We had a great time, this turned out really well (except we missed o8k!). Besides us we had AZKJ and copilot, Signcutter21 and copilot, and M&P40. The agenda was pretty loose, using four trails from the Massey & Wilson book in the Chiricahuas (South #20 through 23) as a starting point.
We did the Hands Pass trail in its entirety, including the side trip up to the Kasper Tunnel. The tunnel is still in good shape, it's about half a mile long or more, with ventilation shafts every so often. It connected the two halves of the old town of Hilltop, although no traces of the town remain on the western side.
Hands Pass was quite a challenge, and special commendations to AZKJ for getting a stock Libby through it:
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We did our part for trail cleanup by moving this downed tree further off the road - M&P40 gets to use his winch for the first time, and Signcutter21 shows he is prepared by bringing a nice new sharp axe:
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Signcutter21 comes up a particularly steep bank out of the wash:
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Towards the end of Hands Pass we noticed this mountain with a nice road leading up it:
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This mountain turns out to be Harris Mountain, and it has a very steep road with switchbacks running up it (which we found after a wrong turn by me
). At the top was a friendly guy building an observatory (for someone else). You can't really tell from this picture, but there was very little room to turn around at the top:
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Signcutter21 brought his Jeepin Dog, appropriately named Jeep:
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We worked our way down through Paradise back to Pinery Canyon Road, and went back north to Forest Road 42, which brings you to the Barfoot Park trail. This trail was not quite as difficult as Hands Pass, but it was a handful. Along the way there was this downed tree, too long to move without cutting up:
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There was a bypass around the tree, but Signcutter21 decided to try it. He was okay until his front tire slipped off the log it's about to come down on in the above picture, at which point he got hung up on the engine skid with one front wheel over the log, and the other behind it. But he did find us a great place to relax and sit in the cool piney woods:
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The Massey & Wilson book says that the Barfoot Park trail comes to a washout at Pine Creek. They say that "experienced drivers in modified rigs may wish to continue along the forest road", and they call the washout an "extremely challenging section". It's pretty washed out, with two-three foot diameter rocks strewn about and about a five foot near vertical far bank. We just turned around and came out the way we came in.
The obligatory lineup:
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We didn't get to the Pine Canyon Road at all, and I still want to do that sometime.
Thanks y'all!
Oh, and we totally forgot to re-aim M&P40's headlights.
Russ & Mary
