Hackberry

We went on an epic hike this summer in Southern Utah.  We changed our plans and decided to go with the Bunkers and my cousin Grant's family on the Hackberry Hike.  When our Grandpa was young, his stepfather hated him.  He abused him and told him his real dad was dead.  One night when my grandpa overhead his stephfather talking about killing him, my grandpa ran away.  Eventually on the streets of Salt Lake when he was panhandling as a teenager, a man chatted with him and my grandpa found out that his real dad was alive!  He went down to Southern Utah to live with him and his wife and family.  A couple of summers my grandpa and great-grandpa would go to this cabin in Hackberry canyon and herd sheep.  The weather was too harsh to keep going there year after year.  But he spent two or three summers there at this cabin.  And the cabin still stands!  We found out from our cousin Guy where the cabin was located and set off.  We drove about an hour away from Cannonville on a dirt road to the trail head parking area.  It took us a little while before we set off, but we finally did.  We thought it would be about a 6 mile hike.  Nope.  It turned into a 12 mile hike and took much longer! 

The hike was really fun.  For about half the hike we were in the shade and walked through a dry creek bed.

Lots of nooks and crannies to explore.

We left our mark as well....

Another Ookki Nokki!

We caught up to the water but could pretty much avoid it if we wanted.

We started walking in a forest type area and thought we were close to the cabin.  Some of our group was way ahead of us so we didn't know where they were. We started looking around in the forested area thinking maybe we had missed it.

We wasted a lot of time looking for the cabin.  We didn't know that we just need to keep walking.  We started walking up on a bluff/ridge.  Lee said we should go a little further around this one area and guess what we found?!  The cabin!  We were ready to turn around.




A group of some sort is trying to fix up and preserve the cabin.

We found my grandpa-Reed Thompson.  He carved his name there March 21, 1923. And we found Lois' name from 2000. Clark added his there as well.

We think this is Stephanie's.

I added mine.

Found my mom's name.

Shanna's name.

We made it!!!

The way back... 6 miles to go, and low on water.

On our way back we saw some water Deb had stashed in a little mini cave and I took a gulp....sorry Deb!  When we arrived back we saw this on our Chevy... UGH! Remember we drove an hour on a dirt road?  And Cannonville literally has houses, one gas station/motel and a church building? We were in the middle on NOWHERE.  Who would do this?

We finally had it repainted.  It cost $1900.  We had to pay $500 of that. Thankfully we had the money to do so.  And right before that we had to replace the transmission.  Lots of money spent on the suburban this summer.

Our track record is doing at least one crazy hike per summer and this one fit the criteria!  Despite the lack of water and the key-ing of our Chevy it was a great hike.  I suppose it makes it more memorable as well...the lack of water and the key-ing.

We made it to Nevada that night!