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| Hiking | 5.66 Miles |
1,446 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.66 Miles | 5 Hrs 16 Mns | | 1.51 mph |
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| 1,446 ft AEG | 1 Hour 31 Mns Break | 24 LBS Pack | |
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| no partners | | We hiked Lower Coon Creek a month ago with the intention of visiting some ruins but between vague directions and some bad terrain, we never reached them... in fact we never even saw where they were. So, with a day off, Tracey out of town and my Samurai on stands waiting parts I thought I'd give this one another shot. (Yeah, Tracey wanted to see the ruins, but she wasn't too enthused after what we went through last trip so she didn't mind I did this one solo)
This time I had more detailed information, and with a first-hand look the terrain last trip, I marked out a track with only 7 way points of the general direction I planned to take. Rather than follow the creek most of the way and then climb, I climbed up to a ridge and continued relatively parallel to the creek but well above it. The going much easier and by following a game trail every time I found one going the general direction I was taking I made much better time, at least when I was moving... taking pictures is where much of the time was lost.
While on the approach I took photos of the hilltop where I knew the ruins to be but not until I was quite close could I actually make out a few stacked rock walls. Once at the ruins I looked back down on Coon Creek and realized we hadn't seen the ruins from there because we had been in the midst of trees and thick vegetation. For the return trip I planned on dropping down in a NNW direction picking the easiest route to hit the creek and follow it back.
But first I wanted to figure out how the rafters who visited the ruins back in 1992 saw them in the first place, and what route they may have taken. So I continued south below the ruins until reaching a point where it was possible to climb up, but I doubted rafters would have attempted it here. I climbed back up to the ruins and scanned the area for a more likely route up. I tried the first area where there wasn't a steep drop and found although still steep, it was passable, although coming up wouldn't be very easy. Once I got to the bottom, now the problem was fighting through all the very dense brush between the base of the mountain and the shoreline of the Salt River. It's the same type of brush that stopped us last month. But being solo and with more determination I stuck with it and between clipping brush, hacking branches off and just plain bulling my way through I finally broke through to the water's edge. Looking back up toward the ruins it didn't seem the best angle to make them out well so I continued east along the shore until it curved enough to have a better view. But by that time, the only way to make them out would have been with binoculars, or full zoom on the camera.
Ok, now it was time to head back. Knowing how dense the brush was along the river and how much farther it would be to follow the river back to Coon Creek, it didn't take a moment to choose climbing back up. I scanned the shoreline looking for the area where the brush appeared thinnest again once again let nothing stop me from breaking through. I made it through relatively quickly but at the cost of the skin on my forearms. (I was lavish with the aloe lotion upon my return and already today they look much better.) In general each branch of the brush was thinner than Manzanita, but there was more of it and at times it was hard to breath due to all the powdery dust that came off when contacting each piece of brush. My throat feels pretty harsh from it a day later.
Once I broke through the brush I scanned for a wash to begin my climb back up. I was a little east of where I came down and found by continuing up and sticking to the largest wash the going was reasonably easy. Only the last few hundred feet took some very careful foot placement to keep from sliding backwards. Now back on the ridge I headed for a "gateway" break in the fence and from there headed NNW down toward the creek until I reached it. But I realized right away I'd make better time getting just a little ways above the creek and again followed game trails, most of them being javelina trails. I passed through a few javelina dens along the way and while I saw and heard none, the heavy musky odor made it clear they spent plenty of time here. From there I cruised back to the TH with my mission accomplished.
I posted mostly ruin photos on HAZ, the full set will be on my web site:
http://www.changephoenix.com/11/2011-10-24LwrCoonCrkRuins.html |
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