Geronimo's
Spring and Cabin are located in the upper reaches of Burnt Canyon.
Burnt Canyon, located west of Gaddes Canyon along the southern rim of
Mingus Mountain, consists of three separate branches at its head.
The three branches join together and run southeast, parallel to
Gaddes Canyon. Burnt Canyon and Gaddes Canyon eventually run
together to form Black Canyon which continues to the east and empties
into the Verde River. Geronimo Peña
Lived in a cabin in the east branch of Burnt Canyon, about 0.2 miles
below the water source that I have called Geronimo's Spring.
In
company with various other members of the Skyliner Hiking Group, I
had made four previous trips to the cabin, the earliest in August
2008. These trips had all started at the end of Forest Road 9003T
near Burnt Tank.
Now,
having explored the area and found an old trail that wound its way
down the canyon wall above the spring, Jim Manning was leading a hike
to the spring and cabin that would begin at the junction of Forest
Roads 104 and 9003N on top of Mingus. On 9 May 2016, the group left
the Cottonwood Safeway parking lot, drove to the top of Mingus on SR
89A, turned left onto Forest Road 104 and followed it around the head
of Haywood Canyon, turned right onto FR 413, continued to the
junction with FR 9003T and turned left. We then found a place to
park, left one vehicle there and returned to the junction of FR
104/413, turned right and continued for about 100 yards to the
junction with FR 9003N (right).
From there we began our hike.
As
we hiked along FR 9003N, we found that the road ran very close to the
top of the ridge that lies between Burnt Canyon and Gaddes Canyon.
At
first the road ran through a rather thick stand of ponderosa pines.
After a short distance we encountered a fence with one of those new
pedestrian cattleguard gates (left).
I had not seen these devices before this spring but have recently
noted several of them, all in Prescott National Forest. They are
just wide enough for pedestrians, mountain bikes and perhaps some
ATVs and all seem to be painted international orange.
We
followed FR 9003N for about 0.8 miles, along the ridge between Burnt
Canyon and Gaddes Canyon, before turning to the right to make our way
to the rim above the spring. We were now hiking through an area with
a lot of loose rocks that made footing a little precarious; but there
was little undergrowth, just scattered pines and the occasional
alligator juniper. There was no discernible trail from the forest
road to the canyon rim above the spring; but Jim had already scouted
the route, so we just followed him, recording a GPS track for future
reference as we went.
We
found a pine tree (right) that was
ringed by a circle of rocks piled closely against its trunk. Four
engraved, evenly-spaced metal plates were affixed to the trunk at
about hip level. The plates had been nearly subsumed by the tree as
it grew out and around them, so we were unable to make out the
markings on the plates; however, I assume the tree was a boundary
corner marker, perhaps marking the point where four mining claims
cornered.
Our
elevation was above 7000 feet and it was a little too early for most
of the spring flowers. We did find a very attractive growth of
mistletoe high in a pine tree (below
left) and, just as we dipped below
the rim, a fairly decent groundsel (below
right).
 |
| Mistletoe Groundsel |
The
distance from FR 104 to the rim above the Geronimo's Spring was about
one mile. Now, Jim led us along a discernible, if little-used, trail
that switchbacked its way down the steep wall of Burnt Canyon into
the east fork. Looking northwest as we descended, we could see
across Chino Valley to the mountains beyond.
 |
| Looking northwest from the trail above Geronimo's Spring |
The trail down the
canyon wall was faint but still discernible. It obviously had at
one time been fairly well used. Any wrong turn would soon become
obvious because of steep cliffs or impassable clumps of underbrush.
The photograph (left) shows a
section of the trail looking back.
Water
flows (seeps might be a better term) from several different points
along a broken, jumbled seam running down the mountain. The flow at
each point is such as to be reabsorbed almost immediately.
Geronimo's contribution was to capture the separate flows, channeling
each to the next source below it until he reached a final collection
point at the foot of the canyon wall. Shown here are the uppermost
source (below left)
that had a trail to it and the next seep (below
right) into which the flow from
above is channeled. I did not try climbing higher to look for more
seeps above this point. However, judging from the metal chute,
obviously placed to funnel water from above into the topmost source I
did investigate, there were additional seeps.
 |
| Uppermost seep with a Next (or intermediate) trail to it seep |
All of our previous trips to the spring had ended at a lower point in the wash and we had never seen any water.
