The Superstition Mountains

We had been camped at the Picket Post trail head for so long it was starting to seem like we would never move, but ... we finally traversed a section of Arizona trail! We spent Thursday packing up (filling ziplocks full of alfalfa pellets and grain in addition to the normal camping gear) and getting ready for a 45 mile four day horse packing trip through the Superstition Mountains.

A little vehicle repair.

Friday we got up early and put the horses and gear down into a stone corral in the wash next to camp. By about 9 AM Denise and I were ready to leave to drop off the bus at the far end of the trail. We didn't feel much trepidation leaving the girls alone with the horses and camping stuff. They had the dogs and people were rarely in the area before noon anyway. The dogs are quite aggressive when people approach the girls when they are on their own. Also, we'd made friends with Frank, a rancher less than a ½ mile away if the girls needed to go to someone for help. We left them the cell phone as well. Well, actually I guess Denise worried just a bit.

We left the gear, animals and kids in the early morning an shuttled the bus to the far trailhead.

It took a little over 3 hours to drop the bus off and get back and most of another hour to get the saddles and gear loaded on the horses. We started with about 140# net on Musica and 90# net on Pepsi. Lily rode Cinnibar. Jackie rode Tandy for about a mile, but mostly led her since Tandy was three days into her antibiotics course at the start of the trip. We didn't want her to have to work to hard. It was 1 pm and hot by the time we were ready to go.

Musica didn't necessarily want to carry a heavy pack this hot afternoon.

Jackie and Tandy

Pepsi with her pack on.

Lily ready to go.

The rancher Frank said I could leave the 4 runner in his yard. I moved the car while Denise and the girls started out. Denise has never packed horses and I haven't packed since I was a teenager in Montana. I watched the horses as far as I could and then drove over to Frank's. After parking the car I headed back up the trail. I was a little worried the packs would have immediately fallen off and I would find everyone back at the start. I was very happy to quickly run into Denise and find the packs in need of adjustment, but still more or less in place.

We found that with someone leading Pepsi, Music's lead rope could be looped over Pepsi's saddle horn and that she followed along with very little complaint. Pepsi has a very fast walk so she kept Musica and the rest going at a good pace. Denise did most of the leading and I ran around adjusting the loads and taking pictures.

Denise leading pack horses.

It was a hot afternoon.

Water is one of the biggest considerations for desert travel. Because it was a short day we planned to camp at about the first available water. Our information said that after six miles the trail followed Whitford canyon and then Reavis canyon which generally have water coming to the surface intermittently. Shortly after we got into Whitford canyon we spotted a nice little spring with lots of grass and some pretty cottonwood trees. There were a lot of different pools and a very slight visible flow.

A breeze had sprung up in the afternoon but we all felt hot and tired. We decided with a definite water source and everyone tired of hiking it was a good time to camp. The girls and I set up camp and cooked dinner. Cooking hot dogs and marshmallows for dinner cheered up the girls considerably. There was thick grass for grazing and we were starting to feel sorry that we'd brought so much horse food. Denise fed them their pellets anyway because she was anxious to get the loads as light as possible for the elevation gain we'd be doing the next couple of days. Giving Tandy her oral antibiotics was time consuming and frustrating (throughout the trip) . . . she's the worst eater of the bunch and won't eat more than a handful or two of grain at a time even when it isn't hiding pills. Feeding the other horses was a little awkward and time consuming as well, since I'd only brought three buckets (all I had). Cinnabar seemed to like her food best after she'd pawed her bucket over a couple of times and gotten some dirt and leaves mixed in. Denise finally got the horses settled in for the night tied to some small trees growing near the campsite.

Nice grass in Whitford canyon.

Jackie and Lily set up their own tent.

Denise took care of horses.

During the night the wind picked up. It came down the canyon in gusts which were impossible to sleep through. The next morning the girls told us that their tent pegs kept blowing out and that they had to lay flat on the ground to keep the tent from blowing away. They also reported that they had to keep going out and re-staking the tent. There were 12 solid hours of darkness each night, and it was cold enough that we hopped right into bed at darkness. One would think that would be plenty of time for rest even with interruptions but we all felt a little groggy in the morning anyway.

