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| Hiking | 6.10 Miles |
1,419 AEG |
| | Hiking | 6.10 Miles | 7 Hrs 20 Mns | | 0.83 mph |
| 1,419 ft AEG | | 15 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | This hike retraced most of the route taken by Grasshopper and ssk44 back in April 2009. The plan was to visit a cave near the bottom of Pinal Creek Canyon they had discovered on that hike that had evidence of recent habitation. Due to a menacing bee hive in the cave and the prospect of encountering unfriendly inhabitants they only briefly stopped at the cave before exploring up the bottom of the canyon.
The unpaved section of road on the 13.4 mile drive from HW188 to the Shute Springs trailhead was in good conditions and shows signs of fairly recent grading. The last 5 mile section on FR223 had a couple of partial washouts that could be driven around on the left edge of the road. So for now, 2 wheel drive moderate clearance vehicles could make this drive when the road is dry. That could change if the washouts get worse.
There are great views of Black Mesa, the Sierra Ancha Mountains and Redmond Mountain at the trailhead and on the way down the trail to Shute Springs Creek. The trail is steep with loose rock in places and is starting to get overgrown. It makes for a steep tiring climb on the way back at the end of the hike. Once you reach the Shute Springs Creek Wash it's easy hiking on a flat sandy wash bottom with a sandy bypass channel on the east side in the one brushy area and minimal boulder hoping in the boulder strewn narrows. The hike up the west side of the wash to the top of the ridge overlooking Pinal Creek Canyon meanders through small openings between the forest of bushes and small desert trees. Reaching the top of the ridge we did some searching for a safe route down to Pinal Creek and the cave which was our destination. There were a couple old wooden utility poles on the ridge top and one very rusty steel pole. It appears there was a line running north to south along this ridge top at one time. The single wood cross members had rotted to pieces and fallen to the ground. There was no trace of wire insulators (perhaps a collectors item) or the wires. The Salt River Wilderness wasn't created until 1984 so perhaps this line provided power and/or communication with a mine at one time.
We found a steep break between cliffs and started the hike down to the creek. We were lucky to find a short path down the steepest and most treacherous part of the descent. It appeared to be man made. We cautiously approached the cave due to the presence of a bee hive hanging from the ceiling. Fortunately it was not being used at this time but was in the same location as the one seen by GH and ssk44 back in 2009. Maybe the bees had abandoned the nest long ago after getting a dose of the Wasp and Hornet spray from the now empty can laying on the floor of the cave. After examining the contents of the cave we decided to start the trek back to the trail head due to time and energy constraints. We did not descend the short distance to the creek but could see it was high and running muddy. We took a short break for lunch in a grassy spot outside the cave and then started the mostly uphill backtrack to the trail head.
The remainder of this triplog describes stuff we found in and outside the cave and some theorizing on what had brought people to this remote hide away.
The cave was only about 20 feet deep and was more of an alcove than a cave. A rock fire ring was located at the mouth of the cave. The floor of the cave was littered with stuff from modern day camping covered with a layer of dust so it had not been used for quite some time. There were two wood framed screen sifting boxes which perhaps had been used to sift the dirt from the cave floor for ancient Indian artifacts. The floor of the cave looked like it had been dug up. However the presence of a stream sluice box indicated the inhabitants had been involved in gold prospecting. Perhaps they had been doing both activities. Or, maybe the screen boxes have some use in gold prospecting that I'm not aware of or maybe two different groups with different purposes had been here. A pile of discarded stuff in one corner included a cloth bag with a US flag pattern on the outside. That item had been there when GH and ssk44 were there in 2009. There were a half dozen or more breathing masks with filters for dust. The floor of the cave was covered with a thick layer of dust so any digging would have raised a cloud of dust.
Two inexpensive sleeping bags as well as numerous plastic water bottles and empty Coleman propane canisters littered the area. Nearby was an english language paperback novel,"One False Move" by Alex Kova, first released in Aug 2004 and a plastic bucket with a lid contained various food items and small boxes of tobacco. There were a couple cans of albacore tuna, a small can of ham and a roll of Ritz crackers in an empty Pringles tube. The use-by date on one of the tuna cans was 2012. Recently purchased similar cans of tuna in our kitchen have 3 year use-by dates. So those cans could have been in the cave when GH and ssk44 were there in 2009. A plastic hard hat was hanging from one end of the sluice box where it leaned against the cave wall. The hat had decals for ASARCO Ray Operations. They run a large open pit copper mine south of Superior off of HW177.
Outside the cave we found two interesting items. The first was the remains of an old wire fence which had spanned the width of the small bench above the creek. The 5 strings of barbless wire were each single strand, about 3/16 inch diameter and rusty. The supporting posts had rotted away but appeared to have been made from tree limbs. My theory is that this wire had been re-purposed from the old utility line on top of the ridge but don't know why anyone would go to that much effort. Perhaps it had been hastily erected to keep browsing animals out of someone's creek side garden. 
The second item of interest was a stack of plant nursery type plastic seedling trays which were located about 20 yards from the cave. It seems someone was gardening near the cave. These containers would have held a large number of seedlings. A weathered and rusty pruning sheers lay in the grass nearby. This would appear to be evidence of a marijuana grow site although other usual evidence such as black plastic drip tubing, empty plastic fertilizer bags, etc were not evident. Also the half dozen or so wilderness grow sites I've been to were littered with small empty yellow cans of El Pato Hot Tomato Sauce and other similar food packaging indicating the gardening had been done by immigrants from south of the border. That was not the case at this site. So either the tuna snacking prospectors from the cave had diversified purposes for being in this remote location or it had been inhabited by two different groups at different times.
While doing some research on this area I learned that several drainages into Pinal Creek came from an older copper mining area along HW188 near Globe and Miami. The entire drainage downstream from the mines all the way down Pinal Creek to the Salt River was a WQARF (Water Quality Assurance Revolving Fund) site for many years due to some very bad stuff leaching out of the mines and into the streams and ground water. Cleanup activities started after an area-wide investigation of groundwater and surface water contamination was conducted in 1979-1981. Surface water in Pinal Creek has apparently been cleaned up by these activities but ground water reclamation is still continuing. Could these cleanup activites be related to stuff we found in the cave and nearby? Maybe the seedlings were part of plant life restoration on the banks of Pinal Creek and not related to marijuana growing. |
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