Bear Down Mountain • Hike • Arizona • All Triplogs • HikeArizona.COM

Prescott, AZ

Hiking		Apr 13 2025
		astrobrewer • Triplogs 196

Hiking	10.53 Miles	2,543 AEG

Hiking	10.53 Miles	5 Hrs 32 Mns	1.99 mph
	2,543 ft AEG	15 Mns Break

Linked

linked

Red Mountain Trail #43 - Prescott NF

Salida Trail #93

Prospectors Trail #42 - Bradshaw Mountains

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none

no partners

Route Recorded on Route Scout | Pop | Map | Popup | MapDEX

Looking for a cooler hike not too far away, decided to go to Prescott. Used the filter on HAZ site to find hikes in season around Prescott. Picked Bear Down Mountain. Never hiked from Green Gulch trail head, but it looked easy enough to get to. Lots of trails in the area, so I figured I would make a loop and also bag Stoneridge Peak. I created a route using route editor and saved it to Route Scout. Very glad I did because there are lots of trails and the off track warning saved me a couple of times.

When I arrived at the large parking area at the trailhead there were only two other cars there. It was about 70 degrees and sunny. The first mile was level and easy. After turning left at the junction the rocky trail started climbing. Not to step at first. It just kept going up and up. After climbing for a couple miles the trail went downhill and steep with loose dirt and rocks making it slow going. After giving up a lot of elevation the trail started climbing again. There were some very steep parts with loose fitting that were fun.

Eventually got to a spot with a view of Bear Down. Looked nice and flat on top from a distance at least, a perfect spot to have lunch. A few minutes later Route Scout let me know that I had reached the "bush whack junction" to Bear Down Mountain. I was hoping for an easy walk to the peak, but it wasn't. There were some ready stretches but not many. Lots of bushes and trees and boulders in the way. Eventually I reached some boulders that must be the way to the top. I climbed up and with some difficulty reached the top of the boulders. The top? No! I could see another big boulder pile that looked higher. Damn. I find a route down the far side of the first boulder pile which has me forcing my way through bushes to get through. Luckily I was wearing long sleeves and long pants or I would have been totally scratched up.

On to and up the second boulder pile. And when I get to the top once again I can see another boulder pile that's even higher. Double damn! Got to climb down this second rock outcropping and make my way to the third one. Ugh. This is hard work.

Finally I reach the high point. It's just the top rock on the pile. I sit on it and take a selfie or two. Lunch? Out of the question. All I can think about is getting back to the trail. There were a couple tricky spots, but down was easier than up. Eventually I could see the trail and pushed through more bushes and then I was out in the open back on the trail. Whew!

Back in the game. The trail was fairly level for a while, and then started heading down and down and down. Seemed never ending. Hard to believe I hiked this far up.

Stoneridge Peak looked big. The trail went back uphill steeply as it got to the bushwhack junction. Also the peak is at least a few hundred get above the trail. I would have liked to see the view from the top, but I was not up for another long steep bushwhack and decided to keep going. The neck party of the trail was very steep with loose rocks and bad footing. Slow going. The least fun section of the trail.

Despite that it was a nice day on the trail. Only saw one other person, a guy walking his dog near the start. Nobody else all day. Back at the parking lot my car was all alone.

I might try this trail again to bag that second peak.

Flora

Flora [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Alligator Juniper Purplenerve Springparsley

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Bear Down 6962

_____________________

Oct 27 2024

John10s

Guides 25
Routes 376
Photos 5,897
Triplogs 346

40 male

Joined Mar 01 2018
Chandler, AZ

Stoneridge 6542 - Bear Down - Sun Devil Loop, AZ

Hiking		Oct 27 2024
		John10s • Triplogs 346

Hiking	14.00 Miles	4,191 AEG

Hiking	14.00 Miles	8 Hrs 43 Mns	1.92 mph
	4,191 ft AEG	1 Hour 25 Mns Break

Linked

7 linked trail guides

Red Mountain Trail #43 - Prescott NF

Prospectors Trail #42 - Bradshaw Mountains

Partners

partners

TboneKathy

Route Recorded on Route Scout | Pop | Map | Popup | MapDEX

I hadn't hiked in Prescott in a while, and we started from Green Gulch TH for a counter-clockwise loop in the Bradshaws with a trifecta of off-trail @Peter_Medal peaks (he authored the guides for Stoneridge, Bear Down, and Sun Devil in 2016-17). It was in the upper 40s when we started on Charcoal Gulch Trail, then connected with Red Mountain #43 after about a mile. The stretch of trail approaching Stoneridge Peak had some nice shade and better-than-expected scenery along Green Gulch.

