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| Backpack | 15.00 Miles |
4,500 AEG |
| | Backpack | 15.00 Miles | 3 Days | | |
| 4,500 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | Decided to spend 3 days getting my butt kicked by the Superstition Wilderness. And a solid kicking was indeed delivered!
Day 1: Drove to Rogers Trough TH (road is in excellent condition), observed a small army of vehicles at the trailhead, and headed southeast to finish off AZT segment 18 and make my way over to Spencer Spring Trailhead. I made pretty good time. Got passed (and passed) several motorized groups. A few offered water, and one declined assistance after a spill off their motorcycle.
Spencer Springs trail is one of a few left in the Supes I've never done, and my hope was that the fire had reduced the overgrowth. Unfortunately there are several problems with the trail, both due to the fire and the lack of maintenance. The trail suffers from erosion, overgrowth, and not-existingness. While the first half mile was somewhat reasonable for a trail that sees maybe 5 hikers a year, once you get past Spencer Springs, everything goes to hell. The trail goes along the side and top of a ridge for about 2 miles. The ridge appears to have been burned to moonscape by the fire, and what's regrown is mainly grass, lots of grass. Furthermore, the erosion has made it so that the trail is not really visually any different from the surrounding land. Everything, including the trail, is covered in grass (and some other brush.) The good news is that it is fairly easy to plow through. The bad news is that the only way you can tell if you are on the trail is to feel with your feet where it is slightly harder pack ground, but that doesn't always work. I got off trail many, many times, thankfully the GPS track is pretty good to help find it again.
After the ridgeline the trail dumps you into the canyon bottom, but does a ridiculous steep climb up the other side before disappearing into fireburn and some overgrowth. Do yourself a favor and simply stay in the canyon bottom. In fact, staying in the creekbed is the key, as the rest of the "trail" attempts to wind its way along the creekbed on small benches. Nearly every bench is horrifically overgrown with catclaw. I abandoned the trail after a few follies in plowing through the stuff. Stay in the creekbed!
Behind schedule, I camped along Spencer Spring creek (there is a nice flow through the canyon) after following the creekbed to a 40 ft waterfall, and realizing it was getting pretty late to find the trail that goes around it. Unfortunately a skunk decided to spray very near my tent sometime that night...my guess is that I may be the first human it had encountered and it disliked my presence...or maybe I snored and scared it...who knows?
Day 2: Finished the SS trail the next morning. Luckily, the final half mile of trail has escaped the fire and is a pleasant stroll through a patch of surviving forest. In fact, everything west, south, and east of Oak Flat, for about 0.5 miles in each direction, appears to have escaped the blaze. However, the creekbed is now about 40 feet wide, full of sand and small gravel, and there seems no surface water in this area for roughly a third of a mile in any direction. This may hamper those who desire to camp at Oak Flat.
I had planned to explore the Cuff Button trail, but the horrific trail conditions, lack of surface water in the creek nearby, and slow progress thus far made me change plans to just cancel this part of my trip. I headed up West Pinto trail. I was initially thrilled because for about the first 0.75 miles the West Pinto trail was in wonderful shape. But then my hopes were dashed as within the next 0.25 miles it turned into a brutal bushwhack through shrub oak, until I reached the first crossing of the creek. I took a break here. In retrospect it would have been easier to just abandon the trail at Oak Flat and hike upstream in the creekbed to get to this point. Legends of a trail crew clearing the entire WP trail have clearly been exaggerated, though they did do a great job as far as they got.
As I took a break, I filtered some water and contemplated hiking the creekbed upstream vs continuing on taking the trail along the north side of the creek. I regrettably decided on the trail because I wasn't sure if the entire creekbed would be navigable headed upstream. (It is, except for a minor 15 ft waterfall that is easily skirted.) Future travelers should definitely take the creekbed option, hiking in the creekbed to the Silver Spur Cabin drainage.
