Powell Spring Trail

The primary purpose of this trip was to verify road conditions between the end of Ash Creek Trail at FR 531 and the beginning of Ash Canyon Trail at FR 123. We are planning a hike down Ash Canyon to Ash Creek and continuing down Ash Creek and Ash Creek Trail to its end at FR 531. We will then drive back to the Ash Canyon Trailhead to retrieve the vehicles left there. Additionally, we are planning a hike on Sheep Trail which starts at Crook Trail west of the Gray Wolf Landfill and runs south to Cienega Creek and wanted to check access to that trail from Hwy 169.

From Cottonwood, we drove east on Hwy 260, took I-17 south to Hwy 169 and continued on Hwy 169 for about 5.4 miles to the intersection with West Cherry Road. There, instead of turning right toward Cherry, we turned left onto S Old Cherry Road and drove 0.4 miles to the Crook Trail crossing. Ample parking is available in the area. As we were turning to head back to Hwy 169, a friendly gentleman of mature years who was camped alongside the road hurried over to provide assistance to the “obviously confused” travelers. We learned that he had stayed overnight in his camper and was now about to sight in a new scope on his rifle. Thankful that we were not hiking in the area today, expressed our appreciation for his offer of assistance and continued on our way.

We returned to Hwy 169, continued west for another 4.9 miles, turned right onto Old Cherry Road (also FR 323) and drove for another 1.9 miles to the intersection with FR 531. From this intersection it is about 2.5 miles up Ash Canyon on FR 531 to the Ash Creek Trailhead. However, having recently driven that road several times, we did not need to verify its condition, so we continued east on FR 323. We found the road from this point on to the intersection with West Cherry Road to be rough but quite passable for high-clearance vehicles. The distance was 3.5 miles. One could avoid this section of rough road by returning to Hwy 169 and driving east to West Cherry Road and turning north. The distance that way is 7.9 miles but is a much easier drive and would probably even be faster.

From the junction of FR 323 with West Cherry Road we drove north for 3.2 miles and turned left into Powell Spring Campground. The purpose of the visit to the campground was to do a scouting hike on Powell Spring Trail, a long-abandoned trail that apparently was once numbered 9027 by the Forest Service. I found one online reference to the trail that gave the trail number and a GPS track. The track was quite obviously estimated rather than being recorded with an instrument. But we could use it as guide.

Powell Spring Campground, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the Great Depression, has aged gracefully. Toilet facilities are provided and, like the rest of the facility, were clean and well-kept. A sign was posted precluding the operation of ATVs on the campsite premises. On the other hand an ATV trail appeared to run just across the fence that marked the outer perimeter of the facility. I wondered how that would work; would campers be subjected to the constant roar of ATVs operating just across the fence?

Powell Spring Campground – note the depression era stonework of the table and bench supports

There was only one occupant when we arrived, a gentleman apparently traveling by himself, who “helpfully” provided us with completely erroneous information about how to access the trail. We had parked in Space #1 and had made our way about half way through the campground when he appeared to impart his wisdom. According to him, we needed to return to the information sign near where we had parked and pass between a pair of posts adjacent to the sign. We would then be on the trail. He seemed to know the surroundings well enough, even giving us some additional information about the spring located nearby, so we did as he suggested. Unfortunately, when we had passed between the posts, there was no sign of a trail. Undaunted, we clambered up a small rise, slipped through a barbed wire fence and joined an ATV trail that runs most of the way around the campsite perimeter. We then followed that until we came to a stile in the perimeter fence, the place where we would have emerged without our helpful friend.

The correct route would have taken us past a locked vehicle barrier and on to the stile.

Blocked road at left; trail passage at right

A stile at the upper (west) end of the campground, just to the right of the ancient alligator juniper shown below permits easy passage for hikers. This stile is built like a kissing gate but, rather than swinging, the center piece is stationary. It depends on the narrowness of the passage and a 180 degree turn to prevent cattle from passing.

Ancient alligator juniper with a stile shown to its right

Once through the stile, the trail turns left, crosses a wash and then follows a cattle track a short distance up the opposite bank before dipping into and following along its sandy bed. That set the pattern for the entire hike. Except when we deviated to explore what we thought might be a better way (it never was), we kept mostly to the bed of the washes we followed, occasionally emerging to follow a cattle trail along the bank before returning to the bed of the wash. Once we left the main wash to explore a corral we could see on the mountain slope above. That too was an error, the hiking was more difficult than in the wash and the detour was out of our way.

