Reavis Ranch Backpacking Trip March 2016

Kyle and I went with a few (3 others, to be exact) scouts from his Boy Scout Troop on a 3 day backpacking trip in the Superstition Wilderness, about 30 miles away from home.  That's 30 miles as a bird flies, 52 miles and 2 hours of driving...  This was at the beginning of Spring break for the schools here, and met the requirements for the first of 3 hikes for the backpacking merit badge (each hike > 13 miles, 3 days and 2 campsites).  We had done some prep hikes, including hiking with packs to make sure that things were adjusted properly and so we'd be used to the pack when we started hiking.  The particular destination was the Reavis Ranch area, a meadow where Elisha Reavis had a farm and apple orchard in the 1880's.  There is a creek running through the meadow, so water would not be a problem.  This is a fairly popular destination, and we saw at least 4 other groups in the meadow the night we camped there.

The route:


The plan was to follow trail 109 (Reavis Valley Trail) to the ranch site and camp.  This involved descending 400 feet, then climbing 800 feet across Reavis Saddle, then gradually descending 400 feet again to the ranch site (leaving us at about the same elevation as the trailhead - 4800').  Day two would be a trip to a Sin Agua ruin called Circlestone, at the top of a 6000' hill next to Mound Mountain, then camp near the saddle.  Day three was a return to the trailhead and civilization.

Temperatures were forecast to be a little cool, but not too bad - with adjustments for elevation (High/Low):
Sat 66/40
Sun 74/44
Mon 78/46

Day 1 - March 12
We started from the church the troop meets at, and drove to the Rogers Trough Trailhead.  This involved ~15 miles of dirt-road in increasingly poor condition, including the last mile marked by the forest service as 'High clearance required, 4WD strongly recommended'.  Only one spot this time that was loose enough to need 4WD, but if the road was wet at all there would be more places that would be hard to climb without it.  High clearance was definitely needed in several places.

Rogers Trough Trailhead

We started the hike about 9 AM, dropping down into Rogers Canyon and then heading up Reavis Canyon towards the saddle.  We reached the top of the saddle about 11:45 and stopped there for lunch, and some map-and-compass exercises for the scouts.  The climb up the saddle was through mostly small mesquite trees and manzanita - all low shrubs.  It is amazing how green everything looked - this area had seen rain during the previous week, and it showed in the green of the shrubs and trees, and some areas of standing and flowing water in the creek beds.  Looking out from the saddle, the green hills could easily pass as another part of the country that isn't as dry as Arizona, just green rolling hills (since there weren't any saguaro cactus in this area).

Rogers Canyon 

White Mountain

Reavis Canyon from Reavis Saddle

Hills by the saddle

We had an easy and casual descent the 3+ miles to the ranch site.  On the north side of the saddle we quickly dropped into a Ponderosa Pine forest, so it felt much more like hiking along the Mogollon Rim in northern Arizona.  We saw a few other groups, some day-hikers and some other backpackers.  At the meadow we could see the floor of the ranch house - the rest burned down about 20 years ago, and looking at a nearby fire ring much of the stone from the house was used there...  We occupied a nice campsite with a fire ring near the creek, setup camp and the scouts collected firewood, waiting until dark to actually light the fire.  I found 2 trees that I could setup my hammock between and got situated, with a tarp over the hammock to help keep any wind off me.  I use an air-pad under me in the hammock as insulation, and had a liner in the sleeping bag to offer a little extra insulation - which would be much appreciated by the morning.  After the sun went down it cooled off quickly - we were at about 4800' in elevation, so it was expected to be cooler than in Phoenix, but we could see breath by about 8PM, so most everybody was in their tent shortly after that.  I was OK until about 10:30, then started getting cold, so I put on another layer of clothes - I went to sleep with a long-sleeve heavyweight shirt and running tights on, I added a down vest and my pants over that, and cinched up the sleeping bag.  That held until about midnight, when the cold seeping in through my sides (where the hammock was pressing in) got to be too much and I just dropped down to the ground where nothing would be compressing the sides of my sleeping bag.  That got me through til dawn, but it was still a pretty chilly night, with cold feet.

Total hiking - 7.5 miles

Reavis Creek

Remains of Reavis Ranch house

Day 2 - March 13
For the last part of the night, sleeping on my left side was good, on my back was a little chilly and on my right side presented a really cold breeze right into what of my face was exposed.  I held out in the sleeping bag until I could finally see sunlight on the hill near us, then jumped out, put on my windshell and boots and started working to warm up.  I was a bit surprised to see (a) that my water bottle was mostly frozen and (b) my thermometer shows a temperature around 26 degrees.  I had not expected below-freezing temps, and was glad for the liner in my sleeping bag.  I was using my 30 degree bag, and the liner claims to add 10 degrees to the comfort level - something I was glad for, since I was only uncomfortable and not worse.  All of the scouts and leaders made it through OK, though everybody was cold during the night.  One nice thing about packet meals is that once you add hot water, tucking the pouch inside a jacket is a nice way to warm up a little.  The scouts also found goofing off in the sunlight to be helpful.  We didn't get camp broken until 11AM, a bit later than we'd hoped, but it was a lot colder than we hoped also.

