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| Hiking | 6.50 Miles |
764 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.50 Miles | 3 Hrs 44 Mns | | 1.87 mph |
| 764 ft AEG | 15 Mns Break | 18 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | Between the Ren Fest on weekends & US 60 bridge construction Tuesdays through Thursdays we hadn't been 'East' for some time, so on a 'traffic-free Monday' it was time to head out that way. But to where?
Tracey mentioned White Canyon, which we hadn't hiked in 5 years, but when I looked back at hikes in the area I found it had been 11+ years since we hiked Wood Canyon, so I suggested "how about a hike from Wood To White again?" Done! Let's do it!
Whoa! Let's hold on just a minute!
As I recall, the last 2-3 miles of the drive to 'our' Wood Canyon Trailhead had some pretty nasty spots, even for the modified Cherokee at the time, so now with the 4Runner, we may need to be ready for a 'road-walk' of some of that distance. The 4Runner is a TRD Off-Road so I wasn't too concerned, it's just that I didn't care to put add excessive wear-and-tear on it... Arizona pinstripes are one thing, but damaging or breaking things is what I want to avoid.
Just before the Circle-K in Superior we turned onto Panther Drive to head out along Forest Road #230 toward Wood Canyon. It had 'Road Construction' signs but then again, where ISN'T there construction nowadays?
However, around the second turn there is NO ROAD at all! It appears Queen Creek had washed the road out completely. Although there was plenty of heavy equipment there was no passage through, and there likely won't be for quite some time.
(Note to others wishing to drive FR #230 out toward Telegraph/Arnett Canyons)
Thankfully there was an easy option, which was continue through Superior, head South on AZ #177 about 2.5 miles to the 'other end' of Forest Road #230 and take it until turning onto the unlabeled road to Wood Canyon. And let the shaking, rattling and rolling (us inside, not the 4Runner) begin. It was very slow going but for the first few miles the only 'damage' was light Arizona pin-striping and splashed thick mud.
Unfortunately, almost exactly a mile from our planned hike start, the road degraded into random boulders and rock piles so I turned around and parked right next to the absolute best part of the road... as you'll see in the first photo. From there on, the road varied anywhere from rock-crawling territory to smooth sections. If only those 4-5 sections weren't there, it would have been a breeze to drive that last mile. But even on foot, it wasn't a cakewalk.
Video: Last 2 miles/11+ minutes of the drive to the Wood Canyon Trailhead
FINALLY! The hike:
What we HOPED to be a reminiscing hike, replaying our Wood-to-White trek on Christmas Eve 2014, well, let's put it this way... as the hike title suggests, it was an unmitigated disaster!
Why? Well, neither of us realized the Telegraph Fire of 2021 had passed through almost everywhere this hike was planned to go. Having hiked through a number of other 'after-fire' areas, this turned out to be the worst-looking aftermath of any I'd traversed in many years.
Whatever, we're here now, so let's get to it. After spotting a single set of fresh horseshoe prints heading the same route as my GPS route from 2014, it got our hopes up, at least as far as where the 'trail' might go. But, they sure wouldn't help when they seemed to disappear at the most inopportune times when encountering the numerous thorny masses of vegetation we had to navigate, in, around or through. Thus the disaster part.
Good thing I had a lopper and we both had hand trimmers or we might still be out there... oh wait, no, we would have given up sooner. Even with long pants & long sleeve shirt I managed to give donate a bit of blood.
After numerous times of losing the trail such as it wasn't, along with continually more difficult hazard bypasses, we stopped for an early lunch break. After a peaceful 10-15 minutes, with nothing but a frog popping its head through thick algae in a pond just feet in front of me, we came to the same conclusion... so what if we're .25 mile from the White Canyon Wilderness border, we see nothing ahead of us but a mass of thick-and-thorny vegetation, which could add hours to our already slow pace. Add to that all the constant jostling was playing havoc on my knees and hips, so we are so outta here!
Thankfully all the trimming/lopping we had done so far made it slightly easier, although we did get boxed in a few times by losing our way due to coming from the opposite direction. I guess we should have glanced backward more often on the way out to better recognize the route to take back.
Finally, back to the 'road' I took a few more photos of the nearly unnavigable spots, justifying the extra 2-mile round-trip. The drive back out was no more fun than earlier, but it did go a bit faster.
After this one, Tracey rightly said "Been there, done that, never again." |
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