I haven't posted one of these in a couple of months. See what you think of this one.
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Packing Kendrick

I was a Rangeland Management Specialist on the Williams District of the Kaibab NF in northern Arizona. One of the regular tasks I took on while there was helping out the fire organization in supplying a fire lookout on Kendrick Peak, roughly halfway between Williams and Flagstaff and on the boundary with the Coconino NF.

Kendrick Peak essentially IS the Kendrick Mountain Wilderness, a roughly 6,500 acre Wilderness created in 1984. Kendrick has been the location of a fire lookout since the earliest days of the Forest Service. Originally, the fire lookout stayed in a cabin a bit more than ¼ mile below the summit on the shoulder of Kendrick, then hiked or rode up to the peak to perform lookout duties. Later, in the 1930s, a steel lookout tower was constructed on the peak, although the original cabin still stands, and was protected from the large Pumpkin Fire of 2000.

The Coconino Plateau was the site of intense volcanic activity, during one of the ancient eras. Kendrick, like the other peaks scattered across the Plateau had a volcanic origin as witnessed by the distinctive cone shapes of the peaks and the basaltic parent material.

I was told that prior to Wilderness designation, the lookout was supplied by a mechanized “mule.” It was described to me as a two-wheeled, motorized cart that the driver walked behind and steered much like a farm mower. I arrived in the early 90s. Packing supplies—especially water and propane was something I did approximately every other week.

I made a lot of trips up Kendrick over the years I was on the Kaibab, and at least a couple of trips are noteworthy. I always tried to get going in the morning as early as possible during the summer monsoon season, in an attempt to avoid being high up on the mountain in an electrical storm. I wasn’t always successful.

There are three trails up Kendrick, all of them originate on the Kaibab side of the mountain. While I most often went up the Kendrick Trail, I used to vary the trip by taking the other two as well. I believe I was coming down the Pumpkin Trail when I was caught in a hellacious thunderstorm. Unfortunately, the Pumpkin Trail passes through a long, exposed slope of the mountain. There’s an old saying that there are no atheists in a foxhole. My personal view is that there are also no atheists on the mountain in an electrical storm.

I was riding down the exposed flank of the mountain when the skies opened up. I have never before or since, experienced rain so heavy. Lightning was popping everywhere around me and I was truly afraid.

I dismounted, thinking that at least I wouldn’t be quite as tall walking as mounted on my horse. I half-hitched the lead rope for the two packhorses I was leading to my saddle horn, and quickly began to jog down the trail to a stand of quakers I could see below me. *Note: “Quakers” is slang for Quaking aspen, a word I picked up when I lived and worked in rural Utah.

Water was flowing down the trail like a small stream and the foot of my boots would be completely submerged if I stepped onto the trail itself. I never smelled ozone, saw the blue fire on my horse’s ears, or felt the hair on my neck stand up. I guess the lightning, while plenty close never got close enough for me to experience those things (I did once smell ozone when a lighting strike hit very close on the mountain in Utah).

Somebody once told me, “If you ever get caught in an electrical storm, head to a stand of quakers; if you think about it have you ever seen a lightning struck quaker?” Because they are an even-aged clone it always made sense to me, and that’s what we reached and ducked into. In the years since, I have in fact, seen a lightning-struck quaking aspen, but not one in the center of a large clone. To this day, if I am caught in the open horseback, I head to the quakers.

I think we had only been in the trees for a short time when the storm blew over and the first glimpses of blue began to show. My boots and hat were both completely soaked through and water was running down my back. Still, we were all unharmed and it was one of those silly, laugh-out-loud all by yourself moments. I loosened the lead rope from the horn and stepped back up and we continued uneventfully down the mountain to the truck.

Another time I was leading the string down the switchbacks on the Kendrick Trail. As was typical I was mounted on Stick, a good looking bay that we got for an unbelievably reasonable cost because the owner liked the idea of Stick going to the Forest Service for the life and care he would get.

I never had the feeling that Stick was overly sensitive about a rope under his tail, but truth be told, I don’t recall ever spending the time to find out. Anyway, I guess that’s what happened; thing evolved rather quickly and I’ve never been sure. Stick’s head went down and he stood up on his front feet, I glanced back to see both his back feet up over the head of the pack horse directly behind me.

I tossed away my lead rope as I saw the pack horse behind me dive off the trail and straight down the slope toward the trail below. The breakaway did its job as the second pack horse backed away so quickly that he fell down, then got up and followed the first pack horse down the side of the mountain.
Meanwhile, God bless sensible horses. I turned Stick away from the drop off, jabbed him once with my spurs and he made two little stiff-legged jumps and came to a stop—safely on the trail. Down below me, the first pack horse’s load had shifted and the pack saddle was hanging off to the side. He was just standing on the trail below with his head down, calmly waiting for me to come fix things up. The other pack horse’s panniers were basically empty, so things easily stayed together; he was just looking around for something to eat.

I’m sorry to report that Stick was killed by lightning not long after this incident. I used to take our horses down to a winter pasture on the Prescott NF, several miles east of I-17 at the Sycamore Guard Station. I found him and another horse dead on an open slope in the spring when I went back to get the horses.



On the switchbacks just below the lookout tower on Kendrick Mountain. I don’t know who I’m riding, but it must be after Stick was killed, it appears to be a sorrel horse. Guess he didn’t make much of an impression on me.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: TMats,

Thank you for another great story.

I hope you are saving them. Enough of them, and you have a publishable memoir.

Great, thanks for posting.