I got up at 6:45 Saturday morning just as a little light was beginning to show. We all hurried as best as we could and got off at about 9:00 am.

Ready to go in the morning.

Early on we passed a large group of boy scouts clearing the trail as part of an Eagle Scout project. This turned out to be slightly ironic because this section of trail they were headed down to clear turned out to be the best that we went over the entire trip.

As the sun started to hit us we warmed up.

The trail stayed low for the first half of the day and then went up Montana Mountain coming over the shoulder at 5440'. On the way up the mountain we spotted a pile of bear scat.

We moved right along when the trail was flat.

A strong breeze most of the day kept us far from too hot this day. Notice that none of the hikers are down to a t-shirt despite strong sun and gaining almost 3,000 exhausting ft. of elevation.

Denise leading Musica and Pepsi.

Looking back at Revis Canyon and the shoulder of Montana Mountain.

The horses learned about cactus.

Getting into the mountains. Superstitions

We combined two sections of the Arizona trail together on this trip. Because of water considerations we camped at the trail head of the second passage. There were a lot a cars in the parking lot when we arrived but actually the only people camping were a group of hunters. It still felt a little crowded after seeing so few people all day long. We ended up camping in a quasi level area several hundred yards from the hunter's camp. They had a game camera set up looking at our campsite which we covered with a horse blanket. Later in the evening they stopped by and turned the camera off for us. They didn't seem to mind over much where we had camped and it was about the only option. I had been particularly tired when we reached camp yesterday, but felt pretty good today. Denise was completely worn out with sore feet. She had a harder time getting the horses settled for the night. She gave the horses turns being loose to grazing until they discovered where the grain was kept. The trees were a little less ideal for tying horses to, so not all the horses ended up getting to stand on a level surface for the night, but they seemed to survive anyway.

Camp the second night.

Lily helped filter water.

Jackie started the dinner fire.

Denise tended horses.

On Sunday I got up at 6:05 AM hoping we would get off a bit earlier. We ended up leaving at 8:59 AM.

We ate breakfast in the predawn light.

We gained less elevation gain this day. It was supposed to be only a 10 mile day but it turned out to be a bit longer. In the afternoon some clouds came in the worried us a bit but it didn't rain.

The first several miles followed Roger's canyon. The trail kept crossing the wash, it was quite rocky any steep getting in and out of the wash. Had we had know what the trail would be like in the afternoon we wouldn't have considered this trail was overly rough though. The vegetation changed from Saguaro and Mesquite to thick leafy bushes.

The trail kept crossing Roger's wash.

We left the desert and got into very leafy brush.

We came up through Reavis Pass and found ourselves in pine trees! The horses had to jump a couple that had fallen (actually, only Pepsi jumped, all the others managed to step their front legs over and just jumped their back legs). We followed the drainage down for about 3 miles to the old Reavis homestead. By the time we got there occasional pools of water had turned to a full scale flowing stream. Reavis grew vegetables in this pretty valley to sell to the miners and the army. He packed them out of the Superstitions by mule train on essentially the same route we had just followed. Reavis was found dead on the trail in 1898. The land is Forest Service Wilderness area now but there is still an apple orchard that produces some apples and a lot of nice grass. We met two more groups of hunters one of whom had two horses with them. We also met one group of hikers.

This huge tree was just north of Reavis Ranch.

Just past the Reavis Ranch we were supposed to get onto another trail. We took a break, ate lunch, and pulled the horses packs off in a pleasant meadow. The meadow had a number of trails wending through it. As it turned out one of them was ours. Somehow in the shuffle of getting going after lunch we forgot about the intersection and continued down the original trail. After about a half mile we noticed our mistake. The trail is good in this section, the hardest part was having to come back by the group of hunters we had been talking to just after lunch.

