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| JF Trail to Coffee Flat Loop, AZ | |
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| | JF Trail to Coffee Flat Loop, AZ | | | |
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JF Trail to Coffee Flat Loop, AZ
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| Backpack | 25.06 Miles |
4,884 AEG |
| | Backpack | 25.06 Miles | 2 Days 8 Hrs 12 Mns | | |
| 4,884 ft AEG | | 40 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | Went out last weekend for another epic backpacking trip in the Superstitions! The proposed itinerary was
JF Trail  Hoolie Bacon Trail Red Tanks Trail Coffee Flat Trail
I told my mom it would be an adventurous trip since it was more in the eastern Supes (I know, it's not really the eastern Supes, but it's further east than our previous trip). I didn't really know what to expect, since the Woodbury fire swept through the whole area last May. I scoured HikeAZ looking for triplogs, photos, and water reports of people who had done these trails since the fire and there wasn't much. Hopefully my report will be helpful to some of you.
Saturday:
We started off the day with an early morning drive from north Phoenix out to the trailhead (about two hours). The drive itself is very scenic...definitely worth it! You know how sometimes a long drive to get to a hike is kind of drudgery, well this one is not! You turn onto Queen Valley road a few miles past the Peralta trailhead turnoff on US-60. Pretty soon it turns into a gravel road that is in pretty good condition. It's a total of 11 miles on gravel roads to get to the Woodbury TH, the starting point for our loop. I was driving my old Chevy Suburban, so I didn't have any problems with the road, but be aware that there are places where high clearance is helpful. There are also numerous creek crossings (they're not big enough to be called "fording a river"  ) you have to drive through. The deepest water was around 2-3 feet. I have 4WD on my vehicle, but kept it in 2WD the whole road and did just fine. Eventually you get to the intersection of FR172 and 172A, where the fork to the right takes you to Roger's Trough TH, and the fork to the left takes you to the Woodbury TH. We met some people in two 4Runner's that said the road to Roger's Trough was terrible--far worse than last year--and they even had trouble getting up it! And if you know anything about four-wheeling, you know the 4Runner is a very capable vehicle!
We did the loop in the counter clock wise direction, so almost immediately, we dropped into a creek with medium flow. If I'm not mistaken, this water ends up flowing through Randolf Canyon and makes a nice dayhike (the Randolf-Frasier Loop). One of the first things we noticed when we got to the area was that the mountainsides were covered in yellow and what appeared to be brownish coloration. Having never been to the area, we assumed the yellow was some sort of mineral and the brownish color was the charred areas from the Woodbury fire. We couldn't have been more wrong! The blankets of color were from wildflowers!  That was a nice surprise. I'll be posting a photoset soon with pics from the trip. Over the course of the trip, we saw over 20 species of flowers, and me being an animal guy (especially birds), I didn't know any of them except that the yellow ones were poppies. I was trying to figure out just now if they are Californian or Mexican poppies, but really, botany isn't my thing, and I wouldn't want to misidentify something.  As I'm writing this, I'm looking at commonly seen AZ wildflowers, and putting the ones we observed into the "Wildflowers" section down below. Wildflower names seem really hard to me, but it's never too late to start learning!
OK, enough about wildflowers, let's get on with the trip description. The trail turns out of the creek and winds slowly up the ridgeline to Tortilla Pass. Looking at a topo map for the JF trail, you can see three "peaks" or high points that are climbed on this hike. I'm not sure which of these is the official Tortilla Pass, but we didn't stop for our first break until we hit the first saddle. This was at the junction where the Rogers trail takes off toward Angel Basin. The scenery was nice, although there were definitely evidences of the fire. I'll have a dedicated paragraph towards the bottom with info about the burned areas, our impressions of the beauty, etc.
After Tortilla pass, the trail became noticeably rougher (as I imagine many people day-hike to the pass but don't continue on the JF trail any further). There was a lot of vegetation on the trail, although the lack of catclaw was a nice surprise for the duration of our trip. With the recent fire, most of the trees and bushes were burned, so as you were hiking, your clothes and backpack would brush up against the charred branches, leaving black marks over everything. Not the end of the world, but I'd suggest wearing older clothes you don't mind charring.
