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.