Kehl Spring to Forest Road 144 on Crook Trail

It was a bright, sunny day on 10 October 2015 when we started out to hike the section of General Crook Trail that lies between Forest road 144 and Kehl Spring. This was supposed to be a relatively easy 10-mile hike. I had downloaded a track that we could use in our GPS that would take us from Kehl Spring to Twentynine-Mile Tank, located about 0.6 miles northwest of Twentynine-Mile Butte; although our track measured 10.3 miles, we going to a spot on Forest Road 144 (note previously FR 149) about 0.3 miles short of the tank. Unbeknownst to me, the downloaded track ended about 1.2 miles southeast of the butte. This left us another 2.1 miles to travel along Crook Trail to reach FR 144 where we had parked our pickup car at a wide camping area. This increased the length of the hike to 12.4 miles. Additionally, we lost the trail after reaching the end of our downloaded track and hiked an extra mile or so, making the total hike about 13.5 miles.

As to the actual mechanics of the hike, we left Cottonwood at 0700, drove east on Hwy 260 and turned left onto Forest Road 144 just short of mile marker 249. Crook Trail crosses the forest road 0.4 miles from Hwy 260 at a large open camping area. There were nine of us and we were riding in three cars. So we parked one vehicle here and continued in the other two to Kehl Spring to start our hike.

The distance from where we left the pickup car on FR 144 to the start of our hike at Kehl Spring was 13 miles. To get there, we drove back to Hwy 260, continued east to Hwy 87 and turned north, turned right on Forest Road 300 (Rim Road) and continued for 7 miles to Kehl Spring where we parked at the campground. Kehl Spring Campground, Located, at the edge of a small meadow in a ponderosa forest, has eight campsites with fire rings. A vaulted toilet is provided but there is no running water. All Terrain Vehicle use is not allowed other than to enter or leave the campground; however the campground is located adjacent to Rim Road which can become noisy and quite dusty in dry weather. The primary season is March through September, but the facility is always open, weather permitting.

We found a place to park that would avoid interfering with campers and would permit easy retrieval of the vehicles later. In other words we parked them end-to-end along the outer perimeter in a manner that would prevent anyone from blocking us in without also obstructing the road into the campsite.

No signs were posted at the campground showing the location of Crook Trail, so we just hiked east through the meadow in which Kehl Spring is located, following along an old wash that we thought must have marked the old wagon road. Sure enough, that assumption turned out to be a correct, as we found two of the ubiquitous aluminum chevrons used as markers along this trail posted on adjacent trees just across the road at the upper end of the meadow. We passed between the trail markers and were certainly now following the old road traveled by Army supply wagons trekking between Fort Whipple and fort Apache in the 1870s.

The trail, marked along the way by the aluminum chevrons (occasionally painted a copper color) followed closely along, sometimes contiguous with, the present day Rim Road. An example of both colors of chevron are shown in the photograph below.

Copper and aluminum chevrons posted together along Crook Trail

While still following the section of trail, shown in the above photograph, that is contiguous with the road we stopped for a group photograph along the grassy bank.

Left to right: The author, Karl Sink,Ellen McGinnis, Jim McGinnis, Floyd Gardner, Daisy Williams, Dave Beach and Karen Webster – photograph by name withheld

The trail soon left Rim Road and we were back in the deep forest, guided only be the faint imprint of the ancient Crook Wagon Road and the shiny chevron markers. There were more of the copper-colored ones located along this stretch of trail than I remembered seeing on previous sections of the trail. We examined one of them more closely and found that they were merely the standard aluminum chevrons with a coat of copper-colored paint applied. I have often wondered just why one would go to the trouble of painting perfectly serviceable aluminum trail markings and then distributing them seemingly at random along the trail. Perhaps they were left over from another job.

In sections of old growth trees, we could follow the course of the trail just by observing where trees were missing in other places a distinct roadbed was visible.

Still visible section of the old General Crook Wagon Road

We found the following sign posted at one place where the trail just touched Rim Road without crossing or entering it.

General Crook Trail sign along Rim Road

Some old forest roads, used long after the demise of the old wagon road, followed it in places and it is easy to follow the trail along those sections. However, it is also easy to miss the point where the old trail and a newer forest road diverges. The hiker must pay constant attention for chevrons or other signs indicating these road/trail separations. That later happened to us just before we reached the end of our downloaded track and was the cause of an extra mile of hiking while we rambled around in the forest looking for the trail.

When we reached Hwy 87, the trail turned south and followed closely along the east side of the highway toward the junction with Hwy 260. At first it ran several hundred yards away from the highway, but then it crossed through the perimeter fence and continued south along the highway right of way. Here we found still a third color of chevron marker, bright red. Someone suggested that this section of the trail might be so marked to indicate that it is used by snowmobiles.

General Crook Trail following alongside Hwy 87 – note the red chevron

The trail crosses to the west side of Hwy 87 at Corduroy Wash about 0.6 miles north of the Hwy 260 junction. It then continues west parallel to Hwy 260, never more than about 0.6 miles away. Our downloaded track ended at the farthest point away from the highway, but still some 2.1 miles short of our hike's end at FR 144.

When we neared the end of the hike, the three drivers went ahead to retrieve the cars from Kehl Spring. The rest of us hiked at a more leisurely pace to the end of the trail and waited for them. It was now growing dark and, despite having donned my jacket, I was a little chilly. Fortunately, a kind group of nearby campers invited us to join them at their campfire. I leaped at the opportunity and was soon warming myself at a cozy campfire. The others then filtered over one at a time until we were all gathered around the fire.

By the time the drivers returned to pick us up it was almost 1900 and I didn't get home until around 1945.

The actual hike from Kehl Spring to Forest Road 144 (still shown on some maps as FR 149) is 12.4 miles as shown by the red track on the map included in this report. Note that I have corrected the track to remove the extra distance that we hiked. The very faint yellow track near the upper left shows the 0.4 mile drive along FR 144 to the Crook Trail Crossing. and the fainter blue track, intertwined with the red one, shows the downloaded GPS track that we were following.

The actual hike distance for this trail is 12.4 miles, the maximum elevation is 7926 feet and the descent was 1442 feet and the ascent was 1010 feet.