Between "peak 2" and "peak 3" on the topo map, there was a large grass field we hiked through. Imagine green grass 3-4 feet tall, with only 6 inch cairns to guide the way. Yeah, it was fun route finding! Actually, the whole day involved tons of route finding, but especially after pass. My mom doesn't have quite the experience route finding, and if I let her lead, we were getting off trail all the time. So I ended up having to lead the whole day, which I found after 10 miles, takes a big mental toll on you. I arrived at camp exhausted from the mental effort of staying on the trail. The JF trail is not for the faint of heart. It is not for novice hikers. In my assessment, a medium to high level of route finding skills is a must for successfully completing the JF trail. Honestly, about 1/3 of the time, I couldn't distinguish the trail from the non-trail. And this statement comes with hundreds of miles of route finding experience in the Grand Canyon (I've hiked every trail and route on the South Rim). It was a bad trail, one of the worst I've ever done. I suspect the fire destroyed all the vegetation, and now it has grown back in full force, but with no regard for the trail. 
And to make matters worse, the cairns are spaced very far apart (several minutes hiking in some places). So essentially they don't do anything for keeping you on the right path. They just give some psychological affirmation every now and again "you're not an idiot for hiking through all this vegetation. Just keep going, you're doing great!" No doubt I got off the "trail" hundreds of times during our three days, but usually realized it quickly and was able to route back on to it without Mom realizing. Only twice did I actually "get lost" to the point where I intentionally circled back to the last known cairn to get back on track.
To conclude this section about trail conditions, I'd say it mostly applies to the JF trail and the Hoolie Bacon trail. The Red Tanks trail was in better shape and was easier to follow. The Coffee Flat trail was the best of them all, very easy to follow and relatively vegetation-free. What all the trails had in common was grass growing on top of the trail, so you never actually had a defined dirt/rock path. However, trails like Red Tanks and Coffee flat are more commonly hiked, so the grass was trampled, making the trail easier to follow than the Hoolie Bacon and JF trails.
Getting on with the trip report, we had considered camping at Clover Spring (~7 miles) "if there's water." Well, turns out there was plenty of water, but no place to camp. We scoured the area and found 0 ideal campsites and only a couple places that could work in a pinch. Knowing that Cedar Basin was only a few miles further, we opted to continue on and camp there. The descent from Clover Spring to Cedar Basin was some of the most overgrown trail, with lots of thistle to stab you when you weren't paying attention. We got rattled at by two different rattlesnakes on this section of trail, one about 3 feet off the trail, and the other about 40 feet off the trail (not sure why that snake even bothered to rattle ).
By the time we got to the junction with Hoolie Bacon, it was late afternoon, so we opted not to hike out to the Tortilla TH. That was originally part of the plan "just to see it."
There was some nice camping once we dropped into Cedar Basin, so we were glad we chose to move on from Clover Spring. That was a long first day and we were glad to be at camp and relax for the evening. I had twisted my ankle/knee on the way down that descent, so with that pain coupled with the mental effort of route finding, a good night's sleep was well deserved.
Sunday:
Climbed out of Cedar Basin past a couple springs (Night Hawk and Horse Camp). They both had water, enough to filter if you wanted, but not an abundance. I'll leave a more detailed water report down below. Before long, we were in Horse Camp basin, where there was an abundance of water. We also noted several potential campsites here for future reference. This section of the hike had a lot of dead trees. Not just small shrubs that burned, but full juniper trees. It was honestly kind of ugly, but the beauty of the saguaros (which survived! ) and of Herman Mountain helped to overcome the dead trees. Also, the abundance of wildflowers reminded us that even in the midst of the dead, new life often springs forth. By early afternoon we arrived at the Red Tanks trail junction, at the top end of Upper La Barge Box. With my knee still hurting somewhat from yesterday, we had decided that this would be our camp for the day. It was beautiful scenery, second to none, and all the saguaros and flowers made for an iconic view. We passed the afternoon with reading the Scriptures and playing our favorite backpacking games. Specifically, bocce ball on the beach (modified rules) and "Pass the Pigs." If you've never heard of pass the pigs, it is the absolute best game to take backpacking. You can have fun for hours with only 15 grams of weight!
We explored Upper La Barge box just a bit, but didn't venture too far because I wanted to take it easy on my knee. It was a refreshing, fun-filled afternoon, and then we went to bed. I don't think we realized quite how far we still had to go the next day, or we might have hiked further today. 
Monday:
Being in school at ASU with classes only on Tuesdays and Thursdays gives me the flexibility to take a long weekend at hike on Monday too, which is great! The hike from the Red Tanks trail junction up to the next saddle was a pleasant stroll along a small creek. There was an abundance of green vegetation, which helped obscure the charred bushes and trees. We saw another snake (yet to be identified, but not a rattler). At the saddle we were thrilled to find a hummingbird that made her nest in a dead cholla cactus. It was so windy at the pass we don't know how she was able to stay in her nest and not get blown away! Descending from the saddle, we quickly made it to Red Tanks Creek (I'm assuming that's the unofficial name), which had a light flow of water through it, which increased steadily as more water came from other springs. From here to the trailhead was probably the most scenic part of the hike. We were hiking along creeks the whole way (first Red Tanks, then Randolf, then Frasier), the area had less obviously burned trees, and the mountains were really cool. We also got back into the poppies and lupines, which was just gorgeous!