Now,
looking at Geronimo's final collection point after having examined
the channeling system above, we understood why we had not seen water
before. The piping between the intermediate seep and the collection
point, a tank placed in the last seep (right),
had been disrupted; the water was being reabsorbed into the thirsty
earth.
From
the spring it is a mere 0.2 miles along a well-worn but now slightly
overgrown trail to Geronimo's Cabin. On a 23 August 2008 visit to
the cabin I had photographed (below)
a poster, located on the inside of the then-intact cabin door,
showing various photographs of Geronimo and his burros. The poster
is no longer there but I have been told that it can viewed at the
Charlotte Hall Museum.
 |
| Poster photographed at Geronimo's Cabin in August 2008 |
 |
Information on display at Geronimo's Cabin in 2008
|
The
alert reader will have noted that I have used the spelling “Geronimo”
throughout this report whereas the inscription above, along with all
of my previous reports, uses the spelling “Jeronimo.” That is
because I did a little additional research and found the below
information at Charlotte Hall Museum1
in Prescott.
Geronimo
Pena
Born:
Mexico c 1877
Died:
Mingus Mountain, Yavapai, Arizona c
6 Feb 1957
Buried:
Cottonwood cemetery.
Plot:AZTECA
Spouse:
Unknown
Parents:
Unknown
Occupation:
Woodcutter
Remarks:
Westcott. Information: residence was
on Mingus Mt.
Death certificate: had lived in the area for about 40 years. Cause of death: myocardial infarction due to arteriosclerotic heart disease. Arrangements.
Death certificate: had lived in the area for about 40 years. Cause of death: myocardial infarction due to arteriosclerotic heart disease. Arrangements.
There
is also a Geronimo Pena listed in the 1920 census; although he is
listed as living in Cedar Glade precinct, north of Prescott, he is of
the right age and is also listed as a woodcutter. He may have
temporarily been in the area at the time of the census. In any case,
I think it is most likely that “Geronimo” is the correct
spelling.
We
stopped to pose for a group photograph (below)
in front of the old cabin. The author and one other hiker are not
shown.
 |
| Left to right: George Everman, Wayne Schwetje (front), David Murrill (rear), Jim Manning, Gary Neil and Tana Allman |
For
those who may be interested, there is a set of photographs, taken in
2009, of the cabin, its interior and the surrounding yard posted
online at a blog maintained by one Mary Leavitt.2
Although
all accounts I have heard claim that Geronimo used only his burros
for delivering his wood to Jerome, I think that he may have sometimes
either hired a truck or sold wood to someone else who delivered it by
truck. This idea is supported by the existence of wire cable anchors
at the cabin (below left)
and at the end of an old road at the foot of the steep hill (below
right) on which the cabin is
located. The cable anchors could be all that remains of a high-wire
system used to move wood from a staging area at the cabin to a
waiting truck below.
 |
Upper cable anchor Lower cable anchor
|
Logging
was underway in the area below Geronimo's Cabin and the brush left
over from the logging operation was being used to check erosion by
filling in the old, no longer used, roads in the area.
Close
to where we had parked near FR 413 we stopped for awhile to observe
the loggers operations at the loading area.
 |
| Truck moving forward to be loaded |
The
total one way length of this hike was 2.6 miles, the highest
elevation was 7579 feet and the total descent was 879 feet.
On
the included map (below), the red
track shows our hike, the blue track is an alternate trail that is
smoother and less steep than the normal trail to the cabin and the
green track shows an old road leading from the site of the lower
cable anchor. The faint yellow track at left shows the route we
drove between the two trailheads.
1
http://www.sharlot.org/archives/gene/cemetery/cem_show.pl?id=30393&nxt=index.html
2
http://maryleavitt.blogspot.com/2009/08/mingus-mountain-legend_21.html
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