Hike #26 Gooseberry Trailhead South – 19 Miles

This hike started at the Gooseberry Trailhead on 08/14/2017. Gooseberry trailhead is an easy highway drive up the 87 to Lake Mary Road from Payson / Pine. Very easy to access and if you recall we did a section of the AZT heading north from Gooseberry back in May on Hike #17. This hike is an easy 19 miles heading to Bargaman Park and back. Even with a 3.1 grade change there was a couple ups and downs that made it a somewhat fun hike.  The trail was slightly muddy from a rain storm the previous day but the day was nice with fast moving white puffy clouds and awesome cool breezes. In my opinion, perfect hiking weather. The trail itself was a combination of trail and road walking and I would describe the hike as a slight up out and down back with a number of shark tooths. Although, the vast majority elevation work being on the way back to the car. We planned the 1/2 way turn around to be just past an odd little place called Bargaman Park. Not really a real park but rather than a very large open clearing of trees with an old ranger cabin on it’s northern edge and a massive powerline running down the middle. I could not find much history on the place, but I can tell you it’s would be perfect for a football game or Frisbee tournament. The park can be directly reached from Lake Mary road and 4 mile dirt road track popular with car campers and 5th wheelers. At the turn we stumbled upon another unadvertised AZT trailhead sign right next to the dirt road. I so named it Bargaman Park Trailhead….. Looked like an awesome trailhead to us for the next hike. After a quick lunch we were back on trail and even with the elevation not in our favor we made good time back to the Tahoe and the end of another good AZT hike. Like most hikes up in the Happy Jack region…. we ran into tons of cows. FYI.

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