Salt River Canyon Wild - FR303 367 645 346 Photoset • Oregon

Salt River Canyon Wild - FR303 367 645 346, AZ

	2012-11-20
	11 by Oregon_Hiker

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Salt River Canyon Wild - FR303 367 645 346

Globe, AZ

Salt River Canyon Wild - FR303 367 645 346

Globe, AZ

Scenic Drive

Scenic Drive

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partners

Grasshopper

This was an exploratory drive on the Haystack Butte road (FR303) and some secondary side roads that went northwest towards the Salt River Canyon. FR303 is a maintained gravel road that was in good condition and driveable for a moderate clearance 2WD vehicle. FR645 was also driveable for a moderate clearance vehicle but had some steep sections that would be questionable for 2WD when wet. FR367 and FR346 started out being high clearance 2WD roads but soon became steep 4WD roads. FR367 had lots of AZ pinstriping brush after about the first mile. The scenery and long distance views from these roads are fabulous.

We were interested in finding a suitable off trail hiking route down to the Salt River and the Salt River Wilderness. Since there are no established trails that I know of in this area any hiking is either on old jeep trails or bushwacking off trail. FR367 leads to Hess Canyon and a possible hiking route down Hess Canyon to the Salt River. Grasshopper and I checked this out and were stopped by a combination of steep drop off and extremely slick rock. We then drove down FR645 to FR346 to check out a possible hiking route down Yankee Joe Canyon. Yankee Joe did not look like a good route to me - the canyon bottom was choked with thorn bushes and lots of vertical rock outcroppings. A post trip inspection of Yankee Joe Canyon on Google Earth showed a major cliff dropoff that would probably rule out this route for anyone without rock climbing skills and equipment.

We drove to the "end" of FR346 which had some steep 4WD sections but no AZ pinstriping opportunities.

There were some great views of the Sierra Anchas and Cherry Creek Canyon to the northwest across the Salt River Canyon. FR346 ended at a corral but a jeep trail/ATV track continued across a draw and over the next hill to the north east to Yankee Joe tank. This is an active cattle ranching area. Many of the corrals show evidence of still being in use and there is a curious system of piping water to distant water troughs through miles of above ground black plastic tubing from hilltop water tanks. We sighted many "slow elk" along the roads.

After a great day of exploring this new (for us) area we headed back to Phoenix with a stop at Chalo's Mexican Restaurant in Globe for dinner.

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Buck Mountain Center Mountain Haystack Butte Little Butte Salt River Canyon Wilderness Sierra Ancha Wilderness White Ledges

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