Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF • Hike • Arizona • All Triplogs • HikeArizona.COM

login for filter options

Apr 18 2026

NitroTheWolf

Guides 12
Routes 147
Photos 1,022
Triplogs 66

male

Joined Nov 13 2021
Flagstaff

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Kayak		Apr 18 2026
		NitroTheWolf • Triplogs 66

Kayak	16.20 Miles	1,224 AEG

Kayak	16.20 Miles	2 Days
	1,224 ft AEG

Linked

none

no linked trail guides

Partners

none

no partners

I've seen this old cabin listed on the topographic maps and have been wanting to hike to it. There are also some geocaches along the way so since I had the weekend free I drove down to grab my kayak and spend a night on the water.
Day 1
After making the drive from my parent's house in Scottsdale (that's where my kayak is as there's no room to have it in Flagstaff in my tiny student apartment) I drove to the very end of the Bartlett Flat road. After unloading it and getting all of my gear (which I had stuffed into dry bags earlier), I was ready to go and headed out. Paddled about one mile before stopping at Jacks Cove to find a geocache. Found the cache and kept paddling to Sheep Creek where I planned to set up camp. As I got closer, the water got shallower, and there were times I had to get out and drag my boat over some rocks. I soon made it to the Sheep Creek area and set up camp on the west side of the Verde.

I then attempted to find one of the geocaches that were hidden at the top a large, jagged rock formation. I headed up the middle area and around the halfway point I started get swarmed by bees. I more or less stumbled my way down to get away, fighting through bushes and dry grasses along the way. I decided to not go for that cache just yet and attempted to head up river to Devil's Hole where I knew another one was. I originally tried to boat up but there was a lot of rocks and got tired of dragging the kayak. I then tried on foot and followed the banks, crossed the verde, and when I was .8 miles away (as the crow flies) that going on foot was a bad idea. I had reached a point where I couldn't cross the Verde, so I dejectedly headed back to camp.

At this point I decided to attempt the geocache that is at the top of the jagged rock formation instead. I managed to find a much better way up by following the spine. I made the short final scramble to ground zero and managed to find the geocache and get the FTF (First to Find). Stayed at the top for a few minutes and enjoyed the view. Headed back down to my campsite where I lit a fire and made dinner for the night.

Day 2
After packing up camp, I paddled to the mouth of Sheep Creek and abandoned my kayak on the bank. Hiked up and saw some bald eagles nesting on the mountain I had hiked yesterday and also found a dead eagle in Sheep Creek. RIP. The first mile up the creek was easy as it was dry and the biggest issue ended up being avoiding bees. However, I soon saw water and ended up hopscotching between rocks and fighting my way through dense brush. There also ended up being a lot of mosquitos here and was fighting them off the whole way through. As I neared the cabin and one of the geocaches, I realized it would just be easier to walk in the creek instead of avoiding spider webs, downed trees, and various debris. I soon made it to the geocache and successfully got another FTF on it. I then continued on in hopes of finding the cabin. Sadly, I was unable to find anything that resembled a cabin in the dense mess of trees and vines that inhabited the area. I even had the coordinates for the cabin I found in someone else's triplog. As I retreated and headed out I saw a large clump of wooden boards, trash cans, and corrugated metal wedged between some trees. I assume this is what is left of the cabin, though I'm not entirely certain as there was no evidence of the stone fireplace it had. At this point I headed back out, though as I was navigating the creek I slipped at got wet. While my handheld GPSr was fine, my iPhone in my pocket wasn't and it decided to stop working a few hours after getting wet.

Once I made it back to the kayak and headed back to Bartlett Reservoir. I stopped to find two more geocaches that were on the north bank of the lake successfully found them. I did almost tip over when trying to get back on my boat due to the large waves that were created by the speed boats and jet skis, but thankfully didn't. I paddled back to the shore and found a lot of people had set up camp here. Thankfully there was a space where I could back up my truck into so I could load it into the bed. Thought about finding some more geocaches nearby, but decided against it as I was pretty tired after all that hiking and kayaking. A very fun journey, except for the part where I was swarmed by bees and breaking my iPhone. I hope to hike there in the future, but come from the old road/horseshoe reservoir side, instead of the boating/sheep creek side.

Edit
Is there a way to attach a photoset and change the "my routes" attached routes? For some reason I there's a wrong gpx route linked.

