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| GET #3 Center Section W & E, AZ | | -
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| | GET #3 Center Section W & E, AZ | | | |
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GET #3 Center Section W & E, AZ
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| Backpack | 6.48 Miles |
1,561 AEG |
| | Backpack | 6.48 Miles | 7 Hrs 23 Mns | | 0.88 mph |
| 1,561 ft AEG | | 32 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | I had planned a two-day (or max, three) backpack trip, with - obviously - one (or two) overnights, from White Canyon proper (some maps call it Walnut Canyon) westbound to where the GET #3 meets the AZT. Then return same way eastbound.
A "short" 5 miles each way. 1 mile more (each way) if the stock pond at the junction of the GET and AZT was still yucky and I had to hike to the Water Collector to replenish. (Given the recent rains there, I was hoping that the stock pond was drinkable again. BUT - I just now checked AZT Water Reports. A new report from yesterday reports that the pond is dry.)
I bailed 3 miles plus into the hike when I came to a steep descent. I decided at that point that it was too dangerous for me to continue.
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The important stuff:
- Although the GET #3 is shorter than taking the new AZT, it will take you longer.
- There is no problem taking water from the Well at White Canyon proper. There is a large blue tank on public land (right next to the Yellow Gate private property) fed from the Well. Crystal clear clean water. See my Water Report.
- I drove in from Rt 177. You will need car GPS to navigate because 1) there is no sign naming Battle Axe Road, and 2) there is no sign telling you to make a sharp right turn mid-way (while the "main" road continues straight) to go White Canyon.
- The road is in fine shape, up until a barbed wire "gate" at the Canyon proper. A sedan could travel on it to that point. Shortly after that, a HC 4x4 is needed.
- The first 1.5 miles westbound on the trail is a road walk. And somewhat difficult at that. (The road is traveled a LOT by Jeeps and rutted out deeply as a result.)
- But even from on the road, the scenery is spectacular. Especially in the late afternoon when the setting sun illuminates the high cliffs. The hills later on were particularly green. (But no flowers per se.)
- Except for birds, there were virtually no animals. No rattlesnakes seen nor heard. No bears nor bear scat. (No berries.) No deer. No rodents. One rabbit 2.5 miles in. (Where there's one, there must be one hundred.) Maybe I saw some cat scat further west? (Some hair in it.) I might have heard a cat calling higher up around 7:30 at night. Or maybe a bird's night song? But only once. Some mosquitos at night. No bees.
- If you like solitude, this is your hike. Saw no one once on trail. (Although apparently, the night before me, someone had camped where I camped.) No bike tracks. (I think it would be impossible to bike.) Horse tracks (shoe'd) up to a mile short of where the White Canyon Wilderness begins to the west. (I presume they turn around before there?) I didn't see any horseback riders on trail when I was there. (But I met three riders as I drove up to the Canyon proper Monday afternoon. I assume that they were one some part of the trail earlier?) If you break a bone here, it might be months if anyone finds you.
- The trail tread was easy to follow up to about 2.5 miles westbound. (Where the horses stop traveling?) And then the tread is very hard to see until the point where I bailed. (See photos.) Update: I found out why. There used to be a road to this point. (See last photo.)
- This trail is not like the AZT, where volunteers work to install steps, clear obstacles, etc. There were a couple of places where I had to step up 2 feet over large rocks.
- While there are some (very) small cairns where there is no tread, they aren't easily seen westbound. The trail appears to have an eastbound (PHX to ABQ) bias to it. That is, when I bailed and returned eastbound, I noticed the small cairns much more easily.
- Nevertheless, I still went off trail a bunch of times. Thankfully I had RouteScout, and thankfully I remembered to pin my route this time, with a 50 foot deviation.
- Except for one stagnant pool, at about 2.75 miles (which I Providentially stumbled upon as I mistakenly followed a trail to it), I saw no water after White Canyon. (But the pool was obvious when I turned back eastbound.)
- Mosquito larvae float. (As it relates to not clogging your filter. ) And a Sawyer doesn't get all the green out. (I presume it's safe to drink. Had a slight flavor to it.)
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So the Long Story:
I had initially planned to drive out late Sunday afternoon (avoid Phx traffic) to White Canyon and either car camp overnight 2 miles well short of the Canyon and start my hike early Monday morning. Or start in that afternoon, from well short, and camp out where ever Sunday evening.
