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| partners | | Hank and I headed up to the Sierra Ancha for what has become an annual spring camping trip to upper Cherry Creek Canyon. The plan was to camp for 6 nights at Camp Grasshopper approximately 6.9 miles down FR203 from its intersection with HW288 at Board Tree Saddle. We would do several day hikes from the camp site and drive to some day hike locations a few miles down FR203. We had postponed the trip for two days due to rain showers that week and our concern that FR203 would be wet and muddy. This is not a road you want to drive in any type of vehicle when it gets muddy unless you have a desire to rocket off the road into the canyon below in an uncontrollable downhill skid in slippery mud. It was a beautiful day with a few rain clouds still in the sky and a chance of rain projected for that afternoon and evening. I stopped to take some pics along HW288 and then for lunch at Board Tree Saddle hoping someone would drive up the road so I could ask them about road conditions. No one showed up but I could see tire tracks from Hank's Jeep going down the slightly muddy road. Hank had an hour lead on me and was driving his highly modified 4x4 old Jeep Wrangler. Since I hadn't heard any sounds of a vehicle crash down in the canyon I decided it was safe to start the drive down to Camp Grasshopper. There were some muddy sections of road but not bad enough to loose control with careful driving. I saw some tire tracks skid up to the very edge but the driver had regained control and steered back to the middle of the road. In camp I would find out that Hank had a close call almost slipping over the edge on the drive down - those tracks were probably his. I have the suspicion that this close call was more likely due to Hank's propensity to drive with eyes glued to his hand held gps rather than the slippery road conditions but if so, he wasn't 'fessing up.
I set up camp and went for a short hike that afternoon while Hank continued setting up his elaborate Camp Grasshopper kitchen. I hadn't gone more than 0.4 miles from camp when I stumbled upon an ancient Indian ruin hidden in the trees and manzanita on top of a low ridge. The walls had crumbled to the ground but it appeared to have been a compound type of ruin with a perimeter defensive wall enclosing a rectangular area about 80 x 60 ft. We would end up finding 5 ruins on this trip - 4 compound style ruins and one cliff dwelling. None of these sites were noted in the archaeology surveys of the area by Haury in 1934 or by Lange in "Echoes in the Canyon...." published in 2006. Perhaps these sites weren't noted because they weren't that significant but it's fun to think that we may have found sites they didn't find.
There was a light dose of rain that first afternoon and evening but the remainder of the week was clear with beautiful blue skys. We found so many interesting places to hike near camp that week that we only drove on one day down to Billy Lawrence Canyon to look for a cliff dwelling. Fellow HAZer BeeBee dropped by camp Sunday afternoon for a chat while Hank and I rested from a grueling hike we had taken earlier that day up the side of the canyon to unsuccessfully look for cliff dwellings. It was a relaxing but physically strenuous week enjoying the beauty of one of my favorite AZ hiking destinations. |
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