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| Hiking | 20.00 Miles |
2,977 AEG |
| | Hiking | 20.00 Miles | 7 Hrs 57 Mns | | 2.55 mph |
| 2,977 ft AEG | 6 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Wanted to find a place that's not too far away, without crowds; and, given the pleasant weather forecast, a good Central Superstition Wilderness explore seemed to fit the bill. So I met a couple of friends (people I've already been in contact with the past month or so, of course) at Tortilla TH, with a few ideas in hand. Got there and found at 5-6 cars at the TH, which is 4-5 more than I've ever seen there. The first three miles is all FR, so it remains an attractive "socially distant" option...
One route that seemed especially intriguing involved a trail that is marked on an old laminated paper map my friend gave me. It leaves Hoolie Bacon trail where that trail leaves Tortilla Creek, and follows Tortilla Creek a couple miles to a point where it climbs a saddle overlooking Cedar Basin. It then goes across Cedar Basin to another saddle overlooking La Barge Canyon. It then drops down into the canyon and follows it to Red Tanks trail. One of my friends brought a Green Trails map that actually had this route marked on it, so we decided to give it a go, knowing that even the official trails in this area can be hard to follow.
The amount of green in the Tortilla Ranch area was remarkable; I've never seen anything like it in AZ. Thick grass several feet tall. It was like being in Ireland if Ireland had catclaw and cactus. On Hoolie Bacon dropping down into Tortilla Creek, the wildflowers were various and popping, and there were thistles so big their stems could hardly hold them up. Couldn't find the trail once it's in the creek; I suppose most people just stay in the creek bed.
Where Hoolie Bacon leaves Tortilla Creek is a distinct geographical location, with Tortilla Creek making a hard turn to the south, and Cedar Basin Creek (dry) heading to the southwest. HB continues straight west. We didn't find any sign of a trail heading along Tortilla Creek, so we just followed the creek. There aren't any serious obstacles in the creek, and every now and then we saw a cairn with what seemed like a trail bed leaving the creek, but every time I tried leaving the creek, I regretted it.
A little over a mile and a half in the creek, the route leaves Tortilla Creek on the west side. This spot probably would've been easy to miss with a paper map; glad I had a GPS device. There is a large cairn, but it would be easy to miss. A few times on the way up the slope we would stumble on an old trail bed, but could never really follow it for more than 50 feet at a time. At the top of the ridge, there were some big cairns, a great view of Cedar Basin and a good spot to rest for a few minutes.
The trip down into and back out of Cedar Basin was easy; it's largely clear of any serious vegetation, probably due to the Woodbury Fire (I don't know exactly how far west the fire went, but most of this route has been burned). On the way out of Cedar Basin, we stumbled on trail bed again, which was actually fairly decent a good ways up to the saddle. Down into La Barge, I managed to find trail bed in two stretches on the way down.
A short distance down La Barge, we found a 20 foot pour off, with an easy bypass to the left about 50 feet back upstream. When we got back down to the creekbed, we found... A turtle! We went back to the pouroff; big pool with a dripping waterfall that could be pretty impressive with more flow. In the next half mile or so we saw three more turtles, one of which was a cute little baby.
After we hit Red Tanks trail, progress got a little faster. When we got back to Tortilla Creek, it started raining. Even got some small hail, but it only lasted 5-10 minutes and was over. We decided we might as well just stay in Tortilla Creek, and took that back down to the ranch.
Pretty good day, and with how much off trail and creek bed there was, I was surprised we were able to cover 2.5 miles per hour. |
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Wildflowers Observation Substantial
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Canyon Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | Some seeps in this area. La Barge has water here. |
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Cedar Basin Canyon |
Pools to trickle |
Pools to trickle |
| | | No water at the Tortilla confluence. In Cedar Basin there are a few small trickles in places. |
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Dogie Spring |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | | There is flow in the creek here. | | _____________________
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