Fauna

Fauna [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Bald Eagle

2 archives

230747

Nov 21 2020

ShatteredArm

Guides 12
Routes 192
Photos 896
Triplogs 364

43 male

Joined Nov 30 2015
Phoenix, AZ

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Run/Jog		Nov 21 2020
		ShatteredArm • Triplogs 364

Run/Jog	5.11 Miles	670 AEG

Run/Jog	5.11 Miles	1 Hour 49 Mns	2.89 mph
	670 ft AEG	3 Mns Break

no photosets

Linked

none

no linked trail guides

Partners

none

no partners

Wanted to do something close, short, and easy. I think I got the first two boxes checked. The first mistake I made was forgetting to make sure I had the actual route on my electronic device. Whoops.

The river crossing was pretty easy; I think with current flow I could probably even get my Jeep across. Took a wrong turn after the crossing, since it seems more people continue along the river. Realized it was wrong when we got to another crossing, and headed north-ish cross country until we got to the correct road.

This was easy enough to follow until the spring, which actually had water, and was a nice little spot. Looks like it is Javelina central. Opposite side of the creek we lost the route, and couldn't figure out where it went. There are so many game trails there that even if there were an actual trail somewhere, it'd be impossible to distinguish it.

Fun time, but this one definitely requires a map.

	Fig Trail Spring	Dripping	Dripping
	Intermittent flow in the creek, and a good seep coming out of the spring.

_____________________

181385

Feb 11 2018

jacobemerick

Guides 38
Routes 190
Photos 1,651
Triplogs 249

40 male

Joined Dec 09 2014
Gilbert, AZ

Fig Trail and a Kayak, AZ

Hiking		Feb 11 2018
		jacobemerick • Triplogs 249

Hiking	14.59 Miles	1,108 AEG

Hiking	14.59 Miles	8 Hrs 49 Mns		1.82 mph
	1,108 ft AEG	49 Mns Break	30 LBS Pack

Linked

linked

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Partners

none

no partners

Well, this is one way to do Fig Trail and avoid an out-and-back.

pre-trail
Met sister at SB Cove and we took a vehicle up to FR 42, starting down the road with the sun. Great views along the way, I had fun pointing out Horseshoe Dam and the ranch, as well as the different peaks of the Mazzies, to an increasingly bored sibling. We took a roundabout way down to the river, ending at the gauge, and then stared at the Verde. Instead of trying to ford it we decided to kayak across because, well, we were carrying inflatable kayaks and they're cool. Those become more important later. Anyways, we spent an hour inflating/deflating for a sixty-second crossing and then started up FR 477 to the trailhead.

Fig #92
Found the twisted stump marking the beginning and followed a shockingly well-defined tread east. The old road that the trail follows is washed out at the second wash crossing and we had to find our own terrible way up the other bank, and then we re-discovered the trail on the other side of the next hill. We'd follow the tread few a few hundred yards, get slightly confused and/or make stupid decisions, and then pick it back up a short time later. Along the way I built a few cairns and we admired the views. Overall we were just impatient to reach the cabin.

Sheep Creek
Sheep Creek was terribly overgrown, as any Arizona creek should be, and we fought our way towards the cabin, not spotting it until we were twenty feet away. Cabin is in great shape - someone recently cleaned it out and added a photo of the builder. Cool stuff. After that we still had another half mile of battle along Sheep Creek (which was flowing great, by the way) until things dried up and died down and we could stroll the rest of the way to the Verde River.

Verde River
Now to the water stuff. We inflated our vehicles and set down the river. There was a decent amount of rapids due to the low level of Bartlett, at least six sections in all, and three of them were shallow enough to force me out and walk it down. Sister weighs at least fifty pounds less and had no troubles... I blame it on a different model of kayak. She also moved way faster in the flat water and soon left me in the mist. There wasn't enough watercraft in the north end of Bartlett to give us much trouble, though I did snap my paddle near the Flats and bailed early. Worked out fine - I deflated, packed up, and met my sister just as she was loading up at the dock. Walking > kayaking.

Mazatzal Miles: 199.6/275 (73%)

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Fig Spring Fig Spring Cabin Fig Trail Spring

	Fig Spring	Quart per minute	Quart per minute
	Dripping/pouring down the bank and created a steady stream down into Sheep Creek.

	Fig Trail Spring	Dripping	Dripping
	Good dripping flow from source of spring heading down the wash. Several large pools, including rock tanks, of clear water, more than deep enough to pull from.

	Sheep Creek	Medium flow	Medium flow
	Was flowing great near Fig Cabin, dries up about 1/2 mile downstream.