The next 2 miles of West Pinto trail was the most horrible catclaw gauntlet I can recall on an actual named trail in the Superstitions. In some places along the trail it was so bad I had to push into it backwards to get it to give enough that I could start snapping off some of the canes with my feet. The after-trip assessment shows that I received significantly more shredding to my head, torso, thighs and back of my arms than I can recall on any previous hike. This accompanies the typical damage of the forearms, shins, and ankles. In addition to the catclaw downside, the trail is significantly eroded in this section and pitches towards the creek side, trying to get the hiker to lose their balance and tumble down the steep cliff to their death. I recommend others skip this section of trail.
Where the trail returns down to the creek, I hiked along the creekbed a short ways until I set up camp on a nice sandy berm on a rather wide stretch of canyon bottom (newly created from the erosion debris.) Luckily no skunks bothered me this second night.
Day 3: Continued hiking up the creekbed and explored the Silver Spur Cabin site. I found it easily. It seems someone has organized the remains into nice little piles. One pile of metal poles, one pile of tin roofing, one pile of the rusty stove bits, and a final pile of miscellaneous rusty junk. Not very interesting, but I crossed it off my list.
From this point the trail leaves the creek, and I followed it. Initially there was a bunch of catclaw to fight but very quickly the trail goes through serious eroded hills where dodging the catclaw proved slightly easier. The trail is pretty much nonexistent here, but as you continue climbing (steeply) the trail does eventually become recognizable. What I remember as the ridgeline full of manzanita has become the ridgeline full of shrub oak. The fire killed off all the manzanita save about 3 plants. In fact, where the trail is built at the very pinnacle of the ridgeline, it was perhaps marginally improved as the fire burned away nearly all the overgrowth.
After the serious steep climb, the disheartening plummet down to Iron Mountain Spring sank my spirits as the trail routing loses a large amount of elevation gain that you struggled with on the ridgeline. A small patch of forest survives here near Iron Mountain Spring, but is quite tangled with overgrowth. The campsite is no more and the concrete tank had been taken over and hidden into the overgrowth. The trail through this section is a disaster as the mountainside above is eroding heavily, washing out significant sections of the trail. Soon, I reach the final switchbacks that are also eroding, but generally burned clear of vegetation, until I crest Iron Mountain Saddle. From here, the last bit is easy, the trail is in reasonable shape and this segment of the West Pinto trail to the west of the saddle seems to have survived untouched by the fire. Only the last 300 yards of trail to connect to the Rogers Canyon trail are choked with catclaw, but most of the mile plus descent was fairly pleasant. |
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Wildflowers Observation Light
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Cement Spring |
Dry |
Dry |
| | | I did not see any water enter the creek from this direction. The actual spring seemed to be in the middle of a burned, catclaw filled thicket. |
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Crockett Spring |
Dry |
Dry |
| | | Where the spring is on the map was dry, and this side creekbed was entirely dry. If there was water here it would be entirely underground. |
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Iron Mountain Spring |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | | A little more than a gallon per minute flow was spilling down the drainage...did not trace it to the true spring source. |
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Oak Flat Spring |
Dry |
Dry |
| | | I did not see any surface water looking in this direction. I only saw a field of dry grass. |
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Rogers Spring |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | | Several gallons per minute flowing down the creekbed. The spring is offtrail and I didn't investigate. |
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Spencer Spring |
Gallon + per minute |
Gallon + per minute |
| | | Seemed to be pumping out at least 2 gallons per minute. The nearby trough is dry as the pipes are likely clogged. |
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Spencer Spring Creek |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | Light flow of several gallons per minute along the creek, it disappears underground on a few occasions. |
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West Fork Pinto Creek |
Light flow |
Light flow |
| | | There is a nice surface flow of several gallons per minute that flows nearly the entire canyon. The only time it seems to go underground is within about 0.3 miles upstream of oak flat. | | _____________________
http://hikearizona.com/garmin_maps.php
Hike Arizona it is full of sharp, pointy, ankle-twisting, HAZmaster crushing ROCKS!!
Hike Arizona it is full of sharp, pointy, shin-stabbing, skin-shredding plants!
Hike Arizona it is full of striking, biting, stabbing, venomous wildlife! |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
The expense seemed worth it though as the trailhead was actually entirely full on Saturday! Lots of people out enjoying the unseasonably warm weather. 
