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| Hiking | 19.73 Miles |
4,718 AEG |
| | Hiking | 19.73 Miles | 1 Day 11 Hrs 1 Min | | |
| 4,718 ft AEG | 17 Hrs 25 Mns Break | 27 LBS Pack | | |
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| no partners | | I’ve been busy teaching and got 3 weeks behind on my trail writeups. I did a loop in the Galiuros, starting from Deer Creek Trailhead. This trip turned out to be Type II fun, although I got a lot of good pictures (I think).
The road to the trailhead, Forest Road 253, is easily navigated. It is high clearance when dry all the way to the trail head. You could even take a normal car on it if you were adventurous. The crossing of Aravaipa Creek had a very small amount of water in it.
My plan was to take the East Divide Trail south to Tortilla Trail, following it over to Powers Garden Trail and stay at Powers Garden for the night. Then south on Powers Garden Trail to Corral Canyon Trail, up to the East Divide Trail, and back to my car.
East Divide Trail #287
I started out about 8 am. It was 39° and sunny. Although the trail is in tall grass, it is easy to follow here. It can be confusing at times, however. I took a detour off the trail to set up my tripod on some rocks, and found a cairn in the tall grass at least 20 yards off the trail. After about 1.5 hours, I reached the Tortilla Trail. The intersection is marked by a cairn and the remains of a signpost.
Tortilla Trail #254
Continuing up, arriving at the first saddle, I could see my car far away at the trailhead. The path comes upon a recently-maintained barbed wire fence. It follows along north for a couple hundred yards before coming to a gate, and an intersection with the trail back down to Deer Creek Road. Through the gate, the trail descends to Oak Creek, which was flowing cheerfully.
Switchbacking up from Oak Creek, the path enters the wilderness. With the sun now on Mt. Graham across the valley, I could see the snow on the peak. The spring box at Mud Spring was full, but green and not very appealing, and indeed there is mud everywhere. Sycamore Trail #278 bears right, and Tortilla Trail bears left. The signs indicate 6.2 miles to Powers Garden.
A short distance past Mud Spring, there is a confusing intersection marking the East Divide Trail and Tortilla Trail. Since I’d already left the East Divide Trail, this did not make sense. It seems to be an old routing of the East Divide Trail, or a connector trail to it. At the intersection, bear right.
About noon, I reached the high point of 6250’, and could still pick out my car at the trailhead. It’s a little tricky finding the trail coming off the high point and down into the ravine leading to Sycamore Creek. Cairns are helpful. Once in the canyon, the trail closely follows the creek, right of it, left of it, or in it. The path is overgrown.
Eventually arrived at the dam, and the actual intersection with Sycamore Creek. The dam is filled with silt. The trail passes below the dam, and then by a large tank and a small tank. The large tank was overflowing.
Leaving the dam, the trail also leaves the creek, staying essentially level. The grass is tall and the trail is obscure, but if the going gets scary or difficult, you are probably off the path. The trail traverses in and out of 3 more canyons before eventually crossing a pass at the head of Horse Canyon. From here, it is 2.5 more miles to camp.
The trail down into Horse Canyon is not great. It alternates between scree and solid granite and catclaw. The walk along Horse Canyon at the bottom is idyllic. Eventually the trail comes to the crossing at Rattlesnake Creek, which was flowing enough to make me hunt for a good crossing. Once across, it is best to stay to the right of the fence to pick up the southbound Powers Garden Trail.
Powers Garden Trail #96
This old road is doing a good job returning to singletrack. It follows along the fence until arriving at Powers Garden, where there are several photogenic buildings. There was a large, noisy organized group of young adults camping at Powers Garden. I camped as far away as I thought prudent, but they still kept me awake at night. Lots of good campsites there.
In the morning, my watch indicated it was 34°, but a small amount of ice in my water bottle suggested it was colder. This campsite is notorious for being cold, and my hands were numb by the time I got breakfast going.
Continuing south on day two, I made a rookie mistake and headed upstream on the wrong path until it petered out. By the time I realized my error and got back to the right path, it was 8 am, an hour later than I should have started, as it turns out.
The Powers Garden Trail does disappear from time to time due to deadfall mostly. It crosses the creek several times, but even with a fairly high flow, it’s a good rock hop to get across. Past Brush Spring, there was no longer any water in the creek. The last bit before Corral Canyon seemed to best be traveled in the creek bed. The intersection with the Corral Canyon trail was not obvious.
Corral Canyon Trail #291
At the bottom, the trail is good. It is marked by occasional cairns and features good tread and not a lot of brush. Someone has clipped a few of the more offensive bits of brush, but it could do with a lot more maintenance.
At around 1.5 miles from Rattlesnake Creek, the trail becomes pretty vague. For the next half mile or so, just follow the creek, until you encounter a couple of large cairns directing you up the hill on the north side of the creek. If you get as far as Corral Spring, you must backtrack to find the switchbacks up the grassy north side of the canyon, which take you around a redoubtable waterfall.
The switchbacks are hard to find in the grass, but there are regular cairns that appear, letting you know you are on the right track. If you load the GPS tracks from previous HAZers, you can follow those. Eventually the trail returns to the stream just above the waterfall. The best path onward seems to be in the creek, following the south fork where it splits. There is quite a bit of deadfall to work around.
After a short section a ways up on the south canyon wall, the trail crosses it and begins another aggressive set of switchbacks up the grassy north side of the canyon. The trail is hard to spot, but again, cairns will appear suggesting you are on the right path. Just before the top, the trail makes a U turn around the end of a ridge. Near here is a nice outcrop with good views to Mts. Lemmon and Wrightson. From there, it is an easy ½ mile to the intersection at a pass with the East Divide Trail, which is tangled in deadfall.
East Divide Trail #287
From the pass, I followed the East Divide Trail down the switchbacks into the canyon of a tributary to Oak Creek. This north-facing slope had quite a bit of snow on it, and at one point I lost the trail and just headed straight down until I picked up the trail again. There are lots of large trees fallen and blocking the trail in the upper section as well. It was a bit of an adventure.
Farther down, as the trail begins to follow the riparian canyon, the brush becomes awful. My way was much slowed by pushing aside brush as I worked my way down. Eventually the trail bursts out of the brush onto grassland and leaves the nasty canyon.
Note that in the vicinity of the crossing of Oak Creek, the current (as of Jan 2023) official route of the East Divide Trail is very far off. Just follow the obvious and good trail as it curves south, then north around Oak Creek Canyon, staying pretty level, or follow the GPS tracks of the numerous unofficial routes, and you should be fine.
By the time I reached the intersection of the Tortilla Trail again, it was dark, but with my headlamp and light from my phone, it was not a problem to make it back to the trailhead. |
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Corral Canyon |
Medium flow |
Medium flow |
| | | Good flow of the creek up as far as the major waterfall above the spring. |
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Horse Canyon |
Heavy flow |
Heavy flow |
| | | Plenty of water in the lower part of the canyon. |
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Mud Spring |
Quart per minute |
Quart per minute |
| | | Tank is overflowing, albeit green. | | | | |
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Route Editor
Route Scout
so I put my camera on the stand backwards. If you are in doubt, take pictures both ways and sort it out when you get home. At 1.5 miles from Manning Camp, I took the short detour left on…
. I wished I was wearing my orange hunting season hiking gear as I walked along the ridge top. I arrived at The Lake just before 6 pm, set up my tent, and had dinner in the dark. A great horned owl serenaded me all evening. As I sat there, a helicopter and fixed wing plane came in and circled for about 20 minutes, looking in the dark for who knows what?