_____________________

2 archives

152149

Jan 19 2013

topohiker

Guides 14
Routes 115
Photos 4,830
Triplogs 3,732

male

Joined Oct 29 2005
Scottsdale, AZ

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Fig Trail #92 - Tonto NF

Phoenix, AZ

Hiking		Jan 19 2013
		topohiker • Triplogs 3,732

Hiking	27.48 Miles	4,945 AEG

Hiking	27.48 Miles	13 Hrs 50 Mns	2.73 mph
	4,945 ft AEG	3 Hrs 45 Mns Break

Linked

linked

Copper Camp Trail #87

Sears Trail #90

Partners

partners

fan3992

What a day! This was our second attempt to reach the Fig Spring cabin. We started at Horseshoe dam and hiked to the KA Ranch. We went about a half mile past the ranch on FR479 and crossed the Davenport wash. Then we climbed up an unnamed mountain and bushwhacked over where FR477 meets the gauging station by the Verde River. We saw that a vehicle recently forded the Verde by the gauging station. I roamed for a little bit looking for the Cable Crossing, but didn't find it. We took a break by the Verde.

Next we located the Fig Trail #92. The only indication of a junction is a burnt out piece of wood sticking out of the ground. Once you're on the trail you can almost make out an old road. The road gets a little better. We were following horse prints down the road. About 3/4 a mile down the road, the trail hits drainage.

:scared:

*DISCLAIMER* Past this point you need a GPS track (or a very detailed map) of the trail and be very comfortable with route finding and bushwhacking. There is NO TRAIL past this point. If there was one, it hasn't been used in years or decades. *DISCLAIMER* :scared:

We lost the horse prints in the drainage. This time we used the GPS track as a guideline for where to go. Last time we tried to stay on the track and that go us no-where fast. I would see what direction the track was going, then look for a nice open path in the desert and go for it. I would check the GPS every 10 minutes to make sure we were still on-track. I tried to stay with 100~200 feet of the GPS track. This made the bushwhacking easier, because we zigzagged around vegetation. Every so often we would 'see' trail, but who knows if it was just a game path.

We had to cross numerous drainages. This was time and energy consuming. Sometimes we had to go a 1/4 mile out of the way to find a viable crossing. When we were about 1 mile from the cabin, we entered a wash and saw a cairn! Then we saw a second cairn when we turned down a second wash! We both agreed that if you got this far, you didn't need cairns. Then we climbed to a ridgeline and saw a path clear of rocks going the opposite of the GPS track. The GPS track made a semi-circle to the Sheep Creek, but the clear rock path went straight for it. We gambled and took the ridgeline path. The path got us about 1/3 mile from the cabin and it ended in a drainage. It was 1:10 now. There was butte blocking our way to the sheep creek ](*,)

. We veered towards the GPS track and had to go through a couple of scree fields with drop offs into the drainage.

We hit the track/trail and dropped into a nice wash. Soon after I could see trees! The Sheep Creek was close! Then we hit a fence line going across the wash. I didn't see any openings in the fence, so crawled army style under the fence. There was heavy vegetation and shade by the creek :FG:

.
Finding the cabin was a challenge. We found another fence line on higher ground and tried to follow that. Then I remembered that Outlander mentioned the cabin was next to the Fig Spring. We found the spring and another fence line closer to the creek. We followed this fence line for about 300 feet to the cabin! :y:

Mission accomplished! :y:

The Cabin has seen better days. My GPS showed the cabin at N 33 55.6310, W111 37.8709. It was 2:00. It took us 50 minutes to travel that last 1/3 mile! We took a much needed break and lunch.

On the way back we followed the GPS track back to the ridgeline. This avoided the scree fields. Then we deviated from the GPS track when it showed the trail going down a steep ravine and climbing out the other side. We detoured by going around on a ridgeline to the other side.
The hike back seamed harder because we tried to stay close the hike in. Crossing the drainages seemed harder on the way back. We got to the Fig Trail / FR477 junction at 5PM. The GPS track is 3.5 miles long, but both Fan's and my GPS showed we hiked 5 miles one way!

We decided to take FR477 back instead of bushwhacking across to the ranch. We knew it was longer, but with darkness coming, it was the safer option. As we got closer to the Davenport wash, it got colder and colder yet by the Verde River. I was concerned about crossing the Davenport wash at night, but we followed some Jeep tracks across without issue.

It was a fun but a tiring hike. I don't recommend doing this in a single day, unless you start very early or ford the Verde to reduce the mileage. I don't think you can do this hike twice the same way! Even on the way back, we took a slightly different way back.

It was great being back in the Mazzies!

Culture

Culture [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Stream Gauging Station

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Fig Spring Cabin

_____________________

"Everywhere is walking distance...If you have the time"
-Stephen Wright

84706

WARNING! Hiking and outdoor related sports can be dangerous. Be responsible and prepare for the trip. Study the area you are entering and plan accordingly. Dress for the current and unexpected weather changes. Take plenty of water. Never go alone. Make an itinerary with your plan(s), route(s), destination(s) and expected return time. Give your itinerary to trusted family and/or friends.

username		X
password		X