Porcupine Canyon Police Call Photoset • kingsnake • 2025-10-28 • HikeArizona.COM

Porcupine Canyon Police Call, AZ

	2025-10-28
	15 by kingsnake

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Porcupine Canyon Police Call, AZ

Hiking	5.92 Miles	410 AEG

Hiking	5.92 Miles	2 Hrs 37 Mns	2.26 mph
	410 ft AEG

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Last time I was out here, I picked up what I could, but didn’t have the pockets to carry it all. Today, trash bags in hand, I went back to police it up.

I parked 1.8 miles up FR 34B, at its junction with an unnumbered forest road. Call it FR X. 1.7 miles long, FR X also connects to FR 34B at FR X’s northern end.

FR X starts with a short, but steep & gravelly, drop. It was a pleasant stroll to my planned drop in point which, coincidentally, was marked by the only deadfall and boulders beside FR X. Before dropping in to the canyon, I continued to the far end of FR X, which was marked by a grove of still golden maples. Hiking FR X and FR 34B would be a 2.8 mi., 150 ft. loop.

Back at my drop in point, I descended 120 ft. to the canyon floor. The descent seemed more mellow than a 28% slope. On my previous Porcupine Canyon hike, I had marked an obstacle on my GPS, just past the two-mile point. I neglected to note the nature of the obstacle: deadfall, dryfall, or what? My drop in point was past that obstacle, but there were still puzzles to be solved the next mile.

I slowly hiked the canyon, scanning left & right for trash. I knew there was a large pile “just short of mile 3”, but not how short. I did not mark it on my GPS back in June. Plus, the garbage may have washed downstream in early October’s heavy rains. The canyon bottom showed evidence — bent grass — of flooding. (The creekside shelves were unaffected.) I picked up a few items here & there.

In a fortunate coincidence, I found the trash pile at one of my two planned bail points. Except it wasn’t as big as I remembered. Maybe a false memory, but I remembered it as a pile of at least three dozen Bud Light cans. Instead it was less, and scattered. Altogether, eighteen various bits of garbage, some not beer-related.

The garbage “pile” was too high up (10 ft.) to have washed down canyon. But I decided to check anyway. I continued down canyon a quarter mile to my alternate bail point. I saw no washed down trash. So, I doubled back.

My first bail point had a similar slope to my alternate (11%), but took a more circuitous route from the canyon to the north end of FR 34B. There was a memorial there, and more still golden maples. I made good time along FR 34B back to my waiting wife at FR X. I carried the garbage bag on my back. Some of the bottles were broken, but I managed not to get stabbed. Total Haul: 46 pieces of trash.