Butterfield Trail (Devil's Den State Park) - May 2010

Butterfield Trail at Devil's Den State Park is a 15 mile backpacking trip.  It has two established primitive camping areas -- Junction Camp and Rock Hole Camp.  This was the first backpacking trip that I had taken since I was in Boy Scouts back in Middle/High School.  I went with a friend, Jeremy, and we both took our oldest son.  My son was 7 years old and was able to hike the trail by himself, however, Jeremy's son was 2 years old and was carried by Jeremy in a kid carrier (in addition to his gear).  My pack was full of general camping (heavy) gear (as opposed to lightweight backpacking gear).  Needless to say, both of our packs were heavy -- mine at nearly 50lbs, and Jeremy's at nearly 60lbs.

We decided to hike the trail counter-clockwise which entailed in a large elevation change within the first two miles which did a good job of wearing us out right away (we weren't in the best of shape).  By choosing this direction, we had to climb down Butterfield Falls.  Depending on the time of year that you hike this trail, you will either get soaking wet climbing down these Falls, or it will be completely dry (depending on recent rain).  Since we were hiking this in the spring and there had just been a rain, we had a pretty good climb down -- slick rock, heavy packs, and lots of water flowing over the falls.

Butterfield Falls

By the time we were finished with the Falls, we were exhausted and ready to setup camp for the night.  However, we were miles (about 3 miles) from the first camping area...or so we thought.  About 1 1/2 miles later, we came across the turn off to go down to Junction Camp.  Junction Camp is named so because it's the junction of Lee Creek and Blackburn Creek.  As with all water on this trail -- if it's around the rainy season, there will be a lot of water. 

We got to camp and setup at dusk.  Since it was early spring, we decided to go ahead and build a fire since it can get pretty cool in the evenings.  Jeremy's son was happy to be out of his carrier and ran around and played with my son.  We ate a good dinner and headed for bed.

The next morning, we got up and started cooking our dehydrated eggs and biscuits and gravy for breakfast.  The eggs were nasty and the biscuits and gravy were delicious but required a lot of clean up and we even had one pan that didn't come clean (we had to throw it away after we got back).  Our lesson that we learned was never to have the disgusting dehydrated eggs again nor have the messy biscuits and gravy again.

We tore down camp and hit the trail again.  About 2-3 miles into the day, my outer knee started having sharp pains on every step downhill and this trail is far from flat!  We hiked through the other camping area (the trail goes through the middle of it).  We stopped for lunch at Quail Valley (directly below the Vista Point Overlook).  By this point in time, my knee was just about gone in terms of usefulness.

So, because my knee was worthless at this point, we attempted to take another trail (the Vista Point horse trail) back that cut across the park in order to make the hike shorter for everyone involved.  However, with my map skills being a little rusty, and the fact that we didn't bring along a compass (another lesson learned), we got really turned around and ended up hiking several miles (in circles).  We eventually came upon Holt Road, an unpaved 4x4 road that led us back to one of the main roads into the park.  My son and I waited on the side of the road while Jeremy took his son back into the park to get his truck to pick us up.

While we had to cut the trip short(er), and we were incredibly sore for the next several days, we were hooked.  This was the start of several backpacking adventures with Jeremy.