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| Forest Roads 386 & 177A/177, AZ | |
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| | Forest Roads 386 & 177A/177, AZ | | | |
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Forest Roads 386 & 177A/177, AZ
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| Hiking | 7.60 Miles |
1,511 AEG |
| | Hiking | 7.60 Miles | 3 Hrs 52 Mns | | 1.97 mph |
| 1,511 ft AEG | | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | With hordes clogging the local trails and Recreation Areas we decided to do our part by means of a get-out-of-town hike. But where do we go?
So I dug through a bunch of old GPS tracks from drives with the Samurai while mapping as many Tonto Forest Roads as possible and came up with a number of most-likely-to-be-totally-alone hikes.
First up was Forest Road 386, which I figured should be far enough up AZ 87 to have it all to ourselves. Rather than driving all the way to the very end like I did with the Samurai, we parked within a few hundred feet of AZ 87 and set off on our hike. Once we got to the end of the road, which was almost non-existent the last quarter-mile (unlike when I drove it 9 years ago) we continued descending into a drainage along as series of cowpaths. On the way down we scared up a large mule deer, but alas, it was gone before I could even reach for my camera.
We saw a herd of cattle chugging up the other side of the drainage so we figured we could follow more cowpaths up the other slope to make it a lasso-loop hike. By time we reached the first saddle the cattle were long gone down into the next drainage, but being much deeper than the previous one we decided to continue up the ridge.
Just then I saw something flash across behind some brush and when it came out the other side, stopped and looked back at us, as I went for my camera I quietly said mountain lion! to Tracey but before she could look where I was pointing it turned and sprinted off behind some thicker brush and was gone.
So no photo and no sighting for Tracey.
Immediately afterward I took a moment to let it sink in, and replayed the quick encounter. When it turned and twitched its tail, it was not long like a mountain lion but it was a short bobbed-tail, which meant it was a bobcat. But bobcat or not, it was one huge bobcat, which is why mountain lion was my first impression.
Between the deer and bobcat sightings we figured that would be all the drama for the day. Which it pretty much was... with the exception of a possible close-call with a monstrous hike of bees. As I was trying to determine where the bobcat went in hopes of another sighting to get it on film I heard what I thought was a small airplane flying over, Tracey pointed to a tree I was about to pass by and she said Bees! Get back! 
So, since I have a distinct affinity for bee encounters of the negative kind (thankfully NO bee allergies) I wasted no time turning around. After backing off a few hundred feet I zoomed the camera in for a closer shot of the "hive" which appeared just like a huge ball of bees. Because it was in the tree a bit and shaded the photo doesn't really pick up what it looked like.
Ok, time to move on up the ridge. At the top we had a great view of AZ 87 and an almost never-ending stream of vehicles heading northward, a good percentage where large RV's or trucks pulling the monster 5th-wheel trailers... hopefully the majority are snowbirds heading home.
As we swung back to finish our lasso-loop we could see Forest Road 177 on the other side of the Beeline, so... since this hike wasn't as long as expected we figured after turning around we'd check it out. I had not been on this part of FR 177 since I mapped it out almost ten years ago. (Forest Road 177A and the southern part of 177 have been split from the northern part by a deep washout for closer to 20 years ago)
After making the AZ 87 median turn-around we turned onto FR177A (Cane Spring Road) and stopped to park near what's left of an old corral within a few hundred yards after turning from 177A onto 177.
From there we set off on a road walk along FR 177 until reaching Cane Spring Creek, where we could see Cane Spring Falls far up the drainage. A quick check of possible routes closer to the falls yielded nothing worthy of an attempt, so we spent a few minutes checking out the detritus from shooters and campers.
Time to move one, so we continued, ultimately reaching the official end of FR 177, but since the double-track continued on, we did the same. But upon the realization it may take another 2-3 hour round-tip to reach what appeared to be the actual end of the old mine road, we decided to turn around and returning tomorrow to pick up where we left off.
But not quite... barely a half-mile from where we parked was an angled washout which I was not about to try to cross with the 4Runner. Oh well, tomorrow's hike will be just a few miles longer.
On the return trip along Bush Highway vehicles were lined up parked along both sides of the road almost all the way from the cattle-guard by Butcher Jones Road to south of the Saguaro Lake Marina. So much for social-distancing... it must have been PACKED at the picnic sites. And it was even worse by the bridge over the Salt River.
Good thing we had not one but two places to hike in which we did not see a soul.
(Ok, so we could see plenty of VEHICLES on the Beeline) |
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