With John traveling to Akron every other week, it was becoming more and more difficult to get outdoors.  Even when John was home, our weekends were packed with skydiving events, household projects that couldn't be done during the week (because John was traveling), and social gatherings.  Finally, as we approached the first weekend in November, we looked at each other and said, "We need to get out of the house."

"We should spend the weekend at the cabin," John suggested.  Granted, he would be flying home on Friday night and wouldn't be home until midnight; but as long as I could get everything ready ahead of time, we could easily get to the Gaard-Chak on Saturday morning.

And then, Mary was invited to a birthday party/sleepover on Friday night.  Good news for me, because it gave me a free evening to myself; but it was bad news for our weekend plans.  We wouldn't be picking Mary up until 10:00 a.m. Saturday morning; at that point, it wasn't going to be worth it to try to drive to Overgaard, for even a short stay at the Gaard-Chak.

That said, John and I decided that we would stay home on Saturday and work on some household projects; then, on Sunday morning, we would go on a day hike.

But where to go?  The answer, of course, was obvious; having failed in our first attempt to hike the Turkey Springs-West Webber Loop in September, we thought it would be a good idea to try again - only this time, we would start from Milk Ranch Point and work our way down towards Turkey Springs.  With this approach, the loop would be five miles long, and we were certain to have a successful hike.

On Sunday morning, November 8, John and Mary and I loaded our hiking gear into the 4Runner and took off on our day's adventure on the Mogollon Rim.  To get there, we drove north on the Beeline Highway - SR 87 - towards Payson, Pine, and Strawberry.  Once on the Rim, we turned off onto FR 300 - the Rim Road - and continued along FR 218A until we reached FR 218.  There, we turned right and began looking for the trailhead. 

It was then that we realized that we had left the GPS at home.  While it was true that we had the topographical maps that John had printed out, the maps were nearly useless without the GPS coordinates, which would have told us exactly where we needed to go.  At that point, finding the trailhead was just a lot of guesswork.  Based on the maps, we knew that the trailhead was located just off of FR 218, on a side road, and that side road was somewhere near Dickinson Flat.  The trick, then, was to find the right side road...and there were a lot of them!  After we had spent nearly twenty minutes driving around near Dickinson Flat, Mary pointed out that there was one road that we hadn't checked yet - FR 9386F (I think)...and it turned out to be the right road!  Just a few hundred feet from the turnoff, we found the trailhead sign!

"Great guess, Mary!" we complimented her. 

We started hiking that morning at 9:40 a.m. - much later than we had hoped to be hitting the trail.  Our hike on the Turkey Springs Trail began with a nice, flat jaunt through the forest, towards the very edge of the Mogollon Rim; then, we began our descent - our steep descent - towards Turkey Springs.

Indeed the trail was much steeper than we had anticipated; and, to make matters worse, the trail was incredibly rocky, too.  That particular combination of "steep" and "rocky" resulted in a very slow start to our morning, as we were forced to hike with great caution.  Specifically, I had to hike slowly, because, as everyone knows, I don't do well with that type of terrain; I've had enough bad falls to warrant extreme caution.  On top of that, my knee was still hurting from Canada, and going downhill like that wasn't helping matters any.

Now, although the terrain was terrible, the views were spectacular; that, in and of itself, was enough to make that difficult hike worthwhile.  The trail was very exposed, and that gave way to a wide panorama of the Mogollon Plateau.  That amazing view slowed us down as well, because we kept stopping to gape at its beauty.

After twenty-two switchbacks (yes, Mary counted them) and nearly two hours of difficult hiking, we finally arrived at Turkey Springs - or, at least, the fenced area that contained the springs.  Instead of approaching the springs, which were located about a hundred feet off of the trail, we stopped short of there and ate our lunch, to re-energize before we began our long climb back up Milk Ranch Point.  If the climb was anything like the descent, we were going to need that energy!

Once we were finished with our lunch, we started hiking again.  A tenth of a mile later, we came to the junction with the West Webber Trail, which followed Webber Creek through the forest.  This trail would take us about 1.75 miles, uphill, to Milk Ranch Point and end at FR 218. 

