Hike to AMBRR Tunnel

I had long had a hike to the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad (AMBRR) Tunnel on my list of things to do. I had scheduled it four separate times and been forced to cancel because of weather conditions or other circumstances. Finally, Gordon Bice, Karl Sink and I set out on 28 October 2016 determined to finally cross it off the list.

We left Cottonwood at about 0800, drove east on Hwy 260 to Hwy 87 on the Mogollon Rim, turned north on Hwy 87 and continued to Rim Road (Forest Road 300). We turned right onto FR 300, continued along the rim to the General Springs area and parked. The Arizona Trail (below left) crosses FR 300 here on its way north, having followed Colonel Devin Trail #290 (below right) up the mountain from Washington Park, 2.5 miles below the rim.

Cropped from Arizona Trail Sign Colonel Devin Trail sign

The Battle of Big Dry Wash historical marker is located across the road from the Colonel Devin Trailhead. It is inscribed as follows.

Seven miles north of this point a band of Apache Indians were defeated by United States troops on July 17, 1882. A group of tribesmen from the San Carlos Reservation had attacked some ranches in the vicinity, killing several settlers. Cavalry and Indian scouts were immediately sent into the field in search of the hostiles. Five troops of cavalry and one troop of Indian scouts converged on the Apaches, surrounding them at the Big Dry Wash. The resistance of the Indians was broken after four hours of stubborn fighting. The casualties numbered two soldiers and more than twenty Apaches.

Off hand, seven miles from the site of the battle being memorialized seems an odd place to erect a monument. However, the depredations of the Indians seem to have covered a fairly widespread area. For instance, according to Wikipedia Commons, the cabin shown below, built in 1880 and now located at the Pioneer Living History Museum in Phoenix, was among those raided by the Indians. The cabins original location at Canyon Creek in Young, Arizona, is just about on a straight line between the San Carlos Reservation and Big Dry Wash¹.

Marine 69-71, Phoenix-Pioneer Living History Museum-Flying V Cabin-1880-2, CC BY-SA 4.0

But back to the hike at hand. The odd lettering, “RR Tunnel TR. NR. 390.15 Mi” on the Colonel Devin Trailhead sign (shown previously) turned out to be a rather awkward way of saying that the Tunnel Trailhead was located 0.15 miles ahead. We decided the person who lettered the sign probably ran out of room and just shoved the numbers together. In any case, Railroad Tunnel Trail (my AMBRR Tunnel Trail) was located a short distance ahead. It turns off to the left just beyond the powerline pole, number 66, shown below. Karl Sink is shown below, standing on the AMBRR Tunnel Trail just after the turnoff. Colonel Devin Trail, meanwhile, continues down the right side of the wash.

Hiker Karl Sink heading down the trail

A sign (right), located at the head of the trail, was a bit confusing; we had expected to hike in and back on the same trail and we did not understand what “loop” might mean. Assuming that the answer would become obvious later in the hike we put the question aside and continued on our way.

My GPS recorded the distance from the Colonel Devin Trailhead at FR 300 to the AMBRR Tunnel Trail Loop turnoff as 0.1 miles, this as opposed to the 0.15 given on the trailhead sign at FR 300. But, in any case, the exact distance is not needed to locate the turnoff, powerline pole number 66 serves as an excellent marker.

The trail itself is quite clear once one turns off the Devin Trail. It follows along what was obviously built as a wagon road, perhaps once used, among other purposes, to transport equipment to the tunnel construction site. Whatever its original purpose, considerable effort had been devoted to building the road. In some places the canyon wall had been carved away (below left) to make space for the road; in other spots a retainer wall had been built to contain the roadbed. Gordon is shown standing on the trail at one such point (below right).

Roadbed carved from the canyon wall Gordon on trail atop retaining wall

About 0.4 miles from the start of AMBRR Trail, and 0.5 miles from FR 300, we came to a fork in the road. The photograph (left) shows the trail by which we had descended on the right; the left branch would obviously descend to Colonel Devin Trail at a different point, and a lower elevation, than where we had left it.

From the fork, the trail left the old road and led east-northeast up a steep, rocky side canyon; the way is marked by a single-word sign (right) affixed to a dead, charred section of tree trunk, felled no doubt by the 1990 Dude fire. The trail from the fork to the tunnel is steep and rocky; it wanders in and out of the streambed at the bottom before ending in a steep climb to the mouth of the tunnel. The distance was only around 0.1 miles; however it rises about 300 feet in that distance and the steep, rocky climb made it seem like twice that.

We came upon the tunnel suddenly, just at the top of a short, especially-steep section of trail that may have been ascending a tailings pile below the opening. The dark tunnel opening looms to the left in the below photograph; seen at right is the wall of a stone hut that might have been used to house workers. The walls are about six feet high and it appears that the hut once had a wooden roof, perhaps peaked to allow standing upright.

Mouth of AMBRR Tunnel and section of rock-walled hut – photo by Karl Sink.

Just across the canyon from the tunnel opening stood a long-dead ponderosa pine whose trunk had been burned almost through just above ground level (left). So little remained of the trunk that I thought the tree should have collapsed at the slightest of breezes.

