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| | | Mogollon Mountains exploring, NM | | | |
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Mogollon Mountains exploring, NM
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| Backpack | 26.00 Miles |
3,500 AEG |
| | Backpack | 26.00 Miles | 1 Day 8 Hrs | | |
| 3,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Had been planning on spending Memorial Day weekend backpacking in the Gila Wilderness again, but the Johnson Fire kinda put a damper on my first choice route options. I figured smoke would be less likely to impact the Whitewater drainage, on account of it being surrounded on the south and east by high ridges, so I drew up a route there - Whitewater Trail, Crest, Holt Apache, East Fork, South Fork... looks like it was at one point a pretty common 35 miler.
My first mistake was misreading the list of "not recommended" trails on the Gila Wilderness website. It said there are numerous washouts, some impassable, west of Lipsey Canyon. Somehow my brain determined that meant we could at least make it to Lipsey Canyon. From the west. I realized my mistake the morning of the hike, and thought...well, if Whitewater Trail doesn't work out, we could probably do South Fork if we can get that far. I think also having done a couple other "not recommended" and unmaintained stretches of trail in the wilderness lulled me into a false sense of security...
So, spoiler alert in case you don't want to keep reading, and you, like me, are too lazy to call up the ranger station: Whitewater Trail has numerous impassable washouts, and beyond the power station trail, is not a viable route.
Saturday - hike in
The less-condensed version...We started down Gold Dust in the morning, which was well-maintained and gave us false hope. Whitewater Trail was fine for a period, with a few "small" washouts with easy bypasses. The first major washout was at about the 3.2 mile mark (all mileages from Gold Dust TH), but this one is easy to get through. A couple more minor washouts occur before the South Fork junction, but really just require sure footing.
After the South Fork junction, the trail follows the old road to the power station for about a quarter of a mile, then continues contouring up. Couple more sure-footing sort of spots, but then at 4.8 and 5.0, major washouts that we were able to get past by going 50-100 feet up or down slope.
At around 5.1, we hit the first of what could be considered an impassable washout. Here the slope was treacherously steep and there was a 15 foot or so deep gouge carved into the draw. We backtracked to a more gentle grade and bushwhacked down to the creek. Proceeded upsteam for awhile and had lunch. Then made a fateful decision to try the trail again. After a ridiculously steep climb up, we hit trail, and proceeded on...to another impassable washout. At this point, spirits were low, and we decided this route just wouldn't be doable this weekend. Some in the party wanted to try to find a better way back down ("the devil you know" in my opinion), and we managed to find a third impassable washout.
Anyways, the long of it is, whitewater trail past the power station road should, for all intents and purposes, be considered abandoned, and stricken from official maps. It will be impossible to rebuild the trail on the current alignment.
We followed the creek almost all the way back down to the South Fork junction, which was actually easy and pleasant as far as creek walks are concerned. Any who dare venture into this canyon in the future should follow the creek.
We camped at a nice campsite at the junction, and I had the thought that maybe we could explore up South Fork. In the waning hours of daylight, I poked around a little, and in the middle of what I figured had to be the trail, there were 4-5 foot tall plants growing which I had to weave through. I didn't have very high hopes about the viability of this trail, so we just hiked out first thing in the morning.
Sunday - Mogollon Crest to Hummingbird Saddle
We got back to the cars relatively early in the day, and it started getting smoky. I think a shift in the wind started moving all the smoke that had initially gone west, back east over the crest. Since we had all day, we decided to try summiting Whitewater Baldy. Started out slightly smokey, then got really smoky around Willow Mountain, then at Hummingbird Saddle it was clear, and all the smoke was to the east.
There aren't a lot of recent reports on the crest trail here, but all the guides here describe a completely different trail. The crest trail to Hummingbird Saddle is situated almost entirely in high-severity burn area, with maybe one 100 yard-or-so long exception. Reports seem to vary about the deadfall situation, but currently it is no deadfall for the first mile or so, occasional deadfall until about a half mile from Hummingbird, then a half mile long obstacle course. Point being that we got so sick of climbing over logs that we decided to just have lunch at the saddle, fill up at the spring, and turn around.
Sunday - Catwalk
Still had some daylight left after the crest, so we headed down to the catwalk for a stroll with beverages. I pointed out that it's a lot hotter at 5,000 feet than at 10,000. It was a nice stroll, but I wouldn't really consider this worth going out of your way for.
Summary
First foray into the western part of the Mogollon Mountains did not go as planned, and with the current trail conditions in this area, it's probably only really an option for the most hardy backpackers. |
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