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| Cold Spring Canyon Road Hike, AZ | |
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| | Cold Spring Canyon Road Hike, AZ | | | |
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Cold Spring Canyon Road Hike, AZ
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| Hiking | 5.90 Miles |
1,432 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.90 Miles | | | |
| 1,432 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | This hike explores the old Sierra Ancha mining road that leads to Cold Spring Canyon and from there south ending in an unnamed box canyon between Cold Spring Canyon and the North Fork of Devils Chasm. The road is also known as the Big Buck Uranium Mine Road. I have recently become interested in exploring old abandoned roads and active ranching trails in the Sierra Ancha with the objective of identifying these routes as unofficial hiking trails. These routes can provide additional hiking opportunities beyond the official Tonto Nat Forest and SA Wilderness trails. Although often overgrown with brush, some of these old roads and ranching trails are kept in fairly good hiking condition by cattle who break trails through the brush. In some cases these "trails" show signs of human brush and tree clearing, perhaps for ranching access. My secondary objective was to take a look at two archaeology sites along this road. One site was named "The Women Must Have Carried the Water" pueblo by Lange in his archaeology report "Echoes in the Canyons...." and also has the ASM site number V:1:169. He came up with this name after seeing it scrawled in a hand written note left by local rancher and guide Dewey Peterson on the original site form from one of Haury's archaeology expeditions in the early 1930's. I could not find a name or site ID number for the other site which is only 0.1 miles further down the "road".
This was my first full day hike of a 5 day - 4 night camping trip to Cherry Creek Canyon. I drove the short distance from camp [ description ] to the trailhead where a small group of National Park Service archaeologists had set up camp for four days. Unfortunately the only woman in the group was off in the bushes for some undisclosed activity but in plain site of the road as I drove up. She quickly returned to camp but was scowling at me while I told one of her team where I would be hiking for the day. They were gearing up to hike to the Cold Spring Canyon "Crack House" cliff dwelling for a 4 day assessment of the impact of modern day visitors to the site . (At least that's what they told me). They would be about 30 minutes behind me on the old mining road which is used to access the cliff dwelling site.
It was a beautiful morning and I took my time taking photos and scanning cliff sides and hilltops for signs of habitations by the ancients. I found the road had been kept open past the turn off to the cliff dwelling by heavy cattle use making it a decent hiking trail. As the road ascended the shady south side of CS Canyon there were patches of what appeared to be poison ivy that had to be brushed aside. I'm not 100 percent sure that's what it was but there is a picture of it in this trips photoset. I did not break out in a rash later but that's not unusual since I seem to be immune to it. I took a couple of short off trail explorations to look for ruins with no luck except for a small cliff dwelling I spotted on a far away cliff using the super zoom on my camera. The road split as it approached the first archaeology site with what appeared to be a newer and better built section passing below the site and a much more overgrown and less substantial road angling up the hillside through the middle of the ruin which is located in a small saddle. This road section is not on any maps I've studied which peaked my interest. I followed this road to the first ruin. It was listed as having 8-10 rooms in Haury's report but it's difficult to make out individual rooms because the rock walls have been scattered by the road construction, cattle and probably pot hunters since Haury's time in the early 1930s. However based on the number of rock piles I found hidden under clumps of brush, the 8-10 room estimate is most likely accurate. I continued on this road for about 0.1 miles to the next archaeology site. The road had also scattered the walls at this site but it appeared that this had also been a pueblo style site with as many or maybe more rooms that the first site. This site was on the point of a rocky bluff sticking out from the hill and overlooked Peak 4333 which Grasshopper and I had hiked to on March 20 [ photoset ].
The old road continued on past this ruin site but was so faint in some areas it was difficult to follow until there was an obvious cut in the hillside as it descended to the bottom of the drainage in the bottom of the unnamed box canyon. The road led to the approximate center of the box canyon where it crossed the drainage. The bottom of this canyon is covered with a thick forest of mostly Oak trees. There were good views from the road of the cliffs that lined the sides of this canyon and I spent time scanning the south facing cliffs for cliff dwellings but did not spot any likely caves or alcoves. The road appeared to end shortly after starting to ascend the other side of the drainage although there were some cattle trails that continued. At this point I turned around and retraced my route on the road back to the trailhead.
This old mining road proved to make a good hiking trail (as long as ranching activity continues) to a scenic and historical mining area of the SA not reached by any of the official trails. One concern might be the potential poison ivy in the trail where it ascends the shady south side of CS Canyon. Since the road was put in for the uranium mine it probably dates back to the early to mid 1950s. I did not see the Big Buck Uranium mine adit which must be somewhere along this road or the spur I did not follow - a reason to return. |
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