I took a quick detour up to Peak 6542, and the off-trail wasn't bad at all--the brush wasn't too dense and was usually easy to dodge, and there was some light scrambling on the way up the stony ridge. The peak is flat, rocky, and wide open, with great 360° views. There was a register up there with an odd assortment of items in the jar (a golf ball, a dinosaur, and a business card for Ralph the Qigong healer) along with a geocaching sign-in placed in 2012. The most recent entry was just over a week ago...didn't see any HAZ names, but Peter Medal's casino gold club card was in the jar.

I headed back down, and we continued to Prospector Trail, a stretch that overlapped with a hike we did in June last year. The majority of the trails in the area are a rollercoaster of short, steep up and downs on rocky OHV routes, and that was the case with the trails we hiked for the first time today as well. We connected with Salida Trail for the southern part of the loop, and I decided to go up to the top of Bear Down since it's so close to the trail. I approached from the south when I went up last year, but I went up from the west this time. The brush wasn't bad here, either, and the views were nice from the rocky peak. Didn't find a summit register on either of the high points up there.

Back on the trail, we continued SE on Salida and reconnected with Charcoal Gulch, which was very steep, rocky, and mostly downhill as we hiked north. I eventually left the trail for a third time to go up to Sun Devil Peak, going up the right fork of the trident-shaped mountain, the opposite direction from the official route. The first quarter mile ascending the ridge was very brushy, and I pulled out gloves and clippers and picked up a lot of scratches. It opened up a little beyond that, with more rock outcroppings to navigate around/over, then a lot of talus on top of the ridge closer to the peak. It was a steep climb from the trail to the top, gaining ~1,000' in ~9/10 mile.

Great views from the summit again, lots of ladybugs, and there was a register with a few HAZ entries - @Peter_Medal, @AZHiker456, and RowdyandMe/widowmaker (no longer on HAZ?). The peak doesn't seem to get much traffic, with the last entry more than three years ago [ youtube video ] . I was running short on time but wanted to check out the plane wreckage, so I started down the middle fork of the trident, dropping ~600' over a quarter mile to a spot where I found a wing and some other parts. I'm sure there was a lot more in the general vicinity that I didn't see, but I didn't have time to continue searching. I debated whether it would be faster to continue down the drainage and loop back to the trail vs. backtracking up to Sun Devil and returning the same way I'd come up. I decided to go with the known route and backtrack, but that meant regaining the 600' before starting back down.

Once I was through the brush and back on the trail, we finished off the loop and were done ~5PM. The trails around here aren't my favorites with the rocky OHV roads and sometimes limited views, but this ended up being more interesting than expected with the addition of the peaks and the crash site. We didn't see much unique wildlife today, just a small snake and a small tarantula, but the weather was great and we didn't see anyone else all day.

Driving back toward Phoenix, we got bogged down in the usual weekend gridlock on I-17. Leaving Prescott, the GPS routed us onto backroads to bypass some of the mess, and we ended up in a lengthy parade of vehicles returning to the valley on dirt roads paralleling the interstate, averaging ~25 mph for long stretches before joining the slow-moving line on I-17 around Bumble Bee, adding 40+ minutes to the drive.

