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| Hiking | 7.04 Miles |
954 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.04 Miles | 4 Hrs 13 Mns | | 1.67 mph |
| 954 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | The Sierra Ancha’s blessing & curse is that it is so remote. McFadden Peak is 67 miles, as the buzzard flies, from Sunnyslope, but it takes three hours to drive there. (And that is when one considers the speed limit optional.)
This was my first time in Sierra Ancha since hiking Tanner Peak nearly a year ago. Why? Because the World Cup was on and life has priorities. 
I started hiking from the pullout opposite FR 561 (the McFadden Lookout access road). It was immediately obvious I had entered a significant burn area. (Either from 2000’s Coon Creek Fire, or maybe earlier, judging by vegetation recovery.) Despite many significantly damaged large trees, there was still plenty of shade from a mixture of pine and deciduous trees.
Elephant Rock Arch was easily visible from the indian ruins, a half mile southeast. (Both Google Maps and the map on my GPS have misplaced the arch, in a location just yards from the ruins.)
The canyon bottom below the ruins is not nearly as congested as one might expect. I turned north, to the left, heading gradually downward. That is not a problem, because the top of Elephant Rock Mesa also slopes down to the north. Despite going down, I was actually getting closer to the rim of the mesa.
I bumped into a half dozen cattle, who scattered down canyon ahead of me. I followed their splattery panic poos for a few hundred yards.
In a quarter mile, I found a cattle path heading up sixty easy feet to the ‘rim’. You should avoid heading much further down canyon, as it soon becomes much deeper, with sheer walls.
I had intended to follow the rim all the way around Elephant Rock Mesa, but the cattle path took me to the mesa’s interior, rather than north. If you want to follow the rim, it would be easy, as the mesa top is free of serious obstacles, rocks or even grab & stabs. In fact, there were almost no cacti, other than a few ping pong ball-sized fuzzy cactus. Most of the stabby plants were agave. Despite extensive fire damage, it was still easy to find shady spots.
I took my first break, sitting on the canyon rim, at Photo OP 1. (You can read “OP” as either op, as in opportunity, or as observation post.) The views were amazing, and only got better as I worked my way around Elephant Rock Mesa.
Working my way over to Photo OP 2, at the mesa’s northeast corner, I ran into the same herd of cattle I had encountered in the canyon. There was quite a bit of fire damage at Photo OP 2, making it hard to get decent photos up Cherry Creek, without getting dangerously close to the crumbly rim.
Photo OP 3, on Elephant Rock Mesa’s east rim, had much better views, up & down Cherry Creek, and east towards the White Mountain Apache Reservation.
However, Photo OP 4 was the pick of the crop, both for canyon views, and views of Elephant Rock. Down in Cherry Creek, FR 203 was obvious, and there was quite a bit of green, leafy, trees. Wish I had a vehicle that was capable of handling that rugged forest road.
There is a cairn at Photo OP 4. No idea why, as it is not the mesa’s ‘summit’. I did not find a log in the cairn.
It was 12:30 p.m., and already in the high 80s, so I decided to forgo scrambling 360 ft. up to Elephant Rock Arch. Instead, I headed back to the cattle trail, took another break, then backtracked to the trailhead on AZ-288.
On our way back to Phoenix, my wife & stopped at Big Daddy’s Pizza, in Tonto Basin, at the west end of Roosevelt Lake. Despite starving, I could barely cram down two slices, they pile on so much cheese & toppings. Big Daddy’s is for sale, so hopefully they find a good buyer!
Hike Video: https://vimeo.com/498335969 |
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Wildflowers Observation None
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| http://prestonm.com : Everyone's enjoyment of the outdoors is different and should be equally honored. |
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