the morning - almost exactly forty-eight hours later.

Although we had finished our twelve-mile, three-day backpacking trip, our adventure was far from over.  We still had to drive home through the Independence Day traffic.  Fighting the rush to get back into Phoenix was only going to be part of the problem; we also had to deal with the Independence Day parades!  And in small-town America, where else would these parades be held?  Along the main thoroughfare that cuts through the town, of course!

We managed to get through Eager and Springerville before they closed the highway for the parade route; in Show Low, however, we weren't so lucky.  Traffic on SR 260 came to a halt in Pinetop, and it wasn't moving until the parade was over.  To make matters worse, we were diverted onto a side road that was supposed to take us around the parade route, but it wasn't moving either.  It took us more than an hour - and a whole lot of patience - to make it through that mess.

Eventually, we made it home again, and with that, another adventurous holiday weekend had come to an end...

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