Fauna

Fauna [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Tarantula

Culture

Culture [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Airplane Wreckage Summit Register Log

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Bear Down 6962 Bull Tank Granite Mountain Sun Devil Peak Trail Tank Turret Peak Upper Charcoal Tank Watson Lake

Meteorology

Meteorology [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Autumn - Color Foliage Sun Dog

	Bull Tank	Dry	Dry

	Trail Tank	1-25% full	1-25% full

	Upper Charcoal Tank	Dry	Dry

Jun 03 2023

John10s

Guides 25
Routes 376
Photos 5,897
Triplogs 346

40 male

Joined Mar 01 2018
Chandler, AZ

Lynx Labyrinth and Bear Down Summit, AZ

Hiking		Jun 03 2023
		John10s • Triplogs 346

Hiking	12.57 Miles	2,522 AEG

Hiking	12.57 Miles	7 Hrs 24 Mns	2.03 mph
	2,522 ft AEG	1 Hour 13 Mns Break

Linked

linked

Salida Gulch Trail #95

Salida Connection Trail #9263

Prospectors Trail #42 - Bradshaw Mountains

Salida Trail #93

Partners

partners

TboneKathy

Route Recorded on Route Scout | Pop | Map | Popup | MapDEX

It was a smoky, hazy drive out of the valley this morning because of a mulch fire in Mesa that's been burning for the past few days, so it was nice getting out into clearer air. I hadn't driven on I-17 in almost a year, so I got my first look at the widening project on the way to Prescott. We started near Salida Gulch Trailhead...not quite in the actual parking lot--between the GPS, some confusing dead end signs, and an unusual pair of parallel roads on opposite sides of Lynx Creek in the residential area, we ended up parking in a pullout along the road...close enough.

Salida Gulch Trail #95 was flat and easy early on, crossing the creek multiple times. A mile in, we passed the petroglyphs, which were better than expected--a lot of rock art concentrated in one area, with various figures of people and animals, some circles of life, etc...and no obvious graffiti, which was a bonus.

Past the petroglyphs, we took a short, unofficial but easy to follow trail that led to Salida Connection Trail #9263 and followed that for less than a mile to Prospectors Trail. The guides for these trails are accurate: wide, easy to follow, and rocky multi-use trails. There's a lot of short, rocky downhill sketches mixed into the general upward climb. It's a complex network of trails out there...in some areas, it felt like we were passing intersections every mile or less. Bull Tank and Quail Tank both had some murky water, and we made our way around the south side of Bear Down Mountain.

TboneKathy was ready for a break from the rocky ups and downs, so she waited near the trail while I made the short bushwhack up to the peak. It was a lot rockier up there than it looked from below. Great 360° views from the top, but I felt like I was back in the Mazatzals with the swarms of ladybugs, which seem to thrive on these ~7,000' peaks. It was tough to tell which rock outcropping was the true summit, but the guide says the westernmost is slightly higher. I searched for the summit register on both and came up empty, despite the detailed photo from @Peter_Medal [ photo ] in 2016...not sure if it's gone or if I just missed it among the many boulders up there.

[ youtube video ]

On the way back, we followed Salida Trail into new territory with the same wide, rocky trail and a mix of ups and downs. We stopped for lunch in the shade near Salida Tank, and thunder started as we got moving again. Thunderheads had started gathering early in the morning and got darker as the day went on. We could see rain streaks under the clouds, and when we reconnected with Salida Gulch Trail, we decided to shorten the hike and skip the originally-planned extension over to Lynx Lake on John's Tank Trail.

When we finished, we'd completed a kind of odd figure-eight/lasso loop route with a hook on the end. The clouds had stayed away, so we decided to tack on a short hike to see the Lynx Creek Ruins and then check out the lake. The petroglyphs and peak were highlights on this hike, and it was pleasant overall, but there isn't a lot of variety in the scenery or terrain--the early stretch along the creek on Salida Gulch was flat and easy, and just about everything else was very rocky, which isn't bad, but does get a little annoying after a while.

Flora

Flora [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Indian Paintbrush

Fauna

Fauna [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Dragonfly Horned Lizard

Named place

Named place [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Bear Down 6962 Bull Tank Granite Mountain Quail Tank Salida Tank

