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| Hiking | 4.52 Miles |
1,200 AEG |
| | Hiking | 4.52 Miles | 7 Hrs | | 0.65 mph |
| 1,200 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Left Gilbert, AZ around 8:00a, staged @ the 90 degree bend in FR203 about 22 miles up cherry Creek road from 288.
Started the hike @ 11:00a, temperature in the high 60s.
You can see the cliff dwellings from the staging area, about 1 1/2 miles distant as the crow flies pretty much due east (slightly north).
My friend and I had read several blogs and decided we did not want to hike the 1/2 mile or so back to an "old mining road near Cold Springs Canyon"...BIG MISTAKE! DO NOT follow our path over the edge. Take the extra effort and find the "old mining road" near Cold Springs Canyon. You'll save yourself a lot of pain and agony and possibly some time as well.
As for us, we headed due east and over the edge...and began to descend the bluffs/cliffs...bushwhacking all the way.
Dense brush, several 10-50 foot drop-offs along the way. Long pants, long sleeve shirt highly recommended. We would have been better served if we had rappelling gear.
After a 10 foot fall and a badly cut hand...hey john you have any bandages....nope... we're men, we don't need no stinkin' bandages...well I didn't need that shirt anyway... we finally made it to Pueblo Creek and headed down, east, to Cherry Creek. We traded bushwhackin' for boulder hoppin' I should note at this point that I'm a 49 year old father of 3 who has been hiking, and back country camping/hiking for 40 years, done 50 mile day hikes and hiked the canyon 6 times, and I thought I was in pretty good shape... Although, I did just go on blood pressure medicine...I'm trying to get into better shape, and off the meds...a little oveweight 20 lbs, but this was one tough hike.
East side or west side of Cherry Creek, didn't seem to matter...on the way to the cliff dwellings, we went up the east side and returned via the west side.
Be sure to cross over Cooper Fork Canyon when you begin your ascent to the cliff dwellings, while it looks imposing on the North Side, the south side is all but impassable/impossible...you'll see when you get to the ruins via the North ridge along Cooper Fork Canyon.
Just follow the ridgeline, on the North side of Cooper Forks Canyon...you'll get there! It took me about 3 1/2 hrs. to get to the cliff dwellings from the staging area. The views and ruins are well worth it.
There are 1/2 dozen rooms, some of the roof is still intact. There was a metate. The storage room even had a bat in it.
We spent an hour at the ruins and it took us 2 1/2 hrs. to return.
Follow the ridgeline back for your return.
Upon hitting Cherry Creek, and Pueblo Creeek, we debated going down to Cold Springs Creek, but it was getting late about 5:00p and we figured the devil we knew was better than the devil we didn't...we figured if we went far enough up Pueblo Canyon we would miss the sheer cliffs...well we missed the cliffs, but there was a lot of "big boulder" hopping and we still had a 60 degree scramble up the south side of Pueblo Canyon.
We made it back to the truck as the sun passed over the Sierra Anchas @ 6:00p, precisely 7 hours from whence we started.
A tough hike, well worth it.
We're headin' to Cold Springs Ruins sometime in November! |
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