On
28 March 2015, seventeen Skyliners hiked from Margs Draw Spur A
Trailhead on Sombart Lane to Little Horse Trailhead on Hwy 179. This
hike included the following trails: Spur A, about half of Margs Draw,
Broken Arrow and Little Horse. Along the way, we visited the Devils
Dining Room, lunched at Submarine Rock (making a slight detour to do
so) and paused briefly for the view at Chicken Point.
Having
completely forgotten the ritual on last week's hike, we gathered for
a group photograph today before leaving the parking lot.
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| Left to right: The author, Frank Lombardo, Jim Manning, Daisy Williams, Karl Sink, Lila Wright, Beverly Sass, Joyce Arregui, Ellen McGinnis, Dolly Yapp (front), James McGinnis, George Everman, Gilliam Ashworth, Betty Wolters, John Ashworth and Collene Maktenieks – photograph by Name Withheld |
Passing by a Forest
Service trail information Kiosk at the east side of the parking area,
we immediately entered the Munds Mountain Wilderness area, climbed a
steep, but mercifully short, section of trail and encountered our
first flower of the hike, a bladderpod mustard (right). 
George was assigned as
tailgater, to make sure we didn't lose anyone and I stayed with him
so that he could identify the flowers we saw along the way. The warm
days were working their wonders and, as we passed through a forest of
juniper, manzanita, ceanothus and other high desert plants, we found
a variety of flowers along the trail. One, called fineleaf
woolywhite, was particularly intriguing. It first appears as a
feathery looking clump of grass (left),
but then unexpectedly shoots up a tall stalk and displays yellow
blooms at the top (right) as though
to announce its arrival to the world.
The distance on Spur A
Trail from the parking lot to the intersection with Margs Draw Trail
was 0.6 miles and we continued to find flowers such as the Indian
root shown here (left) along the
way.
Spur A had led us east,
but when we reached Margs Draw Trail we followed it south for 1.1
miles to Morgan Road where a large parking area is provided. At this
point Margs Draw Trail ends and Broken Arrow Trail continues south.
Meanwhile, Morgan Road turns south and becomes Forest Road 179F,
leading to such tourist attractions as the Devils Dining Room,
Submarine Rock and Chicken Point.
As we approached Morgan
Road from the north, we were faced with a large butte or mesa
directly ahead, between us and Twin Buttes. I think the formation
must be Battlement Mesa. Although I have been unable to find it on
any map, Battlement is mentioned often in hiking and cycling reports
and is generally placed north of Twin Buttes. From this angle it
looks more like a butte than a mesa. But the top appears more table
like when viewed from the Twin Buttes area.
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Battlement Mesa
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The area is shown in
the map insert (right); the
junction of Margs Draw and Broken Arrow Trails is shown at top right
and I have placed a marker on what I believe to be Battlement Mesa.
We left Munds Mountain
Wilderness area at Morgan Road, but we were never far from its
boundary. At any point during the hike along Broken Arrow Trail we
had only to look east across the valley floor to see Munds Mountain
itself looming in the distance. The wilderness boundary runs down
the valley floor to the west of Munds Mountain to Chicken Point,
continues along the valley floor west of Lee Mountain and then swings
west to encompass Courthouse Butte and Bell Rock near The Village of
Oak Creek.
Although some flowering
plants stand out boldly as though to say, “stop and admire me,”
others are more modest, seeming to hide themselves like a shy child
hiding his face in his mother's skirt. We almost missed the small
yellow blossoms of the Wrights deer vetch (left) so well was it hidden
Since starting south on
Broken Arrow we had seen a constant stream of pink jeeps ferrying
tourists to and from the sights along the way. But our first
intersection with the road they followed was not until we reached the
Devils Dining Room.
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Devils Dining Room
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This site is not very
interesting and I have a great amount of difficulty understanding why
is is considered a tourist attraction at all. To me it just looks
like a hole in the ground that only a geologist would love.
It was only 0.5 miles
from Morgan Road to the Devils Dining Room and another 0.3 miles
brought us to the turnoff to Submarine Rock, so named because it
bears some resemblance to a submarine. It is about 0.6 miles to the
top of the rock from the turnoff. The deviation we made from Broken
Arrow Trail to visit Submarine Rock and then return to the trail was
1.2 miles and is shown below.
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Showing detour to visit Submarine Rock
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Submarine Rock is much
more interesting than is the Devils Dining Room. From the top of the
rock one has a great view up and down the valley and to Munds
Mountain to the east. On this hot day, we also had a nice cool
breeze to cool us off.
As shown on the map
insert (above), we returned
to Broken Arrow Trail at a different point, about 0.2 miles from
where we had left it. We did this by following the jeep road (FR
179F) up a short but very steep hill until it intersected the trail.
We cut about 0.2 miles off the length of the hike by doing this, but
we would have expended much less effort by returning the way we had
come.
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Desert hyacinth
|
Continuing on to
Chicken Point, we found several more interesting flowers.
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| Spring parsley |
We paused only briefly
at Chicken Point before continuing on our way, now on
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Indigo bush
|
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| Mountain sunflowers |
George
called my attention to one last flower along the way, a rattlesnake
weed (below).
It had now become quite
hot and we were reminded why we hiked at higher elevations during the
hotter months of the year. By the time we reached the trailhead I,
for one, was exhausted.
According to my GPS
track we hiked 6.1 miles, the highest elevation was 4624 feet and the
total ascent was 1054 feet.
Our track is shown in
red on the included map (below).
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