Meteorology

Meteorology [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Thunderhead

Bull Tank

1-25% full

Quail Tank

1-25% full

Salida Tank

1-25% full

Jul 29 2016

Peter_Medal

Guides 9
Routes 128
Photos 1,379
Triplogs 87

54 male

Joined Feb 19 2013
Prescott, AZ

Prescott, AZ

Hiking		Jul 29 2016
		Peter_Medal • Triplogs 87

Hiking	8.20 Miles	2,072 AEG

Hiking	8.20 Miles
	2,072 ft AEG		8 LBS Pack

Linked

linked

Sun Devil Peak

Partners

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no partners

Gameplan today was to Bag and Tag and complete the holes for the official hike description for Bear Down Mountain (6962') which is the evil rival 1 mile south of Sun Devil Peak (6903'). "Bear Down" is SOUTH of Sun Devil, like Tucson is to Tempe. Its also higher in elevation. Left Walker about 5:40am and arrived at TH right around 6:35am. 57 degrees with a sweatshirt on when I left the lodge, warmed up to low 70's at the Prescott National Forests (PNF) latest and greatest "Newton Trailhead". The last time we were here, it had a pathetic 2 car parking area with a gate along the border of the National Forest. The PNF spared no expense on this TH. Seemed like an acre sized; fenced compound, smoothly graveled, with a very intricate bridge gate to for the Charcoal Gulch #9419 Trailhead. The only things they forgot for this TH was a crapper and a water fountain. I will lodge a formal complaint (sarcasm).

So 0.70 miles in, I was presented with a fork in the trail. I guess your supposed to stay RIGHT. I went left, took me down and up across Green Gulch and passed a coupled of killer camp spots complete with lots of shade with Alligator Juniper and fire rings and then a dead end. Time to go off trail. I kinda was running parallel with the actual trail and hitting some catclaw and decided enough was enough, broke NW and reconnected, onward and upward.

Charcoal Gulch reminded me a bit of Beamer Trail in the Grand Canyon, those pesky, in and out, up and down of the side drainages. Except in this case, it is all the base ridges that make up Sun Devil Peak. They were getting old fast. To pass the time on my route, as usual, was providing trail maintenance, kicking/moving rocks boulders and trimming overgrown branches.

I told my 4-legged hike partner when we launched it might be a good idea to pre-hydrate and even poured him a big bowl of ice cold water in has favorite big blue bowl. He would not have anything to do with that and was more focused on clearing out any wildlife within a 1/4 mile of the TH. Ohh well.

Once we hit the Charcoal Gulch, we took a brief detour to hunt and find the Charcoal Spring. Found the waypointed spot of the spring and the blue circle as noted on the USGS Topographic map and came up with scratch. Water report was a big fat zero. With not a cloud in the sky and no wind, hike partner was a little parched, so we found some shade in the Charcoal Gulch and I give him a 1/2 quart to quench his thirst. He has 1.5 quarts left. Once we got on #9419 again, he took off and was gone for about a mile. He caught up to me, panting and frothing at the mouth. Gave him the balance of his first quart.

At 4.07 miles into our expedition, I followed the trail which was banking NE. In looking at my surroundings figured this was not right at all. Looked down at Route Scout and sure as pumpkin confirmed had to turn back. At 4.5 miles my hike partner parked it in some shade and was done, gave him another 1/2 quart. At this point I figured we were not going to summit Bear Down. We made it to the junction of Salida Gulch Trail #93 where their is a pet cemetery (or memorial) of 3 dogs. Hiding is a patch of shade Tyson gave me the "come on man" look so we shut it down and started back. No clouds. No wind. Although shady and beneath trees all the way to Charcoal Gulch, I knew once we hit the lower base ridges of Sun Devil it was going to suck, and it did. Thankfully I pre-hydrated and kept giving Tyson 1/2 quart here and there until we ran out, about 0.7 miles before TH.

Bear Down Mountain 1 Medal/Tyson 0

Culture

Culture [ checklist ]

[ checklist ] Memorial

Charcoal Spring

Dry

_____________________

"Before there was a trail..... there was no trail"

Mar 04 2016

Peter_Medal

Guides 9
Routes 128
Photos 1,379
Triplogs 87

54 male

Joined Feb 19 2013
Prescott, AZ

Prescott, AZ

Hiking		Mar 04 2016
		Peter_Medal • Triplogs 87

Hiking	7.44 Miles	2,228 AEG

Hiking	7.44 Miles	7 Hrs 15 Mns		1.10 mph
	2,228 ft AEG	30 Mns Break	7 LBS Pack

Linked

none

no linked trail guides

Partners

partners

HAZ - Event

AZHiker456

Bear Down Mountain is the second highest peak of this outer northeast grouping of the Bradshaw Mountain range...(Mount Elliott 6980' is about 3 miles south, its high peak). The range runs north to south from Mile Post 275 (Poland Junction) on Highway 69 and peters out by the Stoneridge Country Club in Prescott Valley. Glassford Hill Road is the ranges "mountain divide".

