Dark and ominous-looking storm clouds are moving in fast shortly after we exit off I-17 onto Dugas Road just north of Cordes Junction and wait for the rest of our caravan to catch up with us. An icy wind is blasting out of the west, as we crawl out of our warm vehicles and bundle against the frigid fall air.

Weather forecasts for the past 24 hours have been predicting a 40% chance of rain for the Pine Mountain area, and from the appearance of this sky it’s certainly looking like that 40% might start dumping on us any minute now.

And we still have 18 miles of dirt and gravel road to navigate – the last several miles pretty rough and rocky – before we even reach the trailhead. What to do now?

While waiting for the others to arrive, we discuss Plan B which includes a hike near the Rock Springs area that Eileen had earlier suggested. It would certainly be a warmer and perhaps even drier hike and closer to our home in the desert, which sounds pretty appealing to most of us at this point as we try to stay warm in this polar blast of wind that feels like it’s coming straight down from northern Canada. B’rrr! I need a heavier jacket!

This is beginning to remind me more and more of an Arctic hike that Ted Tenny led some years ago where avoiding death by freezing was our primary goal of the day. We all managed to survive that ordeal with only some minor frostbite and a few amputated toes, but it was certainly quite a challenge.

It’s 11:00 AM on a cold and brisk Saturday morning in mid-November as 18 Arizona Trailblazers gather near the Pine Mountain Trailhead and scan the overhead skies.

It was a bit of a gamble, but the earlier consensus near the Dugas Road exit after the rest of our caravan catches up with us is to go for the hike as originally planned unless pouring rain or lightning turns us back. In the one hour drive to the trailhead the weather has seemingly turned 180 degrees, with plenty of blue sky and sunshine replacing dark and threatening storm clouds. It looks like a great day for hiking as we strike out from the Salt Flat Trailhead on the Nelson Trail #159.

And the air has already warmed up to a balmy 50 degrees with only a gentle breeze blowing through the forest.

Oops! Someone better check their boots. [photo by Quy]

Rudy decides to wait until we get back from the hike, returning early if necessary, to make the needed repairs with chewing gum and duct tape.

The crisp and bracing feel of fall is in the air today as we hike on a thick carpet of leaves that blankets the trail and even completely obscures large stretches of it from time to time. The Nelson Trail runs parallel with Sycamore Creek for a little over 2.5 miles before reaching a trail junction near Willow Spring. Here we plan on hanging a right and linking up with the Pine Mountain Trail, then the Verde Rim Trail, and finally the Willow Spring Trail, completing a full counter-clockwise loop with those three trails before returning to the Nelson Trail and retracing our footsteps back to the Salt Flat Trailhead. That was the plan anyway, but apparently Old Man Murphy has something else in store for us on this day in the Pine Mountain Wilderness.

Eileen has been tracking our progress on her GPS, which has the route from our exploratory hike back in April, and informs me less than a mile from the trailhead that we are beginning to drift slightly off-course from the GPS track. But we know that we certainly haven’t missed the junction since it still lies over 1.5 miles ahead, and I determine that as long as we keep following Sycamore Creek we will eventually get there. However, our present route starts heading uphill away from the creek through increasing amounts of overgrowth across the trail. What to do next? Should we start backtracking and try to link back up with the Nelson Trail we somehow strayed away from, or should we keep on going in hopes of eventually linking back up with the Nelson Trail or even part of the loop trail itself? Hope springs eternal, so we keep optimistically forging ahead.

Encompassing nearly 20,000 acres of both the Tonto and Prescott National Forests, Pine Mountain Wilderness was created by an act of Congress in 1972. At 6,814 feet, the summit of Pine Mountain is the highest point within the wilderness boundary. The Verde Rim Trail portion of the main loop trail runs right along the edge of the Verde Valley Rim and, along with the summit itself, provides spectacular and sweeping views of the Verde River Canyon, Horseshoe Lake, the Bradshaw Mountains, the Mazatzal Mountains, and parts of the Mogollon Rim. Unfortunately for us, though, these scenic views will have to wait for another time and another hike.

Due to a combination of our late start at the trailhead, drifting too far off-course with insufficient time remaining to reconnect with the intended loop trail, and the urgency of getting back to the trailhead to give Rudy and George enough time to repair those two flat tires and then get back to the freeway before dark, at 3.5 miles from the trailhead we decide to break for lunch and make this our turnaround point. As hike leader, I have to blame myself for not getting us back on track earlier as soon as Eileen informed me that we were going astray. It was a mistake on my part to assume that we would eventually link back up with the Nelson Trail.

But since the full loop hike involves 9.6 miles of trail with +-1,700 feet of elevation change, I’m not sure we could have completed it anyway between the late start and repairing the two flat tires, not to mention the two hours of round trip driving time between I-17 and the trailhead. A major factor to consider on these late fall and early winter hikes, especially this far north, is the shortness of the days. Next time we need to start at least an hour or more earlier and hopefully not have any more flat tires or other vehicle emergencies along the way. On a positive note, though, it has turned out to be a beautiful fall day with no rainfall. And we are all thankful for that.

Lunch over, we pack up and start back for the trailhead, retracing our steps along the same route we used earlier.

The sun comes out periodically between persistent cloud cover and the rains continue to hold off, as we steadily make our way back. The temperature has warmed up to about 65 degrees by now, our high point for the day.

Rudy, George, and Mike R. get a jump start on the rest of us so they can get back to the trailhead and start working on those tires right away. Their progress and success will dictate our departure time.

As sunlight filters down through the overhead canopy, fall colors begin to intensify on the remaining leaves, mostly mountain ash and sumac, still stubbornly hanging on until the very last days of autumn.

But the king of this forest is the mighty sycamore tree with its smooth white bark glistening in the sunlight. This giant grows up to 80 feet high with a trunk measuring up to six feet in diameter and with leaves the size of large dinner plates. Its presence in the forest is invaluable in the prevention of erosion along streams and creeks like Sycamore Creek here in the Pine Mountain Wilderness.

We’re not exactly sure how they got it all done, but congrats from the rest of us to Rudy, George, and Mike R. for repairing those two flat tires in near-record time. With a little more practice (well, actually a lot more practice), you guys might just qualify for a NASCAR pit crew position some day. I’m not sure if having 15 supervisors looking over your shoulders helped speed up the process any, but we certainly did our best.

That task accomplished, we load up and then bounce and jostle our way back down the bumpy, lumpy road to Dugas and I-17 and finally on to a dinner stop at Rock Springs Café and pie nirvana. Kidneys and bladders – please don’t fail us now!