| |
| Ironwood Forest NM wander, AZ | |
|
| | Ironwood Forest NM wander, AZ | | | |
|
|
Ironwood Forest NM wander, AZ
| | |
|
| Hiking | 6.60 Miles |
|
| | Hiking | 6.60 Miles | 2 Hrs 40 Mns | | 2.48 mph |
| | | |
| |
| Linked |
|
none
[ show ]
| no linked trail guides |
| Partners |
|
none
[ show ]
| no partners | | Dig a bit and you'll find Ironwood National Monument has two "archaeological districts" (part of the justification for awarding NM status). Of course they give little info about these. I've tracked down and visited one of these but today I thought I'd look for the other: Los Robles. I did not find it today but had an adventure anyway.
I had noticed something on the map called "Los Robles Wash" and parked my car off a dirt road at the intersection of the wash and the Santa Cruz River. This is about 5 miles west of the Red Rock exit off I-10. The river was dry and the wash was green, but the area was completely flat - so not a good place to look for petroglyphs or habitation sites.
I decided I needed to "head for the hills", specifically the low hills in the direction of Ragged Top. Unfortunately I ran into some obstacles: a fast running stream (agricultural and manually controlled I guess) and then a more real (unnamed) river (??) with steep banks, a little water, and deep mud.
I had noticed some clothes and water bottles along the way but when I tried to get across the muddy river bottom it became clear this was a migrant route. There was a bridge of branches laying on top of the mud but after testing (~10 lbs of weight put me ankle deep and sinking) I decided to keep hugging the eastern edge. There was a bunch of big fir trees (it looked like Flagstaff) along the edge and it occurred to me this was a good place to relax.
5 min later I heard a voice and encountered a smiling young fellow. There was an obvious language barrier but after a few repeats I understood his "l'emigre?" to mean "am I immigration?". I assured him (with gestures) that I meant him no harm. (I see now with google translate that emigre mean trek...so maybe the communication was worse than I thought at the time.) It was a little awkward and so I signaled that I wanted to exit the river bottom. He showed me there was no problem to ascend the (essentially vertical) 10' dirt wall topped with a pull-up on a sapling. I indicated I wanted an easier out so we continued along (through a little camp with various items hanging in trees) until there was a minor break - he still gave me a hand out from above.
At this point I decided to head for some other low hills (further north), but again I ran into the muddy river and decided this was not my day. On the way back I crossed that agricultural ditch over a homemade migrant bridge.
The petroglyphs of Los Robles will wait for another day. |
| _____________________
| | |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
Route Editor
Route Scout
