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| | | Camp Grasshopper FR203 #3 Wander, AZ | | | |
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Camp Grasshopper FR203 #3 Wander, AZ
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| Car Camping | 1.70 Miles |
442 AEG |
| | Car Camping | 1.70 Miles | | | |
| 442 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | It had been 12 days since my last camping trip to the Sierra Ancha with Grasshopper and I was anxious to go back. This time it was a solo 5 day- 4 night trip to the Pueblo Canyon/Cold Spring Canyon area. I camped at the site Grasshopper and I checked out on March 20. Its location on a ridge top 0.2 miles off of FR203 on a seldom used 4x4 ranching road gives it privacy and great views up and down Cherry Creek Canyon as well as up Pueblo Canyon. This is the most scenic of the 3 Grasshopper campsites along upper FR203. The downside is that the lack of much level ground, the hard rocky surface and the exposure to wind whipping up and down the canyon don't make it the best for tent camping. But it was ideal for me since I sleep in the back of my FJ Cruiser which can be positioned as a wind break for my kitchen table and can be leveled with rocks under the tires.
I drove up FR203 from its lower end on HW288. It was a beautiful day so I stopped at Devils Chasm for some picture taking. While there a caravan of 4 vehicles, one with a National Park Service emblem on the door, drove by. A short time later I encountered them setting up camp on the point where the trail to the Cold Spring Cny and Pueblo Cny ruins starts. A brief conversation with them revealed that they were National Park Service archaeologists from Tonto National Monument and Montezuma's Castle National Monument and were conducting an assessment of the impact of modern day visitors on the Cold Spring Canyon Cliff Dwelling. They would be there for the next three nights so I had neighbors since I was camping on the next point up the canyon 0.3 straight line miles away. I would see them the next day working at the cliff dwelling site but I was on the other side of the canyon so didn't talk to them.
On the fourth day I got a weather report via cell phone text from Grasshopper on one of the few occasions when I was able to get cell phone service. He warned me that there was rain forecast for Thursday night and Friday with thunderstorms and hinted that maybe it would be wise to come back a day early. I wasn't ready to leave but moved my camp down to a road side camp in the bottom of Cold Spring Canyon for the last night to reduce the chances of lightning strikes (but high enough to be out of flash flood range). There was only a light rain that night with no thunder and the sky was partly clear in the morning so it was a beautiful departure day on a dust free road. |
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