So what do you get when you mix hurricane season, the summer monsoons, the "Stupid Motorist Law", Labor Day weekend, and backpacking?  You get another Verley adventure, of course!

Having spent most of our summer traveling, John and Mary and I decided that we would spend Labor Day weekend (the last weekend of the summer) doing the thing that we love to do the most: spending time in the outdoors.  In order to avoid the crowds, John suggested that we go backpacking, and he selected one of the most remote trails that he could find for us to attempt: the Bonanza Bill Trail, nestled in the White Mountains, southeast of Alpine. 

At first glance, the Bonanza Bill Trail seemed like a very good idea.  John had plotted it out on the topographical maps and discovered that it was going to be a rather easy trip for us; in fact, we were only going to hike the first 3.5 miles of the trail, to Hinkle Spring.  Hinkle Spring was reliable, meaning that we would have plenty of water to filter; and the trail was so remote that it was little-used, meaning that our chances of seeing other hikers were slim.  The trail itself was mostly flat, except for a 200-foot descent into - and climb out of - Steeple Canyon.  Hardly a challenge for us at all!

Getting there, however, was the hard part, because it was so far away.  The trailhead was located on the Arizona-New Mexico border, near the community of Blue, AZ -- a six hour drive from Phoenix.  That meant that, if we wanted to start hiking as early as possible that morning, we would have to leave at 3:00 a.m.

Of course, we got lots of practice with 3:00 a.m. start times during our road trip to South Carolina!  And as any traveler knows, getting there is half the adventure.  That would certainly be true on this trip.

So, our adventure began at 3:00 a.m., when we rolled out of bed to start the day.  Having packed everything the night before (and showered, too), all we had to do was get dressed and put Sleeping Mary in the 4Runner.  We were ready to go by 3:15 a.m.; however, John spent an additional ten minutes trying to find the GPS.  He couldn't find it, so he gave up the search and we got underway. 

After a brief stop for coffee at Circle K, we began our long journey to the Bonanza Bill Trailhead.  To get there, we took SR 87 north to Payson then turned onto SR 260 East.  That portion of the trip was uneventful, and we made very good time, arriving in Payson around 4:50 a.m., just before first light.  We drove through town without stopping and kept going until we arrived in Show Low, just after 6:00 a.m.

We stopped in Show Low just long enough to purchase drinks, use the facilities, and switch drivers; then, we continued on.  In Show Low, we turned onto US 60 and stayed on that route all the way to the town of Eager, where we planned to make our second stop that morning. 

Mary woke up just as we were pulling out of the Circle K in Show Low that morning, and it wasn't long before she was bored.  After all, we still had two and a half hours of driving ahead of us.  As soon as we stopped in Eager for gas - and to get Mary dressed for the day - we popped a movie into the DVD player in the 4Runner, and with that, she managed to make it all the way to the trailhead without any complaints.

From Eager, we turned onto US 180/191 and continued on that route all the way into Alpine.  We stopped for a few minutes at the Mustang store in Alpine in order to look for a tube tent - something to keep our stuff dry in the event of a major downpour.  Unfortunately, the store did not have any tube tents, so we were just going to have to make do with what we had.

In Alpine, we took US 180 past Luna Lake and turned off onto FR 281, which would take us to the small community of Blue, 28 miles away.  It was already 8:00 a.m., and we were still an hour from the trailhead.  John and I were both tired of driving; we were so glad that it was almost over.

The route along FR 281 took us into the forest and paralleled the Blue River all the way into the town of Blue, AZ.  It was a certainly a beautiful area, full of recreational opportunities.  There were miles upon miles of hiking trails, great spots for fishing, and lovely campsites, both primitive and developed.  Oddly enough, despite the holiday weekend, all of the developed campgrounds were empty; in fact, we only passed a few vehicles during the entire twenty-eight miles of our journey on FR 281.  We expected the area to be packed with people; instead, we almost had the place to ourselves.

Around 8:40 that morning, we finally arrived in Blue, AZ, where we would turn off onto the last leg of our journey: Pueblo Park Road, which would take us 4.7 miles to the Bonanza Bill Trailhead.  As we came around the bend, we were horrified to find that there was a "Road Closed" barricade at the turnoff!