As soon as we stepped onto the West Webber Trail, we entered into an autumn wonderland: the trail was lined with oaks, sycamores, and maple trees, displaying the most vibrant fall colors that we have ever seen!  The trees - and the ground - were covered with hues of red, pink, orange, and yellow, dotted with the occasional green leaf that still had not been touched by the autumn frost.  (John remarked that this mixture of colors reminded him of colored pasta!)  It was so amazing that we had to stop several times along the way to take pictures.

Although the West Webber Trail was incredibly beautiful, it was in no way easier than the Turkey Springs Trail.  This was due to the fact that the trail was choked with fallen trees, over which we had to climb.  Maneuvering around these logs was not easy, either; while some of them were small, most of them were large and still had all of their branches intact; and that forced us to go around them to find a better route.  That caused us to lose the trail several times, so we would have to stop and look around for the trail markers in order to find the path again.  (It was a good thing that there were trail markers; though they weren't always easy to spot, they did keep us on the right track.  Otherwise, we might have become lost!)

All of that log-hopping and path-finding killed our progress and zapped our energy; it took us nearly two hours to go one mile, and we were getting tired.  And we still had a steep climb ahead of us! 

The climb up to Milk Ranch Point was not nearly as bad as we had anticipated; true, it was steep, but it wasn't nearly as rocky as the descent, nor did we have to worry about hopping over any more logs.  In order to tackle the long climb, we took it one switchback at a time, pausing to rest at the end of each segment.  This was a technique that we had using for some time, and it worked well for us - especially for Mary and her little legs!

After twenty-four switchbacks (yes, we counted those, too!), we made it to the top of Milk Ranch Point.  There, we took a long break to rest our weary feet and to eat a small snack to regain our strength for the last leg of our hike - the 1.5 mile long jaunt up FR 218, back to the Turkey Springs Trailhead.

That was when John announced that he was going to hike on ahead, so that he could bring the 4Runner back for us.  He recognized that Mary was exhausted - though she was in amazingly good spirits - and knew that it was getting quite late in the day.  It would take another hour for Mary to hike back to the 4Runner, and it was already after 3:00 p.m.  We certainly did not expect to be out on the trail that late - in fact, he fully expected to be done by 1:00 - so John felt that it was necessary to cut Mary's day short.

After giving John a ten-minute head start, Mary and I finished hiking the last tenth of a mile on the West Webber Trail, then started down FR 218, towards the Turkey Springs Trailhead.  Fifteen minutes later, John approached us in the 4Runner and picked us up, thus ending our 4.5 mile hike.

Our adventure on the Mogollon Rim was not yet over; despite the fact that it was late in the day - just after 3:30 p.m. - John and I decided that we needed to take care of some unfinished business.  Several times over the last two years, we had tried - and failed - to find the campsite where John had asked me to marry him, during that miserably cold camping trip in October 1998.  Unfortunately, this event had taken place before we had a GPS, so we didn't know the exact coordinates of that site - and, over the passage of time, we had forgotten where it was. 

Since we still had a little bit of time before sunset, we decided to go exploring along FR 218 - between FR 218A and FR 300 - to see if we could find that site again.  We tried every single side road that we could find along that stretch of forest road, and we still did not find it!  By the time we reached the junction with FR 300, where we turned around, we determined that we were probably looking in the wrong place after all; the site must be between FR 218A and Milk Ranch Point instead.  But, it would have to wait until next time, because we were running out of daylight.  It was time for us to leave the Mogollon Rim and start the long trip home.

It was already after 5:00 p.m. and nearly dark outside when we reached Payson - and we were hungry!  We weren't going to be able to wait until we got home, so we opted to grab a bite to eat while we were in town.  Our intention was to make it a light meal, so we stopped at Cousin's Subs...only to find that it was closed for the day!  Frustrated, we opted for the Main Street Grille instead...only to find that they were closed for the winter!  After driving around for a little bit, we eventually settled for Mackey's Grill, which was located in the same strip mall where the Quizno's used to be.  We had never eaten there before, and it turned out to be a good choice.  True, it wasn't the light meal we were looking for, but it was good - and it was the perfect ending to our day's adventure...

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