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| Hiking | 5.00 Miles |
1,200 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.00 Miles | | | |
| 1,200 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | We've been wanting to visit the Cooper Forks ruins for almost a year, and thus complete our quadfecta (quadrafecta?) of the big 4 ruins in the eastern Sierra Ancha's (Devil's Chasm ruins, Cold Springs Canyon [lovingly referred to as the "crack house"], Pueblo Canyon and Cooper Forks ruins). Yesterday two of my hiking partners and I completed that item on our "bucket lists." My grand-daughter accompanied us and completed her trifecta having visited all but the Pueblo Canyon Ruins.
We left Mesa a little after 6 am and arrived at the trailhead at about 10 am, after a couple of stops along the way. FR203 is in fairly good condition, including the part beyond the Ellison Ranch. We found the Cherry Creek crossing at the Ellison Ranch to be the easiest I have seen it in my many visits to this area. Flow in the creek and, especially in the side stream that comes out of Devil's Chasm to be small trickles compared to other times - a sign of the continuing drought no doubt. The temperature was ideal - I could have hiked in short sleeves were it not for getting all scratched up by catclaw and worse.
I had studied the HAZ trail description and all the triplogs (the last of which was in filed in Oct of 2009), to see what wisdom I could gleen from them. We had been to the old mining road that crosses FR 203 several times so knew where to find the best embarkation point according to the reports. The only problem we (I) ecountered was that owner of the Xterror (me) we drove in forgot to lock the car and didn't realize that until we were down (and I mean down) the trail nearly 1/4 of a mile - so back to the top went the dummy (me) to do what should have been done before starting down. But hey, who is going to raid the car out in these remote parts - some of the famous cows we always see along FR 203?
We knew that Grasshoper recommended staying on the west side (the trailhead side) of Cherry Creek until after passing where the drainage for Pueblo Canyon intersects the creek. This was great advice, as the other side would have been much harder going. We started out following a track from the HAZ site which started up the Cooper Forks Canyon drainage but the climb out of the canyon to get up on the ridge that runs toward the ruins was a chore - lots of energy wasted here. It did, however, lead us to find a packet of maps and HAZ writeups that were printed out in 2009 and dropped by someone (in 2009?) near the start of this drainage - the contents of the packet were in very good condition to have been there for 3 years.
After reaching the ridge, we got lured into following an occassionally cairned trail up the ridge instead of the track I had. This trail seemed to meander around, but eventually ended up at the ruins - it sure beat bushwhacking through the catclaw and worse.
I won't keep you in suspense any longer - the ruins are still there  . The ones farthest left as you approach, are in the worst condition, some with just partial walls still standing, but they get better as you go to the right (from the approach). My grandaughter entered the first full room from the left but quickly exited, warning that she heard bees becoming distressed and that we could get swarmed. But they must have calmed down after she left and we were not bothered, even when shooting a couple of flash pictures through the door. But we did not re-enter.
The part of the ruin that is the most visible from several points along FR203 and from a couple of points along the trails that go to the "crack house" and Pueblo Canyon, is higher up in the rock outcropping, and seemed too challenging for us to try to get into. At my age, you don't take chances that far from modern civilization. So we left that part unexplored.
On the trip out, we followed the occassionally cairned trail clear to the creek, which seemed to be the best option of all routes available. But where this trail enters the creek bottom would be hard to find on a trip in. So I will post my GPS track recorded on our hike out for others to use. I might mention that we saw some ruins up on top of the hill above the ruins we visited. These were visible on the way in and on the way out from a couple of points along the trail. These were not "cliff dwellings" but rather, looked like the walls of buildings out in the open on top. We didn't have the time or energy to try to reach them.
We got back to the Xterror about 3:30 pm and headed for a late lunch in Claypool/Miami. Another great day in the Arizona outback. |
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| To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace. -- Publius Cornelius Tacitus (56 AD – 117 AD) |
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