"NO!" John exclaimed.  "You have to be kidding me! You mean to tell me that we drove five and a half hours....for nothing?"

"So now what do we do?" I asked.  I knew that we didn't have a Plan B in mind.

John sat and thought about it for a second.  Then, he said, "Well, let's see if we can figure out why the road is closed."

And with that, he drove right past the barricade and onto Pueblo Park Road!

"I just want you to know," he mentioned a few minutes later, "that we have just broken the Stupid Motorist Law.  I really hope that we don't get stuck."  Yeah...me too.

We proceeded along Pueblo Park Road with a great deal of caution, fully expecting to find that the narrow winding road would be completed washed out.  Instead, we discovered that the road was in good condition, except that there was a lot of grass on it, which made it look like it had been closed for a while.  We did see a Travel Advisory sign, facing the opposite direction, about a mile from the trailhead.  It indicated that the next twenty-five miles of road (the road on which we had just traveled, of course) were "narrow, steep, and slippery when wet - stay alert!" 

At long last, we arrived at the Bonanza Bill Trailhead, a well-signed trailhead with ample parking, a corral for horses, and a kiosk with information about the Blue Range Primitive Area. (Next to the trailhead, there was a cattle guard, which, as we discovered later, was right on the New Mexico state line.)  After parking the 4Runner, we unloaded our gear and prepared for our backpack into the wild.  Then, at 9:15 a.m., nearly six hours after leaving the house, we finally began our hike. 

It was a bright, sunny morning as we tramped along the Bonanza Bill Trail; it was already 65 degrees outside, so we were expecting a warm day and a comfortable night.  True, we knew that we could expect a summer monsoon shower during the afternoon hours, but we planned to be in camp long before then.

The first part of the Bonanza Bill Trail were very pleasant; it was mostly flat at first, as it wound its way through the tall ponderosa pines of the Apache National Forest.  After the first mile, the trail began to switchback gently down towards Steeple Creek; John and Mary made a game of counting the switchbacks on the way down while I lead the way.

We reached Steeple Creek, at 1.5 miles from the trailhead, after only an hour of hiking.  That was very good time for Mary, considering that she usually only hikes at a rate of a mile an hour.  Since she had been hiking so well, we decided to stop by Steeple Creek and take a packs-off break, so that Mary could have a snack to keep her going.  John also looked around to see if there was a campsite near the creek; after all, there was water in the creek.  Unfortunately, he didn't see anything that looked good, so we decided to keep going.

Although the descent into Steeple Canyon was gentle and easy, the hike out of the canyon was not.  It was steep and difficult, and Mary had a hard time with it.  She took her time getting to the top, and she cried for most of the climb.  Along the way, John encouraged her to stop every few feet and take five breaths before proceeding.  Using that technique, he managed to get Mary up to the first switchback...

But by then, it was 11:00 a.m.; and as we have learned in all of our experience with hiking with a child, 11:00 a.m. is Mary's meltdown point.  Like clockwork, she melted down at 11:00 sharp.  John did not relent in his efforts to keep her on task and get her up the hill; he insisted that she continue to take a few steps, take five breaths, then continue on.  It worked, and we soon reached the top of the switchbacks, where we took another long break, for Mary's sake.

Fortunately, that was the only difficult part of the trail; however, we were still at least a mile and a half from Hinkle Spring (our destination), and we could hear the low rumble of thunder in the distance.  Storm clouds were beginning to gather, and they would be upon us soon.  Now that the difficult part was behind us, it was time for us to make tracks.

The next half-mile of the trail involved a very gentle but rocky climb up to a gate, the purpose of which we did not know.  After passing through the gate, we reached the top of the rocky climb, and the trail flattened out again.  By that time, the clouds were quickly coming in, and the sound of thunder was drawing closer and closer. 

"I'm going to hike ahead and see if I can find us a campsite," I told John.  He said okay, and so with that, I took off in search of a good water source.  About fifteen minutes later, I came up to Hinkle Creek, where there were quite a few puddles from which we could filter water.  There were also several campsites nearby.  "Perfect!" I said, so I stopped there and waited for John and Mary to catch up.

We dropped our packs at Hinkle Creek, and while Mary and I lingered at the potential campsite, John went on ahead to see what else he could find.  He returned a few minutes later and reported that he didn't see anything better up ahead, so with that, we began to unload our gear...

