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| no partners | | 2023-02-09
Quick visit to Parker Canyon Overlooks on our first afternoon / evening, then onto Sawmill Dispersed Camp for two nights stay. Some more aggressive plans were shelved due to snow levels, it was enough to be a potential hazard on steep off trail terrain, and not enough to safely cover rocks & fallen logs for easy walking.
Parker Canyon (160) had light snow near the top.
McFadden Horse Mountain was pretty socked in, including the XC cut to the arch.
Workman springs road looked fine at the bottom, there was a fallen tree on the road but there was room for a vehicle to pass. I imagine it's a muddy mess further up.
Reynolds Creek FR looked really muddy.
The camp area near honey creek divide / FR3222 had a large ice or mud puddle depending on time of day leading to it.
Parking for McFadden Horse Mountain was mostly covered in snow.
288 from ~Rose Creek lodge to McFadden mountain FR had a handful of icy spots. All were fine dropping speed and playing it safe, and were where you'd expect them to be.
First night hit 21F - luckily that's within the range of our shoulder season alpine gear (0F bag, 10F bag, R5 sleeping pads, etc). Most campsites were snow free and non-soggy. Cleaned up quite a bit of trash from the site, including a shotgun shell, some clay duck bits, and 9mm shells within a few feet of a fire ring. :/
2023-02-10: FR203, FR329, FR2801
After a chilly morning we headed out to the intersection of FR203 and 288. We parked across from FR203 near some trashed campsites (what looked like industrial parts had been shoveled out of a fire ring currently full of half melted plastic and burnt metal) and went for a walk down FR203. Cherry Creek has caught my imagination since seeing it from the ridge of McFadden Horse Mountain, so why not.
Despite the warnings at the cattle guard, the road was in great shape (for a Sierra Ancha 4x4) down to FR329 with some great views up top of McFadden Horse and its nearby terrain - always fun to mentally map a previous XC route onto something in the distance. Shortly after the big switch down we came across FR2801, which didn't show up on any maps we had. Upon hitting FR329 we pondered our choices and decided to aim for some of the drainages up-canyon. The road was again in fairly solid shape, passing a cattle gate and a spring fed trough in a cattle pen, until it hit the bottom of FR2801.
The road got rougher, true 4x4 after that, though still pleasant to walk with a lot of dirt to cushion steps. Shortly after the spring (fed into a trough with some old metal gating around the original spring dismantled) is FR2803 heading north with a load of warnings. I wasn't able to pull up any information for private parcels in that area that'd be ahead, but on the way back we used it to cross the creek then cutting west to follow a series of old camps leads to an old path to the abandoned mine in that area. We didn't go up to the adits or tailings themselves, but there was some interesting old rusty industrial stuff below that was interesting. Some kind of kilns, and what looked like simple sorting machines for kibble along with some finer sieves. It all seemed pretty inert, but we didn't poke around into the old charcoal.
FR2805 could easily be missed, and cuts south just before Ash Creek, which seemed like it could be a worthwhile wander. We chose to push onwards instead, but only made it FR2086 (and the nearby Olliger Mesa Tank again feeding into a trough inside a pen) before deciding it wasn't prudent to try and reach the end of FR2086 where it dropped down to Cherry Creek. Short days and a late start, ce la vie.
To save time heading back we simply went up FR2081, which was incredibly pleasant for the first bit then hit the worst walking terrain of the day, baseball to grapefruit sized rocks similar the ones on the way to DuPonte Cabin (though not as bad).
While not as epic as the lower part of the canyon, if someone had a 4x4 it'd be an interesting place to poke around. Lots of cow droppings here and there, so care taken with water sources etc. No signs of fire damage encountered.
2023-02-11: FR152 (mostly non-existent) / Rose Creek
We were debating going up McFadden (non-horse) Mountain, or cutting to some of the old roads that lead to prospects above the north fork of Parker creek, but decided to check out an old road from Sawmill Flats Dispersed Camp because it was there. It quickly faded (after some overly optimistic tracks) and swung from an old road, to single track, to fading and coming back again. Easy enough to follow and there was some white flagging on limbs here and there to help out. A LOT of deadfall, and the ever present New Mexico Thorndickweeds after a fire. Thankfully not as dense as some of the stuff around Aztec Mountain, and it wasn't an issue, but still annoying. We reached the end of the canyon where the old road petered out... and there wasn't much. It'd be useful as an approach to Armer mountain I suppose, as there was a lot of semi-open forest, but faced with the choice of bushwhacking or postholing with current conditions we called it and headed back.
We decided to beat pre-Superbowl evening traffic (which is a pooeyshow even without a massive event) and just head back to metro PHX. A bit of a let down trip for a favorite area, but it was good to get out and we didn't see a single person aside from an OHV convoy alongside Parker Canyon. So that's a win! |
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Ash Creek Spring |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | Good sized pool (used to be blocked off from cattle) with a pipe running under the road to a cement trough.
Trough is marked HH#1 and was built in 2007. |
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Olliger Mesa Tank |
76-100% full |
76-100% full |
| | | Spigot running into a metal tank inside of a cow pen. |
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Rose Creek Spring |
Gallon per minute |
Gallon per minute |
| | | Spring not observed, but the lower part of rose creek had a solid flow to it. | | | |
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Thanks to Kyle for driving.