We climbed gently for about 1.4 miles to a mountain pass located about 0.8 miles south of Medlar Spring. The pass was marked by the remains of a huge dead tree (right).

As we continued westward from the pass the wash sloped gently downhill and its sandy bottom was replaced in some areas with rocks. For a short distance below Walnut Spring, water was flowing and the bottom was muddy in areas. However, despite a few rocks and a little mud, the hiking was never very difficult. As we approached Ash Creek, following a well-worn and easy-to-hike-on cattle trail, we noted that we had deviated significantly from the GPS track. It appeared that we would need to turn rather sharply to the right and climb a hill to reach the end of the trail as indicated on the track. At about the same time we noted what appeared to be an old road running along the slope above, so turned to

intercept it. The old road ended after a very short distance, but I climbed on to the crest of the hill and was able to see where the trail would end. In the photograph (left) the buildings are the headquarters of Bottle Ranch. The trail crosses Ash Creek and ends at FR 531 just to the left of the ranch not far below the end of the row of bare cottonwood trees shown above the ranch buildings.

From my vantage point, it was now obvious that we should have continued along the well-worn cattle trail which would logically have ended at or near the Ash Creek crossing. I later traced the most likely route on to our trails end at FR 531 and found it to be an additional 0.5 miles.

My track to the crest of the hill where I photographed Bottle Ranch is shown in blue on the map excerpt (right). The darker track from the end of the deviation (blue track) on to the junction of the trail with FR 531, a 0.5 mile section, is an estimated track drawn by the author. The light green is the estimated GPS track we used as a guide for the hike. The bright red track is part of our recorded GPS track.

The below photograph shows Collene Maktenieks (left) and Lila Wright (right) returning along the short section of old road that we unwisely left the well-worn cattle trail to follow. They are almost lost in the surrounding expanse of chaparral.

Collene and Lila following an old road along a chaparral-covered hillside

It was now after 1200 and we decided that, if we were to return home by way of FR 132 so as to complete our goal of verifying road conditions between the end of Ash Creek Trail at FR 531 and the beginning of Ash Canyon Trail at FR 123, we needed to start back now. I would just have to estimate the remaining 0.5 miles of Powell Spring Trail. Hence the dark red line on the map insert shown on the previous page.

Because we now had a better grasp of the terrain and could avoid some of the errors we made on the hike from Powell Spring Campground, our trip back was a lot faster. We spent some time on this return hike looking for evidence of past trail-making activities. We did find a few old blazes and some branches that had been trimmed long ago. Otherwise there was little to indicate that the trail had ever existed.

Evidence of long ago trail maintenance

 Ancient blazes showing the way

The wash on this side of the pass was sometimes fairly wide and grassy as opposed to the mostly sandy floor enclosed on both sides by close-growing chaparral found on the eastern slope.

Loren Pritzel looking up the wash just below Walnut Spring

On the way up the eastern slope we had seen what we thought might have been an old road (or trail) running along the hillside south of the wash we were following. Then shortly after we started down the wash on the western side of the pass, we had noted what might have been some sort of trail running up a side wash toward the same area. Not wanting to overlook the possibility that the old trail had actually been located above the wash, I insisted that on the return trip we follow the side wash up the hill to investigate. Unfortunately, the old road turned out to have been a mirage. We found only thick chaparral on the hillside where we had imagined an old road.

I corrected sections of track where we deviated from the best route by replacing them with more accurate sections recorded while hiking in the opposite direction. So, for instance, the track recorded on our detour to the corral was replaced by the route recorded on the return trip. Likewise, the detour on the way back to look for an old road was replaced by the track recorded while hiking in the opposite direction.

Although, due to the additional distance added by detours and side trips, we actually hiked about 6.7 miles, the round trip trail distance when cleaned up is only 6.0 miles. The cleaned up GPS track for our hike is shown in red on the included map (next page).

As planned, we returned home by way of FR 132, FR 413 FR 104 and Hwy 89A through Jerome. The road between Powell Spring Campground and Ash Canyon Trailhead on FR 132 was in good condition, suitable for any high-clearance vehicle.