...And almost immediately, the first rains began to fall. 

John and I scrambled to put up our two tents - I put up the two-man tent, and John put up the other - and we finished that task in record time.  Then, we piled everything inside the tents and climbed inside the larger one to get out of the rain. 

We cooked lunch in the vestibule of the two-man tent, while outside, it continued to rain lightly.  By the time our food was ready, the rain was over, and John was able to go outside to eat.

After lunch, we finished setting up our camp, and John hiked to Hinkle Spring - a quarter of a mile away - to filter water.  Mary and I remained behind; we both wanted to take a nap!  (Well, not really...I wanted to take a nap; Mary did not; but once I fell asleep, she was bored and fell asleep, too.)  I slept off an on for about an hour, getting maybe ten or twenty minutes of sleep.  After that, I just laid there and listened to the low rumblings of thunder and waiting for John to return.

John returned just before 3:00 p.m., and I heard him go into his tent; I knew that he was tired and wanted to take a nap, too.  Of course, that was the perfect time to do it, while Mary was asleep; once she was awake, there would be no peace.  I could hear him zip the tent door shut, and with that, I closed my eyes, hoping that I would soon fall back to sleep...

...and just a few seconds later, I heard a loud crack of thunder, and almost immediately, the skies opened up, sending sheets of rain down upon our campsite.  In that same instant, Mary awoke from her nap, refreshed and hyper.  "Mom, is it raining?" she asked with excitement, hearing the rain pound on the wall of the tent. 

"Oh, yes, " I replied, sitting up to close the tent door.  (So much for my nap!)

So there I was, stuck in a 4'x6' backcountry tent with a rested and hyper six year-old, in a beautiful primitive area that I couldn't see...and just when I was thinking, "What could be worse?", I suddenly realized that the shell of my sleeping bag was wet.  In just a matter of seconds, things went from bad to worse, because the floor of the tent was leaking.  There was water coming in from each corner of the tent and from underneath the sleeping pads.  If we set anything on the floor of the tent, it caused a pool of water to form inside. 

"Okay, Mary, you need to do as I say," I announced.  "You need to keep everything on the sleeping pad or it's going to get wet,"

"Is the floor hot lama?" Mary asked.  She meant "hot lava", of course.

"Yes, the floor is hot lava, so keep everything off of it.  That includes your sleeping bag and your backpack."

Naturally, Mary was just hyper enough that she kept fidgeting, and when she did so, she managed to knock everything onto the tent floor.  I had to come up with a way to keep our gear off of the floor and out of her way, so, using belt clips and a pull-up cord that "Aunt Jan" gave her, I created a sort of clothesline from which I could hang our stuff.  Once that was done, I pulled the two sleeping pads together and folded the sleeping bags in half on top of them.  Mary sat on hers, and I sat on mine, and the two of us waited out the storm.

It didn't let up until nearly 4:00 p.m., and by that time, all I could think of was how long it would take us to get back to the car.  The floor of the tent was soaked, and Mary and I were going to miserable if we had to sleep in there.  Telling Mary to stay put, I put on my rain jacket and ran over to John's tent to have a chat with him.

"So....." I began.  "If we bail now, do you think we could make it back to the car by dark?"

"Not even," John replied.  "I think we're stuck here for the night.  Even if we started packing up now, we would never make it out of here by nightfall.  But we may want to consider bailing in the morning.  Think about it: if it rains all day tomorrow, too, and we're on that closed road..."

I wasn't going to argue with that; I was not opposed to bailing in the morning.  I already knew that it was going to rain the next day, too, and I certainly didn't want to spend my entire day stuck in a backcountry tent with a bored six year-old!  I also did not want John to be the first Arizonan convicted of breaking the Stupid Motorist Law.

"Let's look at it in the morning," John said.  "If it looks like it's going to rain tomorrow, we'll bail."

