Lower Red Rock Loop Road to Oak Creek

It was a dreary day on 6 December 2014 when we set out to hike from Lower Red Rock Loop Road near Elmerville to Horseshoe Bend at Oak Creek. This was at least the third time I had hiked to the same place on Oak Creek. I hiked in once along Lime Kiln Trail starting from Red Rock State Park and turning off at the saddle through which a riding trail leads down a steep rocky track to the creek at a sharp curve that I call Horseshoe Bend. Although I don't think it has an official name.

We left Cottonwood at 0800, drove north on Hwy 89A, turned right onto Lower Red Rock Loop Road and continued for another 1.2 miles to park at a large horse trailer parking area at the trailhead.

The Trail we were looking for was marked on my map as Elmerville Spur R, a riding trail. However, we found it to be a dirt road signed as Forest Forest Road 9845. A little distance down the road we did finally see a riding trail sign, but it was Spur S instead of Spur R. Then about 0.5 miles from the parking lot, Spur S turned sharply to the left (east). Since the hike would otherwise be only around four miles, I decided to be a little adventurous and follow Spur S to the Lime Kiln Trail with which I knew it would intersect ahead. This resulted in our making the dogleg to the east shown in blue below from Spur S/Spur R to Spur S/Lime Kiln and back to Spur R Lime Kiln. From there it was just 0.3 miles to the Spur A/Lime Kiln turnoff that would lead us to the saddle above Horseshoe Bend on Oak Creek.

Map showing our circuitous route on the hike to Horseshoe Bend

Only slightly delayed by my detour, we soon arrived at the saddle. There we were faced with a steep, somewhat perilous 0.4 mile descent to Oak Creek. Looking down the trail, several of our hikers decided it just wasn't worth the effort and elected to climb a nearby knoll and enjoy the view until the rest of us returned.

The descent, as we started down, did look rather scary (right) but some of us had done it before and knew we could do it again.

We had to make our way slowly to avoid stepping on a rolling rock or loose gravel but we were shortly standing on a ledge overlooking the bend in the creek. In the following photograph, the banks of the creek are lined by sycamore trees, still clinging stubbornly to the last leaves of the season, lining its bank.

Sycamore trees lining the banks of Oak Creek

On arrival at the creek we found a cozy camping spot with an existing fire ring and a gaudy, out-of-place white plastic chair tucked close against the red rock cliff on the creek bank. I wondered why anyone would go to all the trouble of bringing such an out-of-place object to this isolated place when chunks of driftwood and other naturally occurring objects that would serve the same purpose were readily at hand. Somewhat less objectionable to my mind was an ancient derelict canoe, long past repair, nestled among the trees alongside the stream.

Fire ring

Derelict canoe

Before leaving the campsite, I took a last look at the peaceful views up and down the stream. I thought that this would be an ideal spot to spend time alone.

Looking upstream from the campsite

Looking downstream from the campsite

Looking back to the hidden, isolated campsite

Before starting our climb back to the gap where the other members of our party were waiting, we paused for a view of the Indian ruin perched in a fold of the red cliff on the northwest quarter of the bend. I had already explored the ruin twice before and, truth be told, there is not much to see anyway. We had found a few pottery shards, but the structure itself is not very impressive, having apparently been recently rebuilt by passing hikers.

Indian ruins in a cliff northwest of the bend

Having no desire to climb up to the ruins we turned our attention to the steep climb (left) back to the saddle. Strangely, the climb seemed less difficult than we had imagined it would be. Still it was steep and precarious, requiring careful attention to footing.

I had lagged behind to take photographs and, as a result, reached the saddle a few minutes behind the others. On arrival I found them all grouped together for lunch, so I took a group photograph before joining them.

Left to right: Mark Purcell, Jim Manning, Miriam Sterling, Marywave Van Deren, Leon Girdner, Joanne Hennings and Gary Jacobson – photograph by the author

There had been some disgruntlement about the circuitous route I had chosen on the way in so I promised that we would take the shortest route back. That would be easy because we now knew that Forest Road 9845 is also Spur S for part of its length and Spur R for the rest of the way to Lime Kiln Trail. It runs directly from the parking area to connect with Lime Kiln Trail just 0.3 miles from where we had left that trail to turn onto Spur A. We had then followed it through the saddle and down to the creek.

The sun almost came out once on the way back. We did at least get a brief glimpse of a small section of blue sky as we moved briskly along FR 9845. But the clouds quickly closed in again.

The road we were following had a few rough spots where a high clearance, 4-wheel drive vehicle would be needed, it was otherwise in good condition.

We moved right along and made good time back our vehicles, making only one brief stop to admire an especially attractive Christmas cactus (right) located in a tree-shaded spot alongside the road.

Our total hike distance was 4.4 miles as shown on the included map (next page). The red track shows our route for the return hike while the blue track discloses the detour we took on the way in. Without the detour, the hike would have been just 4 miles. The maximum elevation was 4151 feet, the total ascent was 615 feet and the total descent was 636 feet.