Jasper South and Spanish Ruins Hikes

Our regular Tuesday hike on the 18th took us to the trail the club calls Jasper South. It's south on Rt 87. We go south, then a few miles past Rye, then cross to the northbound lanes and head north again. It's a small dirt road leading to a fair sized parking lot.

We had about 25 people in the group. As usual, we followed the dirt track out into the desert. As promised, lots of red jasper just laying all about. So much, that Randy was able to pick and choose the nicest pieces he found.


Anyway, we walked out about 2.6 miles and along the way passed a small handful of cattle, watching us from a short distance. They didn't like the fact that we were there. They were quite wary. When a few of our members tried to take their pictures, they turned tail and ran away. Better than running toward us I guess. We stopped at a high point with a very nice view of a valley and the mountains in the distance for our turn around break.

I'll have to say, the weather was perfect. We were down to our T-Shirts, enjoying the bright day.

The hike back was uneventful, returning the same way we had gone out.
We all had a nice bit of exercise and lovely chats with club members. What more could a person want?!

Then on Friday, Randy led Betty and I and Phoebe the 5 pound chihuahua on a hike up to the Spanish Ruins. Since none of us had any other appointments, it seemed a good day to get some hiking in.

We got to the Doll Baby Ranch trailhead about 10am. Of course parking was no problem, it's a nice large parking area and no one else was there.

We started out along the flat road enjoying the many trees along the way. A short way in, we were warmed up enough to take off the sweatshirts. Just after that, we saw two medium large dogs but no people. They checked us out from a distance and then turned around and disappeared around the bend in the trail. Betty put Phoebe
on her leash as we didn't want any trouble. However, we trekked on up the trail but never did see those dogs again. Eventually Betty took the leash off Phoebe so she could explore a little better. She also took Phoebe's dog sweater off. We figured that if we were warmed up, so was the little dog.

Anyway, for those that have been on this hike, you know it's pretty much uphill all the way to the top of the mesa. At one point, maybe a mile in, the road crosses a small stream that flows across the road. We took this opportunity to allow the dog to get a drink from a natural source. Even tho we spent a few minutes there and
she sniffed around quite a bit, she didn't drink from the stream. Maybe she wasn't thirsty, maybe the smell of untreated water was too strange, I don't know but eventually we moved on up the hill.

We got to the gate and went thru and turned left, headed for the mesa. The path here is kind of faint but we mananged OK till about 1/2 way up. Then, the path just kind of disappeared. Randy couldn't quite remember exactly the way to go so he went right and Betty and I went left. He ended up bushwhacking to the top. Betty and I found what I believe to be the path. However, it is a bit of a rock climb and I always get nervous about that. However, we all made it to the top of the mesa and Randy led us rightish, and we found the ruins.


Of course we explored them, took pictures of us all at the edge of the cliff and had a nice rest looking out over the valley of the Doll Baby Ranch. After we had our snack, Randy led us to the overhang where the matate's are dug into the rock.
We also climbed around the end of the cliff to a spot on the Doll Baby side of the mesa. There, a monarch butterfly came fluttering past and decided to rest on the
leg of Betty's jeans. Pretty cool.

Done with our exploring, we headed back down the mesa, only making a slight mistake on the path, having to bushwhack about 20 feet or so. The rest of the hike was pretty uneventful. Tried to get Phoebe to drink at the stream on the way out but again, she sniffed the water in several spots but decided not to drink. Oh well. We did have to carry her a couple of times on the way out. It was a pretty hard hike for a little dog and she appreciated the rides.

Again, a good day out!

Snowshoe Hike at Pine TrailHead

So the normal C Group hike for Tuesday (the 4th) was cancelled due to extremely wet conditions. However, Randy and I wanted to get out and enjoy the snow so we headed north to Pine AZ. There is a really nice access road at the south end of town, called Pine Trailhead.

When we got there the access road was blocked with snow from the highway plowing but the right turn lane had been cleared. So, we just parked at the end of the access road at the top of the turn lane. We put on our snowshoes and packs and climbed up over the snow bank and headed down the access road. There were a lot of tracks of people and dogs on the access road. When we got to the parking area, we headed to
the Highline and Arizona Trail signs and the trail head for those trails. I signed in the trail register while Randy got a picture of the Highline trail sign.

We started into the woods and immediately noticed that there were hardly any tracks. From all of the tracks on the access road, really, a path had been worn into the snow, I expected to see lots of tracks on the trail. Must be people were just walking their dogs into the parking area and back out again.

Once into the woods, the trail takes a sharp left. However, straight ahead a couple hundred feet, I could see a fence, gate and signage. I'll let you know here, that at the end of the hike, before we went back out to the parking area, I trudged up to that signage. It's a sign and very nice gate, put up by the Mesa Boy Scouts. There is no signage about any trail that goes thru there. Its it possible that it used to be the AZ trail?

Anyway, we took the left and in about 50 or 100 feet there was trail signage pointing to the right for the AZ trail. This may be the "new"? AZ trail coming up from the south? We continued to follow the trail to the north, which is both the Highline trail and the AZ trail.

A short distance later, the trail takes a sharp turn to the right. This is where we took a picture with both of us. The sign here had a nice flat topped pole that Randy could put the camera on to take a pic of both of us. We continued on, following well placed trail signs. The day was perfect, a nice temp and beautiful sky. I had removed my fleece at the last picture point, already too warm for a fleece, I was comfortable with a wicking tee shirt and cotton henley.

The snow was soft and wet, making it a hard job to break trail. Randy took over as the lead trail breaker but even so, as the 2nd in line, there was still a lot of snow to pack down. We saw lots of animal tracks. A lot of rabbit, some very strange track of what looked like a leaping animal that landed making a mark with it's whole body. The landing spots were several feet apart and were old so finding a clear sharp track was difficult. Lots of small critters, squirrel, chipmunk or maybe even mice. Especially around oak scrub, there were a lot of tracks.

After about 50 minutes, we decided to take a break. We cleared a fallen tree trunk of snow and had a sit down break. Randy brought along a thermos of hot coffee. That really hits the spot on a cold hike. After our break, we headed back. Much easier now as we had already broken the trail and, we were headed downhill. We didn't realize that the entire way in had been a gentle uphill climb. It took us about 40 minutes to get back to the car.

We got the snowshoes off and back in the car then hit the Nifty 50 restaurant for a quick lunch and to say hi to my sister-in-law Betty. Then we went to Randy's brother's house (Pat) to say hi to him and leave the snowshoes for everyone to try out.

All in all, a great day out.