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| | | Mineral Creek Trail #201 to Cooney Mine, NM | | | |
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Mineral Creek Trail #201 to Cooney Mine, NM
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| Backpack | 9.37 Miles |
1,048 AEG |
| | Backpack | 9.37 Miles | 46 Hrs 49 Mns | | 0.32 mph |
| 1,048 ft AEG | | 34 LBS Pack | | |
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| Partners |
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none
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| no partners | | This is one of the most popular backpacking routes in my church. There were seven of us on this trip, and most of us had done this trip at least once already.
We met up in Tucson and drove out to New Mexico through Safford. The trailhead is in a small town called Alma, which has a restaurant worth stopping in for lunch. Well, for fresh baked pie or cinnamon rolls at least.
After being so fortified we took the gravel road to the trailhead, which is well graded and suitable for passenger cars. The road passes by Cooney’s Tomb, where Sgt. James C. Cooney is buried. He established the silver mine in 1870 but was killed by Apache during the Alma Massacre of 1880.
This trail follows Mineral Creek and is actually over 13 miles to it’s eastern terminus. However it’s the first three to four miles that we typically do. The first three miles are stunningly beautiful and are also littered with fascinating artifacts from the days of the Cooney Mine, a once thriving 19th century silver mine. There is quite a bit of history in this canyon.
From the trailhead it isn’t far to the first of many, many creek crossings. At the time we went there were about 40 creek crossings and none of them would have been possible to do without getting your feet wet. The water was quite cold so we had numb wet feet the whole way. Most of us had brought an extra pair of camp shoes.
The trail is clear and well maintained, with well placed cairns where needed. It was a bit overgrown since it had been a wet summer.
While there is evidence of past mining activity pretty much the whole way, most of it is in the second and third mile. There’s an iron safe with its door blown off, several collapsed miners’ shacks, sections of iron pipe, scraps of metal, a huge boiler that looks like a crashed prototype submarine, several mine shafts (one sealed with foam and rocks), and numerous remnants of stone walls.
We camped about three miles in, just before the ruins of the main mine itself. They are pretty epic.
Friday night was cold, as there had been a weather system passing through Thursday that left a little snow. It was very wet and really, really hard to start a campfire.
Saturday four of us decided to proceed another mile or so to a cave with a waterfall in it. I and Philip were determined not to get our shoes wet, so we tried building bridges across the creek using large stones and fallen logs. Two worked but the third not so much, so we bushwhacked the rest of the way along the north side of the creek. Our route therefore does not reflect the official trail.
Sunday we hiked out.
We are already thinking about another trip, but next time we might try exploring the whole trail to the eastern terminus. |
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Autumn Foliage Observation Substantial
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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Cooney Canyon |
Heavy flow |
Heavy flow |
| | | Creek is high and cold. Passing hikers told us it was even higher a couple weeks ago. | | | |
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