When we got to Randolf Canyon, we were surprised to see how bad the water quality was. Due to the gravel streambed, the water was murky and full of silt and sediment. We opted to filter water from Red Tanks Creek before we left it. Once on the Coffee Flat trail, the progress was quick back to the trailhead, except that we forgot how far it really was. The trail is not at all steep, but rather a pleasant uphill grade, essentially the same gradient as the creek. On the way out, we explored the old JF Ranch, complete with a working windmill! From there, rather than hiking the road back to our car, we took the Woodbury trail cutacross back to the initial JF trail, then walked back to the parking lot from there. It added a little distance, but it felt good to finish out the hike on the trail, rather than on a road.
All in all, this was an amazing trip! It makes me wish i had started exploring the Superstitions sooner. Well, there's always next fall when the weather cools down again. Have fun and stay safe!
A note about the Woodbury fire and the burn areas: Please take a look at my photoset for this hike, as that will give you a good visual description of what to expect. Honestly, there was much more burned than I was expecting. I looked at every photoset since the fire for these areas, but most people don't post picture of the burned stuff because it's not as pretty. In my photoset, I made sure to post pictures of the burned areas too so you have a better expectation. We were a bit disappointed by the amount of burned vegetation, but like we said before, and as you'll see in the pictures, there was a lot of new vegetation growing in its place. For the most part, I enjoyed the hike as much as I would have without the burned trees. Sometimes they were an eyesore and sometimes they were beautiful in their own unique way. |
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Wildflowers Observation Extreme
Complete hillsides covered with Mexican Gold Poppy and Coulter's Lupine (possibly tailcup lupine. After looking at 6 or 7 species of lupine, I just had to pick one)
Globemallow
Phlox
Brittlebush
Desert Chicory
Desert marigold
Desert Primrose (yellow and white)
Desertstar Daisy
Fairy duster
Fiddleneck
Parry's bellflower
New Mexico Thistle (there were so many thisles!)
Purple Owl's Clover
Yellow Cups
Hedgehog Cactus
Angel's trumpets
Indian Paintbrush
I say extreme wildflowers because of the complete hillsides covered with poppies and lupines. The other flowers were in abundance too. I would estimate of our 25 miles, at least 20 of those were walking through flowers of some type. |
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Brads Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | We camped about a half mile downstream of here at the Red Tanks - Hoolie Bacon trail junction. There was light flow down there, but the creek was underground about half the time, and above ground about half the time. Plenty of water for filtering--probably 10 gallons per minute flow. |
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Cedar Basin Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | Camped near the creek in Cedar Basin (actually we camped about a half mile north of this water drop waypoint). There was light to medium flow through the canyon, enough that we could easily hear the water running from our tent. The creek was probably 3-4 feet wide and 2-3 inches deep. |
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Clover Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | There wasn't any water along the trail, as some former water reports have mentioned. We had to walk down into the creekbed to find the water. I would say it was flowing, but ever so slightly. In two weeks, I probably wouldn't depend on this water, but it was fine now. |
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Fraser Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | I would describe Frasier Canyon as light flow. It was very shallow, making it easy to walk in/around the water in the creekbed for those places where the trail drops into the creek. |
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Horse Camp Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | Like Night Hawk Spring, there was water, with sufficient places to filter from, but I wouldn't depend on this past mid-April this year. In other drier years, I would only depend on this if it had rained recently. |
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Musk Hog Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | There was some good flow coming down musk hog canyon. Probably 10+ gallons per minute, although I'm not good at gauging water flow. |
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Night Hawk Spring |
Dripping |
Dripping |
| | | There wasn't much, but there was some water coming from Night Hawk Spring. There were places to filter, with very light flow. I don't know the year-round reliability of this spring, but I'd guess it'll be dry in a couple weeks |
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Randolph Spring |
Quart per minute |
Quart per minute |
| | | I don't know about the spring, but Randolf Canyon was flowing nicely at the JF trail and at the Coffee Flat trail. |
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Red Tanks Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | There was good flow all the way down Red Tanks Canyon. See photos in my triplog and photoset. |
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Whetrock Canyon |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | There was light flow in Whetrock canyon, about the same amount of water as Frasier Canyon. | | | |
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