When it came time to plan our next backpacking excursion, we knew that we had some unfinished business to take care of.  There was still the matter of backpacking on the Fred Haught Trail #141...

In July, for our nine-year anniversary, John and I - along with Mary, Erika, and Joshua - attempted to do a luxury backpacking trip on the Fred Haught Trail.  Everything was going very well, until the rain nearly washed Joshua and Erika down the creek, along with our wine.  Just before dinnertime, we had to abort the trip; we dragged all of our wet gear back down the trail and drove home.

The weekend after Labor Day 2008, we decided that it was time to return to Fred Haught, to finish the trip.  We wanted to give Mary another opportunity to use her new backpack (before we tried something more difficult); and, of course, we wanted to take one last chance to enjoy the beauty of that area before the winter months rolled in.

During the week leading up to our trip, we worked on packing our backpacks, trying to figure out the best way to put Mary's new pack together.  During our first trip, she had carried just her sleeping bag (compressed into a small, lightweight ball), her stuff sack full of clothes, and a couple of toys and books.  She handled that load quite well; so now, we wanted to see if she could carry her sleeping pad in addition to that.

With our gear packed and loaded in the 4Runner, John and Mary and I departed for the Mogollon Rim around 8:00 a.m.  We drove north on the Beeline Highway (SR 87) through Payson, Pine and Strawberry, to the top of the Mogollon Rim.  Once on the Rim, we turned right onto Forest Road 300 - the Rim Road - and kept going for several miles, to the General Springs Trailhead.  Along the way, we did stop to retrieve one geocache on the Rim Road, but as we were in a hurry to get there, we didn't attempt to find any others.

Upon arriving at the General Springs Trailhead, we parked the 4Runner across from the cabin and geared up for our expedition.  We put Mary's backpack on her and made all of the necessary adjustments with the straps and waist belt; she said that everything felt good, so off we went.  Naturally, about a hundred feet down the trail, the backpack began shifting on her, so she had to stop every few feet to readjust.  This lasted for the first half-mile of the trail.

At the top of the ridge, after the short climb (during which time, Mary complained non-stop about her pack not riding correctly), we stopped to take a break, so that we could fix her backpack.  One thing that we noticed was that her shoulder straps were sliding off of her shoulders, meaning that she was carrying all of the weight of her pack on her hips.  We fixed that by tying the straps on the top together.  That worked perfectly.  The next thing we did was, we removed the sleeping pad, leaving just her sleeping bag and her clothes inside.  With a lighter pack, we were able to get a lot more distance out of her.

Once Mary's pack was right, we continued on our way.  We crossed over the ridge and hiked down the contour, towards the creek.  After that, it was just a matter of finding a campsite.  Although we could have camped in the place where we had been rained out back in July, John's intention was to get more distance on this trip, so he wanted to select one of the campsites further up the creek.  The site that we chose was about a half of a mile upstream from the previous site; it was right next to the creek, on a sandbar, and above us was a beautiful, grassy meadow on which we could play Frisbee.

We dropped our packs and set up our tents at the mouth of a drainage, on the sandbar next to the creek.  Once we were settled, we ate lunch then relaxed in the shade; John and I even tried to take a nap, although we didn't get much sleep.  As soon as we discovered that Mary was asleep inside her tent, we decided to take the opportunity to "play naked" in the woods...

That afternoon, after Mary's nap, John announced that he wanted to take a little hike upstream, just to get some exercise.  He returned about thirty minutes later and appeared to be very excited about something.

"You have to come see this!" he exclaimed.  "It's not that far from here!"

"What? What?" Mary and I asked.  "Do we need to put on our boots?"

"Don't bother with that, just come on!" he insisted.

We followed John up the trail.  About five minutes later - maybe a tenth of a mile from camp - he asked us to listen carefully.

"Do you hear that?" he asked. 

There was, in fact, the distinct sound of running water, and it wasn't coming from the creek below; this sound was much louder.

