HORSEBACK RIDING THE WHITE MOUNTAINS TRAIL SYSTEM

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CHIPMUNK SPRINGS CONNECTOR

Connector trails in the White Mountain Trail System go point-to-point, linking two loop trails. Several connector trails are longer than some of the loop trails and the 7.1-mile Chipmunk Connector is one of them. It links the Los Burros Trail to the Country Club Trail and is named for Chipmunk Spring. It has no trailhead but crosses two Forest Roads so it can be accessed without traversing the trails it joins. On Saturday afternoon, Sept. 22, 2012, I hitched and loaded my horse trailer, then dressed Cinnamon for travel. She climbed into the trailer promptly. I stopped by my parents’ ’ house to pick up my Dad and his mountain bicycle. After stowing the bicycle in the back of my truck, we drove to the boundary between the Fort Apache Reservation and the Sitgreaves National Forest on the McNary-Vernon Road, also known as CR3140 and Forest Road 224, where there is a pullout that loops around a pine tree. I parked, unloaded Cinnamon, brushed the dust off her and saddled up. Dad took my truck to Forest Road 185 where he parked it opposite the Four-of-a-Kind Ranch cattle pens. He rode his bicycle home.

Meanwhile, Cinnamon and I followed the Chipmunk Trail through Ponderosa pine and Gamble oak forest along an old roadway. There were a few mud puddles from the summer rains. We saw flocks of birds and a few Abbert’s squirrels but no chipmunks.

At a man-made pond, Cinnamon alerted to a black cow. The cow briefly returned her stare before resuming her casual wander. A barbed wire gate blocked the Trail so I dismounted and ground tied Cinnamon. I opened the gate, led her through, and ground tied her again. I closed the gate and mounted. We resumed strolling along, looking for the Los Burros Trail. We found the junction a few minutes later and circled the trail junction signs.

After backtracking to the CR3140 Road, we crossed it and followed the Chipmunk Trail around the base of Brushy Mountain. This section of forest had been thinned and the Trail followed a logging road. Maybe Cinnamon noticed her trailer was missing. Something about this section of Trail excited her. We racked and fox trotted until the Trail narrowed to single track as it rounded the mountain. We slowed to a walk.

We suddenly came upon a barbed wire fence across the Trail that appeared to have no gate. Yet the distinctive turquoise WMTS markers asserted that the Trail went through. Closer inspection revealed that what looked like fence was actually a gate made of welded T-posts and barbed wire held in place by wire bales around wooden fence posts. This gate could not be negotiated from horseback so Cinnamon practiced her ground tying again while I opened and closed the gate. A sign said the Brushy Pasture has cattle in it from June through October but we didn’t see any.

The Trail continued around the base of Brushy Mountain, along a logging road and then abruptly turned onto its own single track before merging with another logging road. Cinnamon contentedly walked along, observing the birds, squirrels and lizards.

Very close to its mid-way point, the Chipmunk Connector crosses Forest Road 271. It was here we found the only other people on the Trail. Cinnamon alerted at two men and a woman dressed in camouflage standing behind a pick-up truck parked where the Trail crossed the road. The young woman had a bow so I assumed they were preparing for an archery hunt. We hadn’t seen any elk. The bull elk move into town during hunting season.

After crossing Forest Road 271, the Trail wandered around and through a dense thicket of scrawny pines for most of a mile. At one point, a bent over pine tree blocked the Trail; hanging so low we had to go around it. A little further along, a large log blocked the Trail. We went around that too. The Trail then entered an area that had been thinned to manage Pinetop’s wild-land-urban-interface. From the FR271 Road crossing to the Country Club Trail, the Chipmunk Connector roughly parallels Forest Road 185 though the density of the forest made the road invisible from the Trail.

We came to a barbed wire and stick gate in the fence between cattle grazing allotments. I ground tied Cinnamon while dealing with this gate. A sign identified this as Buck Springs Pasture. There was a man-made pond near the gate.

The Trail continued as single track, then made an abrupt left turn onto what looks like an abandoned railroad bed. The Chipmunk Connector stays on this roadway for two miles, going by several water courses, a stock pond and springs to its rendezvous with the Country Club Trail. We circled the signs marking the junction.

The sun was setting and Cinnamon was getting tired. We could see my truck and trailer parked another tenth of a mile away. I don’t know whether Cinnamon understood what we’d done but she recognized my rig. She’d been on the Country Club Trail several times so she knew this was not where we’d started but seemed happy that she didn’t have to walk another seven miles in the dark.

While I unsaddled, we heard bull elk bugling -- or perhaps it was hunters practicing their elk calls. Cinnamon was fascinated, looking very intently in the direction of the sound. If she saw any elk, she didn’t point them out to me.

Cinnamon didn’t want to load into the trailer to go home. After a few minutes of stubbornness and some mild discipline, she decided to get into the trailer after all and found the hay I’d put there. She rode home perfectly. At home, Cinnamon unloaded very nicely in the last light of day. I turned her into her corral, unloaded the trailer and fed both horses. It was another lovely ride in perfect weather.

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