We had camped 1/4 mile from the trail towards Circlestone, so we hiked to that intersection and stashed the packs off the trail, bringing just lunch and water along on the 3 miles to the ruins.  The hike along the Fireline trail was nice, never climbing too steeply, with some nice views of the mountains.  At the top, the ruins were, indeed ruins, with a really nice view of several valleys and ridges, and a great view of 4Peaks to the north.  We could even see another set of ruins in Rogers Canyon (near Angel Basin).  We descended, returned to the packs, filtered water at the creek, and we hiked the 3 miles to a campsite about 1/2 mile below the saddle.  This was a little tighter, but was the last easy place to camp and get water before the saddle, and we didn't really want to camp exposed to the wind as we would be on the saddle.  For this campsite there weren't great trees to hang from, and I wanted better protection from the wind anyway, so rigged up the tarp as a shelter and slept on the ground.  This night was much warmer, with no wind that bothered me, so everybody was much more comfortable.  Morning low was 40 degrees, so whatever little cold spot we were in the first night had passed by.  There was some moderate wind during the night, heard in the tree tops, but barely noticed down at our level.

Hiking on day 2 - 9.1 miles

Four Peaks from Circlestone

Circlestone

Mound Mountain

Day 3 - Monday March 14
Woke up to 40 degrees, everybody broke camp more quickly and we were on our way up the saddle by 9:30.  Climbing back up from Rogers Canyon to the trailhead was slower and harder than some of the scouts may have thought, so we got to the trailhead again about noon, and had lunch before starting back to town.

Day 3 hiking : 4.0 miles
Total : 20.6 miles over three days

Reavis Canyon on the descent from the Saddle

Looking back on the road to Rogers Trough TH

My gear worked out pretty well - aside from the issue with the temperature and the hammock.  I'll have to check into an underquilt if I plan to hang in cold temperatures again, and I've already been planning a new sleeping bag with a lower temperature rating.

My gear:
backpack - Osprey Atmos 50AG - no problems with the pack, the suspension is great and it felt a lot lighter than the 39+ pounds that it weighed with all my gear.  Everything I needed fit into the pack - though I would have been hard pressed to get much more if I needed to.
Sleeping Bag - Sierra Designs 30 degree + Thermolite liner.  This really isn't a backpacking bag, and it occupied more than 1/3 of my pack volume - definitely something to change for a longer duration trip.
Sleeping Pad - Klymit Inertia O-Zone - lightweight backpacking air pad, with cutouts in a variety of places to reduce weight and avoid compressing the sleeping bag insulation.  Worked well on the ground, no so well in the hammock.  I was plenty warm on the ground, even if it looks like its full of holes.  Packs down to a pop-can sized cylinder.
Hammock - Eagle Nest Outfitters Double Nest + Atlas straps.  I used a Hex-a-tarp over the hammock for this trip, will prefer a longer and wider tarp next time to better keep out of the wind.  I used the footprint from my backpacking tent (that Kyle used) as a ground cloth when I slept on the ground.
Water filter  - Katadyn Hiker.  A little heavy, but the people who brought pumps found them much appreciated.  One leader had a Sawyer mini, and found that dipping into an almost-freezing creek to fill a pouch was less than comfortable...
Stove - MSR Whisperlite Universal - I appreciated this stove, since others were finding on the cold morning that the butane gas stoves (Jetboil, MSR Pocket Rocket) weren't working as well due to the temperature.  With the Whisperlite I could turn the butane cylinder over and burn liquid butane which worked much better for boiling water.
GPS - Garmin Etrex 20 - one set of batteries made it through all three days.  I had pre-loaded the routes (from HikeArizona.com), so we knew we were following the right trails (especially Circlestone which isn't all on maintained trails).
Map - National Geographic Trails Illustrated "Superstition & Four Peaks Wilderness Areas" #851

Meals - Kyle and I ate home-made and dehydrated meals, which really worked out well and were a lot cheaper.  A combination of things that we made specifically to be dried, and leftovers that we dried out.
Lunches were always sausage, cheese and Wasa (most of my food weight and volume...)
Sat dinner - Vegetarian chili
Sunday bkfst - oatmeal (regular oatmeal, premixed with brown suger, cocoa and raisins)
Sunday dinner - Shrimp Etoufee - from the book 'Scouts Best Backpacking Meals'
Monday bkfst - dried scrambled eggs - the only let down.  I dried these myself, and they really didn't re-hydrate after 30 minutes, they were still a bit rubbery.  Might just need more time, might need to rehydrate overnight...
Snacks - home dried apple chips, Clif bars, nuts

This was a good trip - got me excited to go out and do some more trips in the Supers.  Lots of trails, and lots of 2 day loops that can be done on a weekend.