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| Hiking | 15.33 Miles |
3,700 AEG |
| | Hiking | 15.33 Miles | 8 Hrs 14 Mns | | 1.86 mph |
| 3,700 ft AEG | | | | |
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| partners | | “Plans are useless. Planning is everything.” - Dwight Eisenhower
11/17/23 - 5:45 AM - Chandler, AZ
The previous night's forecast check showed a 50% chance of rain. We'll play the odds. On the way out to Cherry Creek Rd/FR203 the conversation focused on the next 3 days of hiking. We were so focused on it that we missed 2 turns - first the 188 and then the 288. By the time we reached FR203 it was roughly 9:15 AM and we lost our cell service shortly afterward. Our initial plan had us gearing up at camp around 9:00, and hiking well before 10:00. Our new timing just meant that we had to walk a little faster.
In total, we had Friday, Saturday, and the better part of Sunday to hike. Not nearly enough time to see everything that 6+ weeks of research had turned up for us. Going out, we anticipated needing at least a second trip. The plan for Friday was to hike to the Cold Spring Canyon Ruins and then to the Pueblo Canyon ruin locations. From our projected campsite, we planned for >14 miles, our longest day. The sole target of Saturday would be Cooper Forks and the exploration of the surrounding area (~9-12 miles). Break down camp Sunday AM and explore Devil's Chasm (~5-6 miles) before heading back to civilization that afternoon. We were prepared to explore. To go with the great hiking, this particular weekend was picked due to it being a new moon. Camping in enticing canyons that were hiding ancient ruins, all under a dim new moon with whiskey and stars (temps - days 70s/nights 40s). Nothing wrong with that.
11:49 AM - FR203 1.04 mile S of Devils Chasm TH
The ~21 miles down FR203 to this point had been no issue for the Tacoma. Over that distance, we had increased our estimations to certainly needing 3 trips to the SA’s. We got to our site a little after 10:30 AM and with 14+ miles planned and over ~3600' of elevation gain our quick caveman math told us we'd likely be finishing the last mile or so in the dark. With night hiking expected it only seemed logical to set up tents and prepare stuff for our return. A quick refill of water - I was packing 4L, my hiking partner 3L - and we were ready to go. Not knowing the condition of FR203 ahead of us, we set out on foot.
2:15 PM - Cold Spring Canyon Ruins (V:1:136)
Ideally, anyone going to Cold Spring Canyon takes the time to understand the landscape before walking in it. The vegetation on the way in was robust. The overgrown mining road leading up to the spiral petroglyph boulder was easily followed after doing the 2.02 miles of FR203. Once we got to around a ¼ mile from the boulder we were pushing through brush. It was clear up to our waist with most branches ranging from torso to a little over head height. All passable, but a good reminder that we are not the only predators in this area. The predator/scavenger scat was also a good enough reminder.
We popped out of that brush just before making the turn to go up into Cold Spring Canyon. The footing area of the trail going horizontal across Cold Spring Canyon was firm with the exception of a few places that gave way and did a casual 1500' slide. Potential future padding for us? There was still plenty of evidence of prior wildfires amongst the vegetation. On the way up to the ruin, our pace was steady until the final vertical accent near a big rock face outcropping. The route turns straight up here and the ground is very soft and loose. Being in the rear, and to avoid playing tag with the loose debris, I spaced myself out to the point that we lost sight of each other. Crawling would be a more graceful description than what it took to navigate this section. This section included brief pauses with each heard but unseen rock slide to listen for the yell of a hiking partner finding a shortcut down the canyon.
After climbing back down the entrance logs of the ruins and over to where we dropped our packs it was time to push on to Pueblo Canyon. First, get off Cold Spring Canyon. As I tried to pull out some cactus needles that I slid into among the loose dirt and rock, I wondered if just sliding off the canyon face would be less painful than sliding into the prickly pear cactus 10' directly below me. Some things won’t be determined.
4:45 PM - Leaving Pueblo Canyon Ruins (V:1:130)
We stayed true to our earlier thought of “we’ll just have to walk a little faster”. My cell phone was our primary GPS and our backup was my hiking partner's Garmin watch. He didn't have this route on his watch though so he was functionally an activity tracker. On the way up into Pueblo, I checked our GPS route and noticed that the 1000' of canyon walls were throwing the GPS off. It showed us on the rock face across and up the canyon wall. Sunset was around 5:30 PM, but I noticed that we hadn’t seen the sun in the sky since about 3:30 PM as we pushed into the canyon. It wasn’t cloudy and there was plenty of ambient light so we weren’t worried about a hike back to camp in the dark. At the waterfall, we were shooting for getting off the trail to FR203 by dark. By the time we reached the ruins of V:1:130 this new plan revision included not going further to see V:1:131 & V:1:132. Add it to our growing list of future SA trips. We took ~30 minutes to eat, hydrate, and get pictures at the ruins, then headed out. With it now being 45 min before sunset our new revised revised revised thought was that we should be able to at least get back to the petroglyph boulder before dark and from there we could easily follow the old overgrown mining road to FR203.
5:50PM - Pueblo Canyon Descent
In these canyons, darkness comes quickly. The canyon rims sit over 5700’ and are backed by another ~1700’ of Aztec Peak (7684’) to the west. By 5:50 PM we needed headlamps. We had made it to the southeast side of Pueblo Canyon, a little past the large flat viewing platform that looks north to the ruins. We were comically nowhere near the petroglyph boulder. 