We hiked another two minutes, and suddenly, we found the source of the running water: it was a waterfall!  A huge, running waterfall, cascading down the side of the ridge, across the trail, and down to the creek!  And it hadn't been there in July, when we were there last!  Clearly, it wasn't a natural waterfall, but at the time, we didn't care, because it was still just as amazing.  It was like something we would have seen in Glacier National Park or in Alaska, not on the Mogollon Rim!

Curiosity got the best of John, and he decided to climb to the top to see if he could find the source of the waterfall.  He figured that the waters were coming from a lake that was at capacity or something like that.  While Mary and I waited at the bottom, John carefully scaled the ridge until he reached the top, and he discovered that the waterfall had been created by the drain pipe of a giant yellow water tank on top of the ridge.  It was hard to believe that such a beautiful waterfall had been created by something manmade!

After John climbed back down the ridge, we all hiked back to camp.  We still had a couple of hours before dinner, so we passed the time by playing Frisbee.  We started out on the sandbar next to the creek; but when the Frisbee kept flying out onto the creek, we decided to move the game to the meadow.  We played for a while; then, once we were tired of that, we sat down and relaxed by the creek.

Around 5:00 p.m., we cooked our meal and ate it by the campfire; by that time, the sun was going down, and there was a chill in the air.  It was just cool enough at that time that we had to change into our sweats to stay warm...

...and Mary learned the hard way that evening that staying warm also involves staying out of the water.  After dinner, Mary started throwing the Frisbee around the sandbar, and, of course, it landed in the creek.  When she tried to retrieve it, she fell in, soaking her camp shoes, her socks, and her sweat pants up to her knees.  We spent the next hour trying to dry out her wet clothes over the campfire; it worked, but John singed the bottoms of her sweat pants over the flames!

Around 8:00 p.m. - and once Mary's stuff was completely dry - it was time for bed; we were all tired, so we all crawled into our tents and went to sleep.

The next morning, John and I were up at first light; Mary, on the other hand, slept until 7:00.  We let her sleep, though, because we weren't in a hurry to leave; not when we didn't have very far to go.  After we all ate breakfast, we took our time packing up our gear and didn't hit the trail until 9:00 a.m.

As we hiked back to the trailhead, we were once again faced with backpack adjustments on Mary's pack.  John had tried to have Mary carry her own sleeping pad in her pack, only to discover that it still made her pack too heavy.  He had also untied the shoulder adjustment straps, so he had to tie those back up again.  As soon as we had the pack adjusted to where it was the day before, Mary was able to hike at her normal pace again.

Except for the pack adjustments, the return hike was uneventful, and it took us about an hour to walk back to the trailhead.  Once we had all of our gear stuffed in the back of the 4Runner, we drove away from General Springs Cabin.

Since it was still very early in the day, we decided to go exploring.  John was very curious to see if he could find the road that went by that water tank that had created the waterfall that cascaded into General Springs Canyon.  He had looked at the Coconino Forest map and was pretty certain that he knew where to find that road, but he had no idea if he was correct.  He also didn't know what was the condition of the road - would it be passable in the 4Runner?

The road was one of those "fun" roads - a windy-twisty forest road that was rutted in some spots - but it was certainly passable in the 4Runner.  At the top of the ridge, it intersected with a pipeline road, on which we found several Caterpillar trucks, as well as the giant yellow water tank!

We found it!  And on the first attempt!

We took some pictures of the tank and of the waterfall from the top of the cascade; then, we turned around and returned the way we came, on that fun road.  Eventually, we found our way back to FR 300, and from there, we started on our way back towards civilization.

On the way home, we stopped for lunch at Sidewinder's in Pine; it seemed appropriate to do so, since that was where we had stopped for dinner after our last backpacking trip on the Fred Haught Trail.  We enjoyed some good bar food and a couple of adult beverages; we also watched a baseball game on the TV.  Afterwards, we headed back home.

And so, let it never be said that we don't take care of unfinished business; we can now say that we have successfully spent the night on the Fred Haught Trail!

Return to Naked in the Woods.