Thursday May 23, 21.7mi/34.9km

Burro Mountain Saddle (355.4/9680ft) to Home Creek Tank (375.3/8010ft) (Arizona) +1.8mi to Big Lake CG

My campsite in the trees was pretty ideal for blocking the wind, but even so it was a pretty cold night. It was the highest elevation I’ve slept at on this trail and I definitely noticed. I started hiking in a bunch of layers and slowly removed them as the sun came up higher. I was also descending lower.

One of the old dirt roads was descending pretty steeply, so I had to watch my footing and I almost missed this good view of Mount Baldy.

Eventually the old road turned in a different direction and I kept going straight, crossing this meadow in whatever direction felt right.

I had dropped all the way down to the West Fork Black River, and while it was still windy here it was much warmer. I followed along the river for an hour, it definitely kept me entertained. They had built these little waterfalls to purposely keep out invasive fish, so only the native Arizona trout could get upstream.

This gate seemed kind of ridiculous, especially with its sign scolding “please close the gate”, given that there was no fence connecting to either side of the gate.

It was mostly just good views and the relaxing sound of the river next to me.

I came around the corner to this old dog just laying there napping in the sun. We were both very surprised to see each other, though a minute later I ran into his humans, who were fly fishing in the stream.

As I continued downstream, the river became less turbulent and calmer as it passed through some meadows.

Finally, in order to leave this canyon I had to cross the river. The crossing was called Deadman’s Ford, sounds like it’s a safe place to cross.

It was an easy crossing, since the water was only shin deep but it was so frigid. After 5 minutes my feet bones finally warmed back up and I could start hiking uphill again to leave the canyon. An hour later I was at the trailhead which had one of these neat carved maps.

I had heard this area had been burned pretty severely a few years ago but I didn’t notice anything near the trail.

Just before noon, I arrived at a junction with an optional turn-off to Big Lake Campground. I decided to hike the quarter-mile off route to go fill my water bottles and have lunch at a picnic table. I explored around the campground, looking for the one bathroom that had the showers, since I hadn’t gotten clean in 5 days. I finally found it, there was a whole separate building basically apart from the campground, and I gladly paid them the $8 to take an unlimited hot shower. The view from there was pretty good too.

After eating lunch, showering, and charging my phone, I realized that a couple hours had passed and it was time to get back to the trail. This part of the trail was in a burn section but thousands of young Aspens were growing amongst the charred trees.

I passed by the most unique spring I ever saw, there was a little pipe coming out of the ground filling a hollowed-out log.

And then for like a mile I saw all these little orange cylinders dotting the sides of the trail, it was such a curious sight.

I looked inside one of them and then realized their purpose, they are protecting the young trees that have been planted to replace the burned forest.

The last couple hours of the day were easy hiking on old roads through some nice unburned forest.

I saw that I was about to exit the forest into an extensive meadow, so I decided to stop and camp, while I still had good terrain to camp in. I can hear animals walking around the forest in this area, I’m guessing it’s elk since I had seen so many of them today.