I had started out on this hike thinking that the tunnel would lead southeast from its opening. However, we found that from this opening it lead very near directly north, perhaps veering a little easterly. That means that had it continued for its planned 3100 feet, it would have come out somewhere in General Springs Canyon. Meanwhile, the never-laid track leading to the south end of tunnel, where we stood, would have climbed along the steep canyon walls seen at left in the below photograph.

Canyon wall along which the railroad would have climbed to the tunnel

It certainly cannot be denied that this was an ambitious project. According to various sources, the Arizona Mineral Belt Railroad was conceived in the early 1880s as a means of shipping ore from the mines to the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in Flagstaff. Timber companies around Flagstaff would also use the line to ship shoring timbers to the mines. Part of the route would run through this 3100-foot tunnel under the Mogollon Rim. Unfortunately, the company ran out of money after digging only a short section of the tunnel.

Most sources give the completed length of the tunnel as 70 feet. However, that is misleading in that it apparently represents only the part of the tunnel that was excavated to its full intended dimensions. A lesser bore continues into the mountain for about another 80 feet; apparently this section is not normally considered when measuring the length of penetration because it is not fully excavated. One can, however, walk to the very end, about 150 feet from the opening.

These two photographs show the small-bore extension, that is the section of tunnel beyond seventy feet (below left) and the tunnel opening (below right) as seen from about the end of the fully-excavated section.

The end of the tunnel              Looking out the tunnel

                                                    opening

A number of visitors to the tunnel have, over the years, felt impelled to record their presence and the easily-accessible parts of the main tunnel walls are largely covered with graffiti. The most noticeable bit of graffiti was perhaps a red hand print (below left). Some of the markings, bearing signatures and dates, seemed almost to constitute confessions to vandalism (below right).

Mark of a red-handed            Is this a confession?

vandal 

The canyon wall (perhaps cliff would be a more accurate term) above the tunnel looked extremely daunting, but we thought we could see a route that might take us to the top, so we gave it a try.

Canyon wall above the tunnel

We wound up climbing about 200 feet above the tunnel before deciding that it was just too dangerous. We had invested over half an hour in the effort by the time we arrived back at the tunnel opening. We, or at least I, had a few sore muscles the next day.

After a short pause to catch our breath, we set out back down the side canyon, following the path we had come in on. On arriving back at the fork in the trail, we decided that rather than return to the rim the way we had come, we would take the other fork and find out for sure where it would take us. As for the old road the trail had followed from Colonel Devin Trail near the rim to the fork, it continued straight ahead, not following the course of either of the trail forks. Later reference to the USGS online map, disclosed that it was probably the original road from Washington Park to the Rim at General Springs.

We did not further investigate the course the old road but set out on the trail fork we had chosen, arriving about ten minutes later at a junction with Colonel Devin Trail. The loop hike concept now became clear. The loop, described from the way we hiked it, started at the upper connection with Colonel Devin Trail, continued along the ancient roadbed to the trail fork, turned up the side canyon to the tunnel, returned to the fork by the same route, took the other fork back to Colonel Devin Trail and hiked up the canyon for about 0.4 miles, climbing some 415 feet to close the loop.

As we labored our way up the trail along the west side of the, dry at this point, East Verde River, I remembered a little more of the history of the area. According to Stan Brown, in an online article published by Payson Roundup, the trail we were on was named for “Army commander ... Thomas Devin” who built a “switchback trail” that “leads down the east side of the river”². That description accords well with the old road we had followed down the canyon to the trail fork. The Colonel Devin Trail, in contrast, runs on the west side of the river.

The East Verde starts at the rim at the head of the canyon and flows down past Washington Park to join with the Verde River in the Mazatzal Wilderness, about 35 miles away.

As noted in a description of the river by the Verde River Basin Partnership, the river “is dependent on rainfall, snowmelt, and supplementation from the Blue Ridge Reservoir”. A brief history of the the Blue Ridge (Now C C. Cragin) Reservoir, is available on the Salt River Project website.³

According to my GPS track the actual loop hike, starting and ending at the upper Colonel Devin/Tunnel Loop junction, measured 1.4 miles The highest elevation was shown as 7280 feet and the total ascent as 821 feet. Including the abortive attempt to climb the cliff above the tunnel, a side trip to investigate the area above the tunnel between FR 300 and the edge of the cliff and some other minor side trips, we actually hiked 3.1 miles and ascended 1163 feet, again according to my GPS.

On the attached map (below), the green track shows Colonel Devin Trail from the trailhead at Forest Road 300 to the junction with Tunnel Loop Trail. The red track shows the Tunnel Loop (or as I have called it AMBRR Loop) from its upper junction with the Colonel Devin Trail to the trail fork below the tunnel, up to the tunnel, back down the mountain to the fork, on to the lower junction with Colonel Devin Trail and then back along that trail to the upper junction.

1https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phoenix-Pioneer_Living_History_Museum-Flying_V_Cabin-1880-2.jpg

2http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2003/aug/25/stories_from_the/

3http://www.srpnet.com/water/dams/cragin.aspx