There is a longer, kinder, gentler way to get to this peak. That would be parking at the Charcoal Gulch TH, and taking the Charcoal Gulch Trail #9419 until its junction with Salida Gulch Trail #93, THEN, off trail to the summit ridgeline and return. Then again, if your into pain, if your into shear madness, stupidity, agony, self punishment, and have an extreme affinity for off-trail bushwacking, and when I say "bush wacking" I mean yeah, your BUSH WHACKING.... you take the wicked crazy stupid route we did. We knew this going in...it was all about the "mine" add-on. Had to check out that mine.

We parked on Shirley Lane and had to cross private property for 1/4 mile to connect onto trail 9405. "Security Cameras in Use" and "No Trespassing", yeah, will skip that property, the vacant mobil home that looks like its going to fall down, yeah lets cut their. Trail 9405 was a nice, fat, quad trail, took us right to Fain Tank which was bone dry, as it went into the drainage of an unnamed mini-canyon, it narrowed into a foot trail and was heavily wooded. As bright and sunny as it was when we started the shade of the trees was a treat. We spent some considerable time looking for the unnamed spring in hopes to waypoint it. Not a chance. Bone dry. We could have stayed on 9405 and wrapped up and around and connect with 9419 south of Bear Down but we had our sights set on a large mine tailing pile as noted on USGS maps and Google Earth (we got a visual on the tailings pile just after Fain tank). Almost immediately, the drainage became a full on bushwack. Amy went straight for it on south of the drainage, I continued on the drainage and flanked from the north. Either way was pretty brutal. She had an advantage: long pants, long sleeves and shin guards. Stupid me "shorts for the memories" and short sleeves. We met up at the top of the tailings pile, no mine. All that work for nothing. The mine was a bust. Busted pumpkin for nothing. The tailings pile was at 6005' the ridge junction of 9419 & 83 was at 6607'. We were going to have climb another 600' in elevation gain of all balls bush whack.

Amy stayed to the south and center of ridge while I was trying to move true West and on its north side. She beat me to the top of this unnamed ridge by about 10 minutes where we took our first break. After 15 minutes of chowing down on some homemade turkey jerkey, pumpkin seeds, tamarind seed, and shredded coconut we pressed on. We connected onto 9419 then headed north until it junctioned with 83. We were on the Bear Down Mountain ridgeline. We stumbled upon a "pet cemetery" of 3 buried dogs right off the 83 & 9419 junction. The 83 meandered along the ridge which was an absolute delight from the hell we just came up. Studying this formerly unnamed path I knew that it would eventually bank west and drop and this would be where we press NW to summit. Amy waypointed the summit turnoff and measured it as 660' predominately rock climb and boulder hop with prickly pear land mines. Feeling completely drained, I told her it was going to be the longest 660' of my life. We kept screaming "Bear Down". Its summit ridgeline was about 1/3 mile with 4 up and down mini-peaks. Its true summit had to be the 3rd one down, great. We set a summit register and logged its first entry. Polished off a grapefruit and popped open to share my last quart of water with the dog before the daunting task of making a beeline route back to the car.

We took the north face down to the Charcoal Gulch, about 1100' in drop with the wicked evil catclaw. Down in the drainage the dog found water and got his second wind. He was happy. I saved my last cup of water as the reward for the 250' climb onto the Charcoal ridge summit crest. Ahhh, no more elevation gain. We were chasing the sun. This was one long day.

Bear Down Mountain can be a great hike via the 9419 trail and just off trailing the summit ridgeline.

_____________________

"Before there was a trail..... there was no trail"

2 archives

Mar 04 2016

AZHiker456

Guides 28
Routes 199
Photos 7,422
Triplogs 188

female

Joined Nov 07 2015