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Arizona

• Arizona Places To Go
• Arizona Trail Ogres
• Aravaipa Canyon Backpacking
• El Camino Del Diablo
  
• Ehrenberg Sandbowl OHV Area
• Florence coke ovens
• Hike to the ancient Anasazi
• Hiking The Grand Canyon
• Hiking Canyon X
• Green Water of the Havasupai
• Glen Canyon NRA/Lake Powell
• Grand Canyon National Park
• Hike to the Bottom of the Grand Canyon
• Two Grand Canyon Area Hikes Cathedral Wash and Powell's Rock
• Keet Seel Navajo National Monument
• Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument
• Petrified Forest National Park
• Reevis Falls A hike to remember
• Solar Studies and Other Adventures In SW Arizona
• Sycamore Canyon Wilderness
• Sara Park Wash - Crack In The Wall - Lake Havasu area
• Supal Indian village
• Soap Creek Canyon
• Sojourn at Apache Pass - Fort Bowie

"Scrabble" is defined in Webster's as a "struggle" or "scraping along." Whoever named this mesa Hardscrabble had quite an imagination. It was not a hard hike.

Hardscrabble Mesa, below the Mogollon Rim, may have been known by that name as long ago as the 1870s, as author Dan L. Thrapp uses it when describing cavalry-Indian activities there during that period.

Maureen and her husband, Steve, and I left one car at the north trailhead, outside Pine, and took off from the south trailhead off Forest Road 194 near Twin Buttes. We took note of the number of hunters in the area and wore brightly colored clothing. Camouflage colors weren't suitable for this stroll.

This segment is only 12 miles long, and I felt sure that even I couldn't get lost. But there's always that flicker of doubt, so I carried my sleeping bag. Maureen brought her normal backpacking gear, which made her pack probably twice the weight of mine. We started walking through familiar scenery. This part of the mesa could have been on the east side of the Santa Ritas, in southern Arizona, and no one would have been the wiser. Knee-high grama grass and stunted juniper trees dominated the scene.

But there's not a lot of visible soil. The trail is covered with rocks and boulders, a possible reason for the name Hardscrabble.

We ascended a gentle grade, making good time while enjoying the surroundings. About 3 miles in, we met three hunters. Five miles in, the scenery began changing, with more pine and oak trees defining the landscape.

We'd seen no wildlife, though there were lots of elk tracks and large deposits of bear scat. Some say animals instinctively "disappear" around hunting season, and I expect an empty-handed hunter might agree with that.

Read it at AZCentral

Hubbell Trading Post National Historic Site

John Lorenzo Hubbell purchased a trading post here in 1878, ten years after Navajos returned to their homeland from their terrible exile at Bosque Redondo, Ft. Sumner, New Mexico. During the four years held at Bosque Redondo, Navajos were introduced to many new things. After they returned home, traders like Hubbell supplied those new items for the Navajo. Hubbell family members operated this trading post until it was sold to the National Park Service in 1965. The trading post store is still active. Now operated by Western National Parks Association, a non-profit co-operating Association they carry-on the trading business the Hubbell family established.

Take some time to discover this authentic Indian trading post and original 160 acre homestead.
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