The rain didn't subside until around 4:30 p.m.  Before we could even think about cooking dinner, John and I went to work to try to prevent any further rain damage to camp.  First of all, John dug a trench around each of our tents to keep water from running underneath the tent floor.  Then, I worked to dry the interior of the tent.  To do so, I took the hiking socks that Mary and I had worn that day and stuck one in each corner of the tent.  The dry-wick wool worked well to sop up the water and staunch the rivulets of water that were seeping inside.  After that, I used the camp towels to wipe the tent floor dry.  Finally, I changed myself and Mary into warm clothes and used the clothes that we had been wearing to line the bottom of the tent, underneath our sleeping pads.  That helped to absorb the water and to dry off our Thermarests. 

"Well," I announced once the work was done, "I think we're going to make it."

By that time, the rain had stopped completely, but the whole area was now covered with low clouds, and there was a cool mist in the air.  Everything was soaking wet; even Hinkle Creek was swollen with water, and the trail leading up to the creek was flooded, making it difficult to access the creek.  The ground was saturated and muddy; in fact, I learned the hard way that tripod chairs and mud don't mix (I hurt my hand when I fell over!). 

At 6:00 p.m., we ate dinner; then, we cleaned everything up for bed.  It was going to be an early night for us; after all, we weren't going to be able to have a campfire, and that 3:00 a.m. wake up was starting to catch up with us.  Around 7:00 p.m., we had had enough, and the three of us said good night to each and retired to our tents.  We were all asleep by 7:30, well before first star, I'm sure.

We all slept very well that night; what helped was that it didn't rain overnight, so we were all able to stay dry and warm.  (I'm sure that the Tylenol PM that John and I took contributed to that good night's sleep as well.)  The three of us slept until 6:00 the next morning, well rested and ready to begin the new day.

The skies were cold and gray that morning, and it didn't look like it was going to clear any time soon.  John and I concluded that the weather had to be the result of Hurricane John, which had belted Cabo San Lucas earlier that week.  What that meant to us was that we were in for another day of rain...and another day of being trapped in a tent with an active six year-old...and another dousing of rain on Pueblo Park Road.

"Yeah," John said.  "I think we should bail."

We decided to hold off on packing for a little bit, so that we could take a little walk on the trail.  I had not yet been to Hinkle Spring, and John wanted to show me a cool mushroom that he had found along the way.  It looked just like a pancake, hot off the griddle.  Mary insisted that we take a picture of it, so that she could print it out to show her teacher. 

John, Mary and I walked all the way to the junction with the Hinkle Spring Trail, which was a quarter of a mile away.  We had every intention of hiking all the way there that morning in our camp shoes, but when we saw how muddy the trail was, we decided to turn back, because there was no way we would ever make it there like that.

Upon returning to camp, we started packing up our gear for the return hike to the trailhead.  At 8:30, we were finally ready to go, and with one final glance at our campsite, we started down the muddy trail.

John stopped us immediately.  "Come back here!" he hissed, and, naturally, I started looking around for deer, since that was his typical "look, there's wildlife!" whisper.  Indeed, there was wildlife, but it wasn't a deer or elk or anything large like that.  Instead, it was a tiny, bright green frog, sitting among the wet pine needles along the side of the trail.  We took a picture of it for Mary's teacher.

Our hike that morning proved to be a little more difficult than yesterday for one good reason: the trail was completely saturated.  Where the trail was flat, it was slick with mud, and we were forced to walk off of the trail, among the pine needles, to keep us from slipping and falling.  Where the trail went downhill, towards Steeple Canyon, it was no longer a trail but a small creek, flowing with water.  It wasn't until we reached the steep switchbacks going into Steeple Canyon that the trail improved.  Despite the muddy conditions, however, we actually made better time hiking out; Mary managed to maintain a 1.5 mile an hour pace throughout the whole hike.

We reached the last climb of the trail at 11:00 a.m. precisely, just as Mary was on the verge of meltdown.  Crisis was averted, though, when we could finally see the trailhead; the tears stopped abruptly, and Mary ran happily to the 4Runner, where she declared herself the winner by touching the car first.  John and I were just relieved to have reached the trailhead before the skies opened up again; but we knew that our adventure was far from over.

Before we could climb into the 4Runner, we dropped our packs and changed into the dry shoes that we had left behind.  Once Mary's muddy boots were off, we let her climb into the back seat, where the rest of her toys were waiting for her.  John reached in behind her and grabbed the ice chest that we had packed for the journey, and that was when he noticed that Mary's blankets were wet. 

