Visit to Alvarez Ranch

On 25 May 2014 the Skyliners visited the old Alvarez Ranch on the Verde River. The long-abandoned ranch, located on the north side of the river between Sycamore Creek and Railroad Wash, is owned by the National Forest Service but is not accessible by any official trail or road. We crossed the river at location N34 52.109 W112 06.124 and entered the site at the old ranchhouse. Below are shown the hikers in our group and the ranchhouse as viewed from the river.

Left to right: Chris Jensen, James Quin, Donna Goodman, the author, 
Lila Wright, Gary Jacobson and David Beach

Old Alvarez Ranchhouse

As we climbed up to the old dwelling, we noted the work of beavers along the bank. Two of several examples are shown in the below photographs.

The work of beavers at Alvarez Ranch 

Lila provided a 28 February 2012 article written by Jim Hutchison and published in the Camp Verde Bugle Newspaper that supplies information about Spanish Immigrant Rosendo Alvarez, his family and descendants (see footnote below)¹. One of Rosendo's children, Emilia Alvarez Carillo, now living in Clarkdale, recently celebrated her 97^th birthday.

Located just a few yards from the old ranchhouse are a well and, a bit farther away, an outdoor privy.

Well

Privy

There are also several other structures still standing at the ranch site. Some of these are of wood construction, but were fairly well-preserved. Shown below are a shedlike structure and a frame building that might have once been a chicken house. At least it reminded me of those I was familiar with in my youth.

Shed and frame building constructed of wood

There were also two stone buildings, one still in fairly good condition. They might have been used to store grains and other produce.

Stone structure of unknown use

The old ranch was a most pleasant place and we were tempted to linger, but we had arranged to be picked up at noon, so soon continued on our way. At first we following a faint trail, then an old road bed downstream toward what we expected to be private property with two occupied dwellings.

We retreated to the river until we thought we had bypassed the private property. Looking at a map I later located, it appears that the parcel of private property located along the road we followed from the Alvarez Ranch extends to both sides of the river at one point.

It appears that the best way to entirely avoid private property on the way to Alvarez Ranch is to Park at the Sycamore Canyon Trailhead, take Parsons Trail down to Sycamore Creek, follow Packard Trail across the creek and then bushwhack for about 0.8 miles to bypass the section of private property. After reviewing the “bushwhack” area in Google Earth, I believe that about 0.3 miles of that 0.8 mile section would be across flat, relatively open terrain.” On the below map, I have labeled this the north bypass. I have also shown a possible south bypass. To take that route, one should drive on past the Sycamore Trailhead, park at a locked gate (see “Park – south bypass”) and follow approximately the route shown in blue. There is a road that runs down the hill beyond the locked gate, crosses Sycamore Creek and continues on to the dwellings located on the private property.

Detail map of the area around the Sycamore Creek junction with the Verde River

The north bypass should be easier. Although it does have about 0.5 miles of steep slope to cross, it appears to vary in elevation by less than 50 feet. Taking the south bypass would be about 0.5 miles shorter, but it would involve crossing the river twice.

The possible routes to the Valdez Ranch are shown on the included map (below). The yellow line outlines the private property, the green track is Packard Trail, the red track includes the north bypass route and the blue track includes the south bypass route.

The total round-trip distance by the north bypass is 5.0 miles. The maximum elevation is 3750 feet and the difference is 150 feet.

1http://cvbugle.com/main.asp?SectionID=74&SubSectionID=702&ArticleID=33804