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| | | WCC - Cash Tank to FR214A, AZ | | | |
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WCC - Cash Tank to FR214A, AZ
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| Hiking | 16.00 Miles |
2,000 AEG |
| | Hiking | 16.00 Miles | 10 Hrs 31 Mns | | 1.54 mph |
| 2,000 ft AEG | 6 Mns Break | | | |
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| no partners | | Spur of the moment trip to "finish" WCC. Friday evening a friend became available, so we decided that this would likely be our last chance to do what would easily be the most difficult leg of the canyon. Dropped off my Jeep on FR214A on the west side (debating going to Bull Pen, but I figured I'd be too tired to run the easy part of the trail anyways) on Saturday night, and shuttled around to Calloway Tank to camp.
Only went about a mile on FR142A, and decided we're not saving much time, so at 8AM we parked the car and jogged the rest of the way to Cash Tank. The big unknown this weekend was how cold the water would be. At the first swim, we inflated the cheap tubes, and floated down the creek. At this point, the water was cold enough to numb my arms and legs, guessing about 50F. Started getting some sun exposure after the White Box though, and the water was much more pleasant after that.
Took a break at the Hanging Gardens, assessed our pace, and decided we didn't have any reason to be concerned yet. Near Meadow Canyon, we saw a band of coatimundi, with a few juveniles. Despite being so young, they were already very skilled climbers. This is now the farthest north I have seen coati.
Just a couple minutes later, I encountered my first rattler of the year (believe it or not), and he was not happy. It was of the black tailed variety.
Red box... This was my favorite section, mainly because it is amazing and I had never seen it before. My friend thought the white box was prettier, so both were new to him, so that's probably a less biased view. Took a break in the red box and we spotted a pretty big natural arch about halfway up the canyon wall, not sure if it has a name.
After the red box it got a little more miserable, with a stretch where progress was difficult - no dry rocks in the creek, but vegetation covering the banks. Got a little concerned about daylight there for a bit, but the terrain opened up a little bit. It got a little slow again just before Maiden Falls, with a couple of spots requiring a little bit of poking around to find the way around.
Got to the falls around 3:45pm IIRC, and knowing the rest of the way would be easy, I felt a lot better about the daylight situation. Took a couple of minutes to celebrate the fact that we had now seen the entire canyon above Bull Pen, and made good time to the exit.
Somehow managed not to fall off a cliff exiting the canyon, and powered up the hill. It's amazing that even on a steep climb like that, you can move twice as fast as you can in the creek. Got to the top right around sunset, without needing to pull out a light. That's a win in my book.
Overall, took 10.5 hours from car to car, and we weren't dawdling much at all. |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
Route 
The canyon was beautiful, but it was a mixture of extremely slippery creek walking, or thorny bushwhacking on the sides. We each fell countless times, and were bleeding as well. There were a few swimmers along the way that would have been difficult to bypass, but we didn’t need to inflate floaties. It was slow moving down the canyon and the bushes just got thicker as we continued on. 
We finally made it to our exit point at Calloway which was super steep switchbacks, but a defined path at least. This was pretty brutal for a day hike given how slow moving it was, but it was definitely a beautiful one! Definitely make sure to have a lot of fuel for this one since it’s so grueling. Glad to have friends up for any adventure! Camped near point TH and celebrated 
As we left the white box, dark clouds rolled in and thunder started booming. We talked about it for a minute and decided to turn around. It seemed a lot like monsoon and, although the chance for rain was rather slim (10%), i know those storms can be pretty unpredictable in the high country. It started raining while we were swimming back. Once back at camp, I drank two and a half liters of waterr, filtered a couple more, packed up and hiked out. The hike back to the car took about 3 hours.
