Ronnie – Connie’s husband was our shuttle person to the top of 4 Peaks (11 miles off rd El Rosa rd ”Brown Peak” the highest of the 4 peaks. We parked my jeep down by the bridge near Vineyard trail where we would come out. We got started at 10a.m. a beautiful cloudy morning. Water at Pigeon & Shake Springs close to the top, after that only damp ground. There was some wildflowers, lots of butterflies, 1 huge centipede & an animal with a beige butt & no tail – bear??. Too far away to identify. Thank goodness we cached water 3 1/2 miles in May with tinfoil around it.  The trail was good to that point. We topped off all bottles & drank the rest, I’m now caring 152oz – much heavier than I like plus with a new pack felt top heavy & off balanced. I tried out my hiking poles but was watching the ground more that I like & was difficult with GPS & camera. The trail was over grown in spots & basically not there in places. The fire in 1996 was coming back nicely but along with it lots of brush. Once we stopped 4 ½ miles into the trip I literly rang out my headband, shoes & socks very wet. It seemed Connie never has that problem. It was obvious I needed some electrolytes as a Charlie horse came on my right thigh, we both drank some muscle ease & plugged on till 4:30pm. It was well worth it as we hit the most beautiful saddle no bigger than our tent (33deg 39’919”, 111deg17’398”) looking east we over looked Roosevelt Lake & to the west 4 Peaks. The sunset was very traumatic with wisp of clouds, purple/pink & ending with orange. We had a dry camp, knowing we only went 8miles & had a rough 10 ½ yet to go we wanted to conserve on water.  Out of the blue Connie developed a Charlie horse also, so we again drank some electrolytes except this time sqwincher in a 6oz pack that you just fill up h20 to the top, it seemed to work well. We did not put on the rain fly was a warm night 56deg; we saw the moon come up & Venus as bright as ever through the screen top.  6a.m. was up & started hiking by 7a.m. We could tell it was going to be a warm day, no clouds (in the 90’s) the 1st half of the terrain was like the last half of the 1st day, the last half was more rocky & steep. We stopped off at Granite Springs for mid morning snack, no water, just a cement tank & broken pipes. We came down a rocky switchback section & was thanking God we did the trip east bound, when we met 3 men & 1 women “Diana” going west bound with the Sierra Club. They showed us an Indian dwelling & we advised them of no water till they almost reached the top. We wished them good luck & hiked 1 more mile till we reached FR 429 where we cached more water. We only salvaged 1 gal, which was wrapped with tinfoil, animals chewed the others through, they were thirsty too! We relaxed for an hour, as it was to early in the day to stop & with limited water it was best to continue on. The Vineyard trail followed a ridge that started out good but soon came & went into ravines, then continued up a mt around a ridge till the scenery was Roosevelt dam, Apache Lake, a radio tower, & 2 herds of leaping white tail deer. We had 1 more steep decline to our jeep, what a wonderful site that was. We ended our trip by going to the Roosevelt Bar for hamburgers, beer, a Tonto Pass $6, & a shower & camped at Schoolhouse campgrounds.

I would rate this from 1 to a 10 a 7 hike & 9 for scenery.

Best think we did was cache water earlier in yr, take plenty of water & electrolytes, knee braces, walking stick came in handy for down hill, gps, & going west to east from 4 peaks.

Do different, take old pack, 1 more pair of socks, leave tent at home & just footprint & rain fly or just tent, & wrap all cache water bottles in tinfoil.