"What the..." he started, but before he could finish, he discovered that Mary had left the back window down about 2 inches...and it had been that way all day and all night.  Great!

As soon as we were all ready to go, we climbed into the 4Runner and started our long journey home.  Of course, the first thing we had to do was get off of Pueblo Park Road...and we had no idea what the road was going to be like following that torrential rain from the day before.  The first quarter mile didn't give us much confidence either, as it was very slick with mud.  We did, however, see another set of tracks in the mud, which indicated to us that someone else had dared to travel on that road since the rain; that was a good sign.

As the road began to descent steeply towards the junction with FR 281 and the community of Blue, we once again found no indication whatsoever that the road should have been closed.  For the most part, the road was dry and easy to navigate; we didn't even need to put the 4Runner into four wheel drive low.  It was a far better road than many of the other roads that we have traveled over the years. 

And yet it was closed.  We were very puzzled by that; but at the same time, we counted ourselves very lucky that we were unscathed, considering that we had broken the Stupid Motorist Law.

Although we were hungry and tired, we decided to do a little exploring around the community of Blue.  We rejoined FR 281 and drove through town, crossing the Blue River twice as we did so.  (We crossed it again two more times on the way out of town.)  Then, having seen all there was to see in Blue, we turned around and continued on our journey.

Instead of returning to Alpine along FR 281, we decided instead to take Red Hill Road (FR 567), which would deposit us onto US 191, just north of Hannagan Meadow.  Along this route, we passed through the Red Hills, which, as the name suggested, were hills of red rock, much like one would find in Sedona.  This was something that we would have never expected to find in the White Mountains, hours away from Sedona.  John stopped to take a picture, saying that we should use it to fool people.

Around 1:00 p.m., we arrived in Hannagan Meadow.  Up to that point, it had not rained on us at all, not even after we started driving.  I could tell that John was disappointed, because if we were going to abandon our backpacking trip for rain....well, it had better rain!  To his great relief, the skies finally opened up on us as soon as we reached US 191, meaning that our retreat was not in vain.

We stopped for lunch at the Hannagan Meadow Lodge, where there was a lovely buffet that included sandwiches, chicken nuggets, a delicious tortilla soup, and brownies for dessert.  We took our time eating and enjoyed the food and the atmosphere, and once we were done, we paid the bill and left.

We had decided that it would be more fun to take the scenic route home that day: US 191 to Clifton/Morenci, then US 70 to Globe, and finally US 60 back into Phoenix.  John and I had last taken this route during my birthday trip to the White Mountains eight years ago, but we had not been back since.   Although it would take us longer to travel this route, it did make more sense for us to take it.  Given that it was a holiday weekend, we knew that the bulk of the travelers would be on the major highways, so we weren't going to see a lot of traffic.

Knowing that it was going to be a long route and that Mary was going to start with the usual "are we there yets", we decided to make it interesting for her: we counted the switchbacks.  That game kept Mary's interest for the first fifty switchbacks; after seventy, she stopped counting and insisted that we put on a movie for her.  After seventy-six, we stopped counting, too.

We soon arrived in Clifton/Morenci and drove through the gigantic Phelps-Dodge copper mines.  Even though it was a holiday weekend, the house-sized dump trucks were hard at work, hauling ore out of the mines.  Mary had the chance to see one of these trucks in action and was very impressed.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to show her more, because the overlook where we had once stopped was now closed, and there were no other overlooks at which we could stop.

It was getting late in the day, and we were still hours from home.  After stopping in Safford to get gas and switch drivers, we drove non-stop all the way back to Phoenix, arriving in Mesa around dinner time.  We were all very hungry after the long drive, so we stopped at the first place we could find - Mi Amigos, at Superstition Springs Mall - for dinner.  By that time, we were all exhausted, and the food did little to energize us.  We just wanted to go home.

It was after 8:00 p.m. when we arrived at home.  We put Mary right to bed without even giving her a bath, and we followed less than an hour later...

...and at 9:30, there was a loud crack of thunder, followed by torrential rain.  Minutes later, we lost power, so we scrambled around the house, looking for flashlights and candles.  We then opened up the front door to let in the cool breeze, and from there, we sat and watched the storm.  Oh yes, it was good to be home.

Return to Naked in the Woods.