At the ruins by the old mine on the way out, I saw the temp was down to 55. With headlamps going on I tried to re-check the temp and GPS. Instead, my phone flashed “iPhone Unavailable, try again in 1 hour…59:59, :58, :57….”. No primary GPS. With the canyon walls throwing his watch off, my hiking partner had reset the map at the ruins. That meant we lost the exact track that we had used going up. No phone or watch GPS. Adding to the darkness was the new moon that had brought us here this exact day. We knew it was about 1.5 miles down the canyon to FR203 and from there it was 2.02 to the truck. Even with low water left (both with <32oz), those were very manageable distances. We'd just need to move slower. In hindsight, we were at about 5200’ and needed to drop down to the road at 3750’ in the darkness and through the overgrowth. Due to how high the canyon face was we ended up having visibility of the moon slice for about 25 min that night.
We went no further than 300’ and I felt something pierce my left bicep. I was walking in the back as we pushed through brush so I figured I had gotten a branch whip. My headlamp showed me a yellow jacket perched in the center of my arm. Having just finished a quick stop we didn’t break stride. It had been over 25 yrs but I’d been stung by a yellow jacket before. The sequence was mainly frustrating, but I was grateful that it was a bicep sting and not a calf muscle sting. This seemed like something that ¼ mile of creative language and some extra water could help flush out. I had the language part covered, but water was low. With it dark and the waterfall over a 0.5 mile back up into the canyon, it was just understood that we needed to keep walking down. Within 30 minutes I was having a hard time holding my pole as my whole left arm was getting increasingly warm/tight and that side of my neck felt like a knot was sticking out.
Not in shock though.
There were a couple of stop-and-think sections along the way down from there but we didn’t stop at the spiral boulder when we reached it. Passing it was enough to refuel us. Even this open area with a view to the rest of the Cherry Creek area was impressively black. With it being just the overgrown mining road down from here we picked up our pace.
6:15 PM - Somewhere on Pueblo Canyon
As we crawled under a downed tree we both had the same realization that we hadn’t climbed under a similar tree on the way up and that the terrain was wrong. My hiking partner also got his first good look at me since being stung and strongly urged me to take a break. As I worked on pulling diphenhydramine out of my pack, he worked to locate us on his watch face. Our senses were correct, we were about 0.4 mile or so off-trail. Our missed turn shortly after the petroglyph boulder led us onto a game trail to the north and down the southern canyon slope leading back into Pueblo Canyon. We should have been going down the eastern slope. When you are not where you're supposed to be but you kind of know where you are, are you lost?
We knew my fuzziness and low water made it unwise to attempt the bushwhack back up through the overgrown wash that the game trail had taken us down, and we knew there were potential drop-offs into the canyon in the blackness to our left. With zero interest in stumbling off a cliff or pushing further down to a truly unmanageable location, the conversation briefly shifted to staying right where we were for the night. A couple of moments of silent thinking and we resumed scrolling the map around on his wrist. If you're familiar with FR203, you know that the road continues in a generally northern direction after taking a small bend just beyond the old mining road. Its path slices slightly northwest until crossing Pueblo Canyon and turning northeast, then north again as it moves past the northern canyon face. The watch topo lines showed us that the roads northwestward diagonal was running by us about 300’ away. Having never been up that part of FR203, and with 100’ topo lines we didn’t know what that 300’ of terrain was. We had choices though. It probably took us 7 min to break through that 300’ of overgrown wash and just as easily as we were mis-located, we were located.
8:03 PM - Campsite Arrival
Beyond some early sarcastic remarks about how we nailed it on the lack of moonlight, the 90 min walk back on FR203 is still a little vague to me. My left arm was little more than a painful counter weight at that point, motor skills slow, and face was buzzing all over. Nonetheless, we made it back without further issue. Within 45 min of arriving at camp we were cleaned up and next to a fire with water and beer. The stars overhead, mid 40 temps, and whiskey on ice, our conversation turned to how we needed countless more trips to this place.
11/18/23 - 3:50-10:00 AM - Campsite
Sporadic rain, dense AM fog. My whole arm was in a knot and bruised around the sting. Combining the rain with both of our bodies being pretty well beat to trash, Cooper Forks was deemed not wise. Our back up was the Moody Point ruins via Leisure Canyon TH a few miles south of us.
Around 11:00 AM - Leisure Canyon TH (bottom of trail #140)
The rain started as we got 25’ off FR203. The trail was barely visible to us and parts were way too overgrown to see where the “trail” was. We just plowed forward in the general direction that we knew the trail went. While navigating the wash area we were occasionally on trail per GPS, but more often we weren’t. After an hr of wet cold canvasing along a barbed wire fence, and no luck finding a way through, we were puzzled. We knew our path up to the rim was right in front of us but with our hike just starting, and rain toggling between yes/no, neither of us felt like crawling through the mud under the fence. We shut it down and plotted our way back to the truck arriving at it within 20 min.
Early afternoon - Campsite
We decided to pack up camp and head out after having been rained out of Cooper Fork and Devil’s, and being unsuccessful in finding our way through the fence at the bottom of the Moody Point Trail #140. The Sawmill Flats and Workman Creek area would prove even wetter a few hours later. That was it for us. After dropping my hiking partner in Chandler, I finished the retreat to Tucson 24 hrs early. |
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