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| Hiking | 6.30 Miles |
1,950 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.30 Miles | | | |
| 1,950 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This was the second day of a 3 day camping/hiking trip to explore an unnamed mesa on the north side of Elephant Rock which I will call Elephant Rock Mesa. The access to this mesa follows the gps track to Elephant Rock Arch but instead of turning south to climb up the ridge to the arch it continues out to the mesa. Son-in-law Lloyd joined me on this hike. After stopping at the ruins I had found the previous day we hiked east across the mesa to its SE corner for views of the east side of McFadden Horse Mtn. There are a number of uranium mines dating back to the early 1950s on this side of the mountain and I was looking for the old mining roads which could provide access to these mines on a future trip. Also of interest was scanning the cliffs for possible cliff dwellings.
There was a tall cairn at this SE corner of the mesa but I did not find a register. The views to the east and down into Cherry Creek Canyon were amazing. Several old mining roads were visible leading up to the gray layer of Dripping Springs Quartzite which has the uranium deposits. The Black Brush and Sorrel Horse mines were located here but never produced any significant amount of uranium. Unfortunately I could only see the upper parts of these roads. The lower sections of these roads leading down to Cherry Creek were lost in the brush which I know is a mixture of manzanita and catclaw. Several likely locations for cliff dwellings could be seen along the high cliffs pumpkinning the east side of McFadden Horse Mtn but we needed a view point looking north at the cliffs having a more southern exposure preferred by the Indians for locating their dwellings. We planned to drive up to the Billy Lawrence TH the next day and hike out to some viewpoints for scanning these southern exposure cliffs.
From the SE corner we followed the eastern edge of the mesa north to its NE corner. The manzanita got thick along the mesa edge as we proceeded north and we had to retreat several hundred yards from the edge to find a more open route through the forest. We found a good view point to scan the canyon walls across an unnamed canyon from the north side of the mesa. From there we returned to the SW end of the mesa cutting through the middle of the mesa. This area of the mesa is covered by a forest of pine, fir, oak and alligator juniper. The spacing between trees was sufficient to make for an easy hike but my legs soon tired from the accumulation of sticky mud on my boots. The ground had still not dried from the heavy rains of the previous week. We got back to camp in time to enjoy the warmth of the last hour of sunlight before the sun disappeared behind McFadden Peak. Unfortunately a cold wind was blowing so we had to layer on all the clothes we could find to stay warm while preparing dinner. Dinner was my new favorite camping meal, Fried pork chops wrapped in bacon with thinly sliced potatoes fried in the pan with the pork chops. While eating dinner I turned on both burners of the Coleman stove to high so it provided some warmth. We didn't have sufficient water left to properly put out a campfire and we were too lazy to gather firewood.
It had been a successful two days. I found the hilltop ruins near Elephant Rock Arch, located the old uranium mining roads and confirmed that a fuzzy feature in a photo from a previous expedition was the masonry rock wall of an ancient cliff dwelling hidden in a very difficult place to access. Time spent enjoying the outdoors with my good friend and son-in-law was a major bonus. |
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