On
October 29, 2016, nine Skyliners started out from our usual car-
pooling point at the Cottonwood Safeway parking lot. The tenth hiker
met us on FR 300. The ten hikers were as shown below:
 |
| Left to right: Jim McGinnis, Karl Sink, Jim Gibson, Chris Jensen, Lila Wright, Daisy Williams, Ellen McGinnis, Frank Lombardo, Betty Wolters and Dave Beach – photograph by Ellen McGinnis |
We
had reached FR 300 (also known as Rim Road) by going 2.5 miles on
Highway 87 after taking Highway 260 to its intersection with Highway
87. We traveled east on the Rim Road for 17 miles to Forest Road 139
to leave one vehicle at the end of the hike. The remaining vehicles
continued on to FR 137 for the beginning of the hike. Before
reaching FR137 everyone in the lead vehicle got treated to the sight
of a black bear running across the road directly in front of our
vehicle. The bear was about 4 to 5 feet long, maybe 3 feet high at
the shoulder and must have weighed around 200 pounds. This bear was
really traveling fast and no one had a chance to capture a photo;
nevertheless,everyone's spirits were lifted by the bear sighting.
What were the chances of having something like this happen?
This
bear was actually brown, but black bears can be light brown, blonde,
or reddish brown as well as the more usual black. This information,
along with the fact that they can run at speeds up to 25 miles per
hour, was taken from the "Critters of Arizona Pocket Guide1."
Barbershop Trail #91 is a part of the Cabin Loop Trail
System. That trail system was the subject of an Arizona Highways
magazine Hike of the Month in the August issue in 1993 written by
William Hafford. Cabin Loop Trail links three cabins: General
Springs Cabin, Pinchot Cabin., and Buck Springs Cabin.
According
to Hafford, these cabins were built by the Forest Service during the
early 1900s and have been used as fire-guard stations. Hafford also
stated that these three cabins and the ragged east-west line of the
Rim enclose a rough circle with a diameter of about eight miles. A
part of Barbershop Trail goes across FR 137and downhill to Buck
Springs Cabin. We began our hike by looking at Buck Springs Cabin.
There is an information sign beside the trail above the cabin.
sign, shown in the photograph below, explains that there are two
cabins here at Buck Springs Fire Guard Station.
 |
| Sign posted at Buck Springs Fire Guard tower |
Both
the older cabin (below left)
and the larger, newer cabin (below
right) are shown here.
 |
Cabin built in 1923 Cabin built in 1946
We
climbed back up to FR 137, crossed the road and continued on the
trail down the slope of Buck Springs Ridge on the other side where
several switchbacks led us into Yeager Canyon. On this hike there
are many canyons and drainages to go down into. For this report, I
used a description of the hike by Bruce Grubbs.2
Grubbs says that the trail crosses several roads, generally on the
broad ridgetops, where it is important to follow the blazed route
carefully. And he says that where the trail follows other roads for
short distances you need to follow the blazes carefully. One tree
had a sign for Cabin Loop Trail (below
left). Much further along the
trail I took a photo of a tree blaze that was different than the
other blazes that I had seen (below
right).
|
 |
Cabin Loop Trail sign A different blaze
Early
on in our hike we came to a tricky crossing where there was some
water. (below left)
This must have been in Yeager Canyon because it came before we
reached a sign which said that we were .5 mile from Buck Springs
Cabin and that the junction with Houston Brothers Trail was still 4
miles away (below right).
|
 |
| A tricky spot Trail sign |
Also
before reaching that sign I had taken a photo of a tree scorched by
lightening but still partly green and we wondered if it could
possibly survive. (below left). Before long we came to the first
of several unusual trees that we were to see on this hike. This tree
had three trunks. (below right).
 |
| Lightening-damaged tree Tree with three trunks |
And
shortly thereafter we saw a tree with two trunks that had trapped the
branches of a tree of another type of tree between those two trunks
(right). Or had this other tree
wrapped its branches around the taller two-trunked tree?
We
came next to a meadow (below
left)
which might be the same meadow in Ellis's scouting report that he
described as a “long,
narrow meadow formed by a
wash
leading north into Bill McClintock Draw.”3
After leaving the meadow we came to another unusual tree, one that I
would describe as a double-decker Christmas tree. There were other
trees in an area close to this one which had similar narrowing of the
mid-sections; however, they did not look like two Christmas trees
stacked one above the other as in the following photo (below
right).
Lila gave the explanation that these narrowed mid-sections were
often caused by elk using those trees to rub the velvet off of their
antlers.
 |
| Long narrow meadow Stacked Christmas trees |
It
was obvious that elk were in the area of this hike because in many
places along the trail, actually right in the trail, there were elk
droppings. Some were quite fresh looking.
We
ate lunch at the location of the tree that had been shattered into
many pieces by a lightening strike (left).
This view of that tree looks very much like the photo in Ellis's
scouting report which he had taken of this same tree.
I
had taken several shots trying to get more of the widely scattered
pieces of that tree into my photos. While eating their lunches the
hikers sat on various pieces of that shattered tree.
When
I had finished my lunch I noticed a blackened area (right)
on the other end of the piece that I had been sitting on while
eating. If this image is magnified then little shiny specks within
the black area can be seen beneath the bent splinter of wood. Maybe
they are crystallized bits of tree sap?
After
lunch and after passing by the sign in Dane Canyon and going even
further along Barbershop Trail I took another photo that is very much
like a photo in Ellis's scouting report (below
left). Ellis labeled his photo,
"view looking north down Barbershop Canyon". I took
another photo that gives a closer view of the big rock in the photo
just mentioned. In the closer view there are trees near the rock
that are now leafless which must have had beautiful Fall colored
leaves not long ago (below right).
 |
Looking down Barbershop Large rock in Barbershop
Canyon Canyon
|
The
drivers continued on back to the beginning of the trail to retrieve
the remaining vehicles while the rest waited at the intersection.
While Karl, Betty, Jim Gibson, Frank and myself waited we had time to
venture out to the edge of the Mogollon Rim to take in the view down
off the rim and out to the way beyond (left).
Also
take a look at the photo of Karl looking out from the rim (right).
None
of us who saw that bear run out in front of Dave's van before we
began the hike will ever forget that sometimes life gives us some
really surprising views.
The
hike is shown in red on the attached map (below).
According
to the cleaned-up track recorded by the Skyliner GPS, the Barbershop
Trail is 5.2 miles in length. The raw GPS track for the hike gave a
reading of 7.1 miles. Approximately 0.8 miles of this difference is
because the hikers parked on forest roads apart from the trailheads
at each end. The remainder is due to GPS error and side trips from
the trail. The highest elevation was shown as 7707 feet and the
total ascent as 1097 feet.
Report
author: Daisy Williams
edited
by Lila Wright
modified
for online use by Ellis Price
1McCarthy,
Ann E., David A. Frederick, and Jonathan Norberg. Critters
of Arizona Pocket Guide.
Cambridge, MN: Adventure Publications, 2002.
2Grubbs,
B. Hiking
Northern Arizona: A Guide to Northern Arizona's Greatest Hiking
Adventures, 2nd
edition, pps 266-267.
Guilford, Conn,: Falcon, 2001.
3http://ellisfprice.blogspot.com/2016/09/barbershop-trail.html
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