Or leave early Monday morning (5 am), avoiding Phx traffic, then start hiking when I arrived.
Fortunately, things worked out for the best.
I wasn't able to leave Phx until 1ish Monday afternoon. Traffic was light on I-10 to the 60. (No Ren-Fest early in the week.) I arrived at Battle Axe Road at 3:30 pm. Thunderstorms were to the north, moving south.
There is no signage (that I saw) southbound pointing out Battle Axe Road. A large sign says only "Primitive Road." You - or your GPS - have to know it's there.
It took about a half hour to drive to the Canyon. The road was fine, nothing earth shattering. There is a right turn that you have to make mid-way, where it appears that the main road continues straight. Had I not had GPS, I wouldn't have turned.
I passed a corral that I saw earlier on satellite. So that was comforting. (To know that I was on the right road.) I had initially planned to car camp there. Fortunately, I ventured on.
I eventually arrived at the Canyon proper. I saw the Yellow Metal Gate, guarding the Well, that I had seen in photos. (Although it was open.) Being the end of the day, I met three young men on horseback, presumably returning from riding on the trail. I asked them about the GET and where to park. "By the barbed wire gate." 100 ft ahead.
As I was preparing to park, I met two middle age ranchers driving out of the Yellow Gate property. Same question. This time one fellow suggested that, because of the threat of storms (flooding), I not park in the sandy wash by the gate, but to go through the gate a few hundred feet to a campsite on higher ground.
Okay.
Turns out that two old, self-proclaimed Hippies from the 60's were there in their - what else? - VW vans. I'm surprised that they were able to drive their vans a few hundred feet past a deep wash and a very rutted out road. I used first gear in 4x4.
They were hospitable and suggested that I park along the road. They would be there until Thursday and were willing to contact my friend if I had not returned by then. (So at least she could make arrangements to retrieve the vehicle.)
I started prepping and was backpacking by 5 pm. By this time the storms had died down. So I was treated to the sun brilliantly illuminating the high cliffs around me as I started out.
But it was still breezy, with temps in the low 70's. I put on a windbreaker before I started, which I thought I would need. But I regretted that soon after, as I heated up from backpacking. But as evening was coming, I left it on.
Mostly a road walk. But then I saw two posts that had that "The Trail begins Here" look. (Although neither of them said anything about the GET or Old AZT. In fact, I didn't see any trail makers after this.) It started out being an easily discernable trail.
I thought, after all the recent rains in the area days before, that there would be lots of water in washes along my way. But except for the creek/stream/wash at the Canyon, there was no water along my route this evening. (Although everything was green.)
About 6:30 pm, I had hiked 2 miles and was wondering where to camp. Fortunately, I noticed a flat spot one foot off the trail to my left, where the grass had been flattened in a rectangular shape, with rocks at the corners. Clearly someone had camped here the night before. I figured "If it was good enough for them, it's good enough for me."
About then I heard a "call" from higher up the mountain that could have been a cat. (I don't know what bobcats sound like. Or maybe a mountain lion? (But I'm told that they sound like a woman screaming. And what I heard wasn't bone chilling.)) It called only once. I was on the lookout for eye reflections all night. But, thankfully, never saw any.
The wind picked up in the evening as it often does in the mountains. So I struggled to set up camp. (My tent blew away while I was trying to stake it down.) Fortunately it wasn't cold. Just windy. Heated water in the protection of my vestibule. Dinner, brush teeth, in "bed" by 8:30 p.m.
I noticed a tower on a mountain about 20 miles (?) to my south and on a hunch, I came out of Airplane Mode. To my amazement, I had cell covered. (Data too.) But that was the only place. (Line of sight to tower.)
Normally I set up two solar rechargeable LED lamps around camp at night so that I can investigate noises if needs be. But as there was a Quarter moon out, it was remarkably bright as it was. In fact, I'd forgotten how bright starlight is. (After the moon set.) The moonlight waxed and waned as the clouds drifted by, as I also drifted off to sleep.
I didn't hear many animal noises that night. No crickets. No coyotes. An occasional bird still awake in the bright moonlight. (Happened at Chilson Spring in moonlight too.) The wind died down after midnight.
I was up at 6 a.m., which is unusual for me, especially while camping. But I had gone to bed early and I wanted to try for an early start.
Fortunately there was no wind in the morning - unusual for the mountains - and I was able to pack up in two hours. (A personal best for me.) Although the rain fly of my tent was wet, and my (down) sleeping bag was damp.
