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| Bear Springs via Overland Rd Historic Trail, AZ | | -
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| | Bear Springs via Overland Rd Historic Trail, AZ | | | |
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Bear Springs via Overland Rd Historic Trail, AZ
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| Hiking | 6.60 Miles |
660 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.60 Miles | 5 Hrs | | 1.32 mph |
| 660 ft AEG | | | | |
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[ show ]
| no partners | | It was the third day of an eight day camping trip to the rim area west of the Sycamore Canyon Wilderness. On this day I decided to go check out Bear Canyon starting at Bear Springs. I drove from my camp at the soon-to-be-location of the Spring 2017 HAZFest on FR110 then south on State Route 73 where I exited on FR175 to take the Bear Springs Rd (FR180) to the spring. FR180 had a road closed sign which I confirmed by checking the S Kaibab MVUM so parked the car and started hiking the 1.7 miles to Bear Springs. There were large rock cairns spaced at intervals along the road which only mildly puzzled me until I noticed on my GPS map that the road was following the course of the old Overland Road Historic Trail. The trail diverged from the road before it got to Bear Springs but I decided to explore the divergent section of the trail on my way back from exploring Bear Canyon. The linked Overland Road Historic Trail description has a short history of that road which once connected the Flagstaff area with Prescott.
Bear Spring had a small flow of water connecting a number of pools upstream from where the road crosses the creek. Downstream from the road the canyon becomes deeper with cliff walls on each side. I chose to hike along the canyon rim rather than attempt to follow the canyon bottom. That worked out well because there were good views down in to the canyon and did not require down climbing water falls. The bottom of the canyon had small pools of water scattered along its length. I followed the canyon for about a half mile before turning back.
On the way back I headed off road to find the Overland Rd trail where the map showed it crossing an un-named side canyon. The map had the crossing location misplaced by about 500 yds and it took some wandering around to find it. But once I found one of the large rock cairns marking its location it was easy to follow the closely spaced cairns marking the trail. I followed the trail of cairns until it converged with the trail on the map and then turned around to follow it back to my car. Either the old road bed has disappeared in this area or the string of cairns do not accurately follow its path. I expected to see cuts in the hillside where the old road had descended into the canyon and back up the other side but could not find a trace. It was a pleasant but warm hike back to my car while I pondered what it must have been like to drive a freight wagon with a team of horses over the Overland Rd back in the late 1860s. |
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