DESTINATION Generic 80 Photosets
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| Santa Teresa Wilderness, AZ | |
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| | Santa Teresa Wilderness, AZ | | | |
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Santa Teresa Wilderness, AZ
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| Backpack | 17.00 Miles |
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| | Backpack | 17.00 Miles | 1 Day 5 Hrs | | |
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| no partners | | Another one of the "special" places. Been in here several times and never get tired of it. Drove up the fun forest service road, pay close attention on several sections as the road is on a ridgeline just wide enough for your vehicle and falls away pretty steeply on both sides.
Parked short of the hike to watch sunset and because the road was a bit washed out.
Hiked down Holdout the next day, among the amazing stone monoliths; this place makes the Wilderness of Rocks look like a little toyland. It was looking dry but Holdout Creek was running. I took a sidecanyon that headed back toward the crest, a little stream in it also. I found some snippets of an old trail, very overgrown. I believe comes down off the crest. I followed aways, then had a comeuppance trying to climb some decomposed granite, I fell onto my knee and hip and partially subluxated my kneecap. Well that hurt and bled and all that. Once I cleaned up and wrapped it decided to reverse my route. I wasn't so sore I couldn't hike so decided to not go down the flagged trail ( this is part of the GET) but follow the creek bed, enchanted as always by water in the desert. There is usually a reason for a trail, to bypass big boulder chokes and dropoffs. They weren't too difficult and some really beautiful sections by the creek with campsite choices galore. The trail does come to the creek quite a bit so you can rejoin it easily.
I cooled my knee off in the creek. Finally decided on a campsite under a granite fin by the creek. A better campsite was just downstream but the sun was getting low and my knee running out of steam. I didn't need my bivy, just set up on the sand.
Beautiful night with stars and the babbling brook. The next morning I could bend my knee to about 90 degrees only. I worked on it, then wrapped it and continued downstream. What a beautiful area. A granite box was fun to get through without falling in, I did drop my sunglasses and had to go back and fish them out with a stick. On down a gorgeous sculpted area of granite by the water. Finally I had to go back to the trail by a huge boulder choke area that looked like full on canyoneering which I wasn't ready to do. Another time, with a daypack from a base camp.
I wandered down to the confluence with Black Rock Canyon, amazed at the tiny ribbon flow of water. It is quick and easy hiking up the stream bed, easy to keep feet dry this time. Nice scenery. A strange type of rock outcrop that seemed to indicate a spring every time I saw it.
I soon got to the road slog out, it is now part of a wilderness trail and no longer driven. It's a little steep in places but just goes up relentlessly. My knee started screaming here and all I could do was just gut it out. Got to the car with my GPS ( which I forgot to turn on initially then forgot to turn the tracking on, and let the batteries die briefly) registering just short of 17 miles.
A great trip except for the knee part. Then a drive to Globe and have Brian lecture me on icing and elevating my knee. Yeah.
I had thought about keeping this great place a "secret" but being as it is part of the GET so see that as silly. Another wonderful place in Arizona, where you will likely see no one, and maybe not even bootprints. |
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