I didn't want to put the fly in my backpack wet. So I wrapped it around my poles and inserted the bundle into some loops on the back of my back. I tried to let my sleeping bag air out. But I had to compress it wet.
Rehydrating food uses up water. (Although you can argue that you're "drinking" it while you eat. So it's not wasted, per se.) I was down to 1.7 liters for what RouteScout showed was 3 miles to go.
Even tho I routinely make 4 mile training hikes (with my backpack) at Mountain View park in 2 hours or less, I figured that this 3 miles would take at least 3 hours.
The temperatures were nice (mid-70's?). So I should be okay. Still, it would be nice to find some water westward.
On the trail at 8:30. The tread continued well. Until about a half mile later. Then the tread started disappearing and it became very difficult to know which way to go. (See photos.)
I brought a small hand-clipper on this trip and used it to clear some overgrowth in parts of the trail.
Up until this time, where was plenty of horse poop and horse shoe marks on the trail. But they both suddenly stopped.
Every now and then I was able to spot a cairn. But they were very tiny, and barely noticeable from the my perspective going west. See photos. It would turn out that they were easier to spot when I turned around and headed eastbound.
But between RS beeping at me and an occasional cairn, it was reassuring to know that I was on "the" trail. (Apparently there is some ambiguity about the GET. Even the HAZ MapDex shows an alternative GET, tracking along a wash. (And old, old version of the AZT?))
Even with RS beeping, I still managed to mistake a game trail for the actual trail. But in one instance, that was fortuitous. For I stumbled upon water!
Yeah, okay, it was starting to scum with algae. And there were mosquito larvae squirming in it. But I figured it would be better to have it and not drink it, than to need it but not have it
So I filtered about 0.7 liters.
And then I came to a cairn showing that the trail descended 20 feet down to a wash. I could see clear tread on the other side of the wash. So that was encouraging.
But the descent was about 30 feet long in loose, rocky soil. About a 45 degree decline. (I thought I had taken a photo showing this part and the tread on the other side of the wash. Maybe I did, but in my struggle, forgot to hit "Save.")
I started down. But about a fourth into it - which took about 15 minutes - I started thinking "There's no way that I'm going to be able to make it back up this way on my return."
So then I started thinking that I would have to take AZT 16 to the Gila, and then along the Gila to Walnut Canyon back to White Canyon. (Along the sandy wash that I didn't want to hike a few weeks ago.)
Rats.
And then I started thinking "What if I fall here and break a leg, arm, clavicle?" No way I would get back alive. Nor would anyone find me for a long time.
So I turned around, climbed a treacherous 7 feet back uphill, and set my sites on returning to White Canyon proper.
It was almost 11 am by now. So I was hiking at less than 1 mph this morning (slowed down by a half hour water filter stop) as I tried to find - and travel - what had become a difficult trail.
The weather was still nice - temps not hot. I noticed, going back eastbound now, that there were more cairns going east than I had noticed west. They were all very tiny. But their perspective was different going east. So easier to spot. Still, I managed to go off trail a bunch of times between cairns. (Zoom in to the end my Route and laugh.)
Once back on good tread, things went faster. But not as fast as I would have liked. There was more downhill this way, and the rocky, crumbly ground downhill is a recipe for disaster. So I was still at 1 mph for the rest of the way back.
I was back at the Hippie campsite shortly before 3 pm, and on the drive home shortly thereafter.
It was an interesting experience. I dunno... maybe I'll try to hike the missing 2 miles going east in November, just to see if old AZT signs are there.
(Here's someone else's description of the GET. www.simblissity.net/get/guide-seg03.shtml)
But for me, I'm going to stay on more curated or more traveled trails in the future. |
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Artesian Well - Walnut Canyon |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | Overflowing clear water. It's in a blue, above ground pool/tank, fed by the Well. (See photos.) If you're hiking the GET, then you can't miss the tank. It's right along the stream/creek, on public land. I didn't filter.
If you're driving in from Battle Axe Road, it's just beyond a barbed wire vehicle gate (west) to the right of the yellow metal "Private Property" gate. (Where the Well proper is.) It's okay to open the barbed wire gate to drive thru. The tank is about 25 feet west of the gate.
If the icon isn't referring to the Well water, then the creek/stream was also flowing well when I was there. | | _____________________
| Be careful. It really is "a jungle out there." |
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