The new trail went up through Reavis gap. Going up, the trail was on bedrock in places but the rock was very flat and had steps actually cut into it where necessary. Going down the other side was a different matter. The trail was eroded, and strewn with boulders. The bedrock was exposed in many places and it was very steep. By the time we reached the bottom we felt lucky that none of the horses had broken a leg. As it was they did get a few scrapes around their ankles. We had loosed Music from Pepsi early on during the day so that she could maneuver through the boulder piles without Pepsi pulling on her and making it difficult for her to choose her footing. I was impressed with Cinnabar making her way along slowly and carefully with Lily aboard. I never saw her slip once. Tandy also seemed especially sure footed . . . it looked as though she chose every single step with great care during the steep and bouldery sections. Music and Pepsi made it but they just didn't always look quite as careful and well balanced other two did.

On the far side of the gap the vegetation turned to prickly pear and juniper type trees. Our destination was Walnut springs. About 1 mile before the spring we crossed a stream with flowing water. We considered stopping but the next day was our longest so we pushed on. Walnut springs is very small. The trail goes right by the pool of water and there is a 40' by 40' pocket of very nice grass below it. However it isn't visible until you are right there. This kept us in high suspense to the very last wondering if we should have stopped at the previous water source.

Looking back at Reavis Gap.

Walnut springs turned out to be our most comfortable camp with very flat tent sites. We finally got a good night's rest. The girls were in a very good mood. They even sang songs together for about a half an hour after we went to bed.

Very flat tent sites made this our most comfortable camp.

Walnut Spring

I got up at 6 am again on Monday. The horses are always the slowest things so I started by currying and feeding the horses. We might have gotten off at about 8:40 but Pepsi had gotten sore from the western saddle and pack we had on her. The horses had eaten about 100# of food, the dogs and people had eaten too so I was able to reshuffled the load and packed everything on Musica. We left camp at 8:55.

This day started off with a long steep down hill grade. It looked bad on the map but it wasn't on bedrock or strewn with boulders so it was fine. We had been worried that this last day would be the hardest. There was a lot more vegetation on the trail. We pulled cactus spines out of our legs, the dogs legs, and the horses' legs all day long. (It's been 5 days now since we got back and were still pulling out spines). The elevation gain was less than the second day but more than the first. Music had slowed down quite a lot. Dragging her up all those hills while she tried to nibble on grass and stumbled over prickly pear somehow seemed very tiring. I guess we were all getting tired. The country was scenic with even more cliffs and mountains than they day before. It was fun to look back at the precipitous country we had traveled through. From a distance it looked even more difficult than it had as we went.

We were too busy when the trail was really bad to take photes but this is the general idea.

Pepsi sliding down

.

Without rocks steep trail was no problem.

Juniper, cactus and cliffs.

By the fourth day the horses were tired and so where we.

The trail goes through a major draw, follows a high ridge and then crosses Pinon Mountain in the first 8 miles or so. There is absolutely no water. Past the shoulder of Pinon Mountain the trail joins a forest road for a mile. We found a stock watering trough at the intersection. After the trail leaves the road it drops into a canyon and is reportedly badly eroded so we had left the bus where the forest road meets the black top about 4 miles down. It was over 2000' vertical feet down but the road made it easy going.

Our first look at Roosevelt Lake.

Looking back at the Superstitions.

The horses couldn't help getting cactus thorns in their legs.

There were lots of plants, particularly Agaves in the trail.

We cleared the trail a little.

The trail finally flattened out

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Water after a long walk over Pinon mountain.

We had been worried we would arrive after dark but ended up getting in a little after 4 pm. The girls were a big help putting the gear out to dry and getting the electric fence up for the night.

The road made the descent to the valley floor easy.

Back on the valley floor near the end. Superstitions

All in all it was a tiring but satisfying trip. It was fun to have finally done a pack trip with the horses and to have a better feel for what things we needed to prepare for. I was pleased with how well the horses had handled the trail and I feel like I have a better idea of what they can traverse now without having too many problems. In the future, we don't plan on taking horses on trails that are labeled “difficult” because of the terrain and we now we know to ask about how rocky the trails are. We were fortunate not to get caught in a storm. The day after we got back a cold front moved down that dumped a lot of rain and snow. Next time we probably should check the weather forecast before we head out. Nothing makes camping in an RV feel as luxurious as camping in a tent. We are all happy to have a nice warm bus to sleep in, running water, non-camping food and electric lights and warmth after darkness. The horses seem content to relax a little too.