Rosie's Volcano

Fourteen hikers turned out for our 17 January 2015 hike, not as many as last Saturday when we were 18 strong, but more than usual. We normally number somewhere between 7 and 10 and have never had a turnout of more than 21 or 22. We are an informal group with no dues and little in the way of rules. We don't allow dogs because they are just too much trouble on the trail when hiking in groups. Other than that, we just obey such standard rules as avoiding losing contact with the group. This is primarily done by asking each hiker to be aware of the location of the next hiker in line.

For this hike to Rosie's Volcano, an area with a lot of social trails and not one official trail, we would use a tailgater, a hiker who brings up the rear to make sure no one wanders off the trail taken by the main group. Dave Beach and George Everman alternated in performing this task.

I was unable to find any specific information on this volcanic cone but, located about a mile to the north, slightly northeast of the Dry Creek Bridge on Hwy 89A, it is easy. Finding the start of the trail leading to its top is another matter. One continues for another 0.8 miles after crossing Dry Creek Bridge and turns left on the road that runs between Sedona Pines Resort and Sedona Shadows 55+ manufactured home community. The name of the road is Red Moon Drive; however, I don't know that the name is posted in an obvious location. Less than 0.1 mile from the highway one must turn left onto 

Sunset Hills Drive, continue for about 0.4 miles and turn right onto Pine Drive, not obviously marked, at the sign (right). Sunset Hills Drive itself turns slightly left and continues across Dry Creek. Once on Pine Drive you must immediately turn left onto Loop Drive (left). After turning onto Loop Drive continue for 0.1 mile to a small parking and rest area located on the left side of the street. There is room for four vehicles if you squeeze them in tightly. The rest area is clean and orderly like everything else in this well-maintained community.

While we were disembarking and donning our backpacks, a voice greeted us saying, “Have a nice hike.” After some searching we found that the voice belonged to a lady hidden in the shadows on a porch across the street. She then crossed the street carrying a hat that she thought one of the hikers might be able to use. Apparently she was in the process of moving and didn't need it anymore. It was a nice gesture, but we had all brought adequate headgear with us, so we politely declined. Whereupon she hung her hat on a post and left.

A dyke, with a concrete block wall on its top, has been erected along the bank of Dry Creek to protect the community from floodwaters. We needed to cross Dry Creek to reach the volcano so we climbed the provided cross-tie steps (right) to check for a way to the other side.

Atop the dyke, we found a nice walking path, apparently running the entire length of the structure. The concrete block wall served to prevent walkers from falling down the steep bank on the other side and also, I suppose, as an additional protection against flooding. It was immediately obvious that we couldn't safely descend into the wash there, so we turned downstream toward the Sunset Hills crossing where we knew we would be able to descend into Dry Creek Wash. Along the way we could look down onto the neatly-tended back yards (left).

Looking ahead we could see the end of the dyke and a well-worn path leading back up the wash on the other side of the wall.

Walking path and concrete block wall atop the dyke

Just before we turned to descend into the wash we found a very healthy looking prickly pear cactus with odd-shaped leaves (right). Daisy told me it was a variety called cow's tongue or mother-in-law's tongue.

When we had descended into the wash and were headed back upstream, we found a well-worn trail along the wall of the dyke. Along this section of the hike we met a lone hiker out walking two dogs. The hiker gave us a cheery greeting and his dogs were friendly, but each found something to bark at, reminding us again why dogs are not a good idea with large groups.

We had two goals in mind for this hike. The first and primary one was of course to climb to the top of the old volcano. A secondary goal was to visit the small, red butte above the El Rojo Grande Ranch, sometimes known as Wrigley Ranch. We could now see both at a distance . The volcano as viewed from the dyke is shown below.

Rosie's Volcano seen from the dyke along Dry Creek Wash

Looking directly up the wash we could see the red butte marking the El Rojo Grande Ranch (left).

The trail we were following led us on past the area where we had parked and then turned and crossed the wash. Although hardly enough to wet our feet if we tried, we did find water in Dry Creek.

The trail, after crossing the creek, was still well-defined, showing fairly heavy usage by both hikers and equestrians. I did, however, take the wrong fork at one point and did not notice my error until it became obvious that we were deviating widely from a GPS track I had made six years ago. We corrected course and continued toward the saddle just to the right of the volcano (photograph above), judging that the climb from there would be less precipitous than elsewhere. At least part of the way we found that we were following along the track of an ancient wagon road.

Dave Beach, an avid bird watcher, had brought his binoculars and a birding book along to see how many birds he could identify. For the climb from the saddle, to avoid having the main party of hikers scare the birds away before he got a chance to see them, he went on ahead with one other hiker. The rest of us brought up the rear, pausing at each fork in the trail to let the slower hikers catch up and make sure we all kept to the same trail

After a stiff climb we all arrived at the top and settled in to enjoy the view while having an early lunch.

Left to right: Miriam Sterling, Pat McCue, Joanne Hennings, Dave Beach, Daisy Williams, John Ashworth, George Everman, Jill Ashworth, Anita Jackson, Lila Wright, Connie Woolard, Dolly Yapp and Karl Sink – photograph by the author

The below photograph shows the view from Mingus Mountain southwest of us to Black Mountain in the northwest. The mountain in the near distance with the pipeline scar running along its shoulder is, according to Google Earth, Windmill Mountain. Just a bit of Sycamore Gap is visible at the far right.

Mingus Mountain to Sycamore Gap as seen from atop Rosie's Volcano

Below is the view of red rock country from Sycamore Gap (just a sliver of Black Mountain shows at the extreme left) in the northwest to Cockscomb slightly northeast of our viewpoint. Lined up along the way, left to right are: Casner Mountain, Loy Butte, Bear Mountain and Doe Mountain (the flat-topped mesa just to the left of Cockscomb).

Sycamore Pass to Cockscomb from atop Rosie's Volcano

After lunch we headed back down the trail. Several of the faster hikers went on ahead with the agreement that they would wait for us on the saddle. We would be leaving the trail we had hiked in on just below the saddle so as to visit the small butte at El Rojo Grande Ranch. On a previous hike to the butte, we had come out between the butte itself and the red rock outcroppings behind it. But that was a pretty strenuous hike that so far as I could see yielded no advantage over hiking along a fairly distinct trail that would allow us to come out on top of the outcroppings. After all we certainly had no intention of actually climbing the butte and the top of the outcroppings looked to be easily accessible. So it was that we struck out cross country to connect with the trail that would take us there.

Although we probably expended some unnecessary effort by bushwhacking instead of just continuing along the trail we were on until it intersected with the one we wanted, we did find the trail and followed it to a saddle behind the outcroppings. The trail continued through the saddle and probably ended down below at the El Rojo Grande Ranch, but we turned off at the crest and had a fairly easy climb on up to the top. We could now look across a narrow, separating saddle to the red, cylindrical butte and also directly down onto the ranch headquarters buildings.

According to a July 2007 article in the Phoenix Business Journal¹, the 173-acre ranch is no longer owned by the Wrigley family but was sold due to a divorce. The article goes on to say that before selling the property one of the Wrigley heirs built a 6,700 square foot circular house there in 1994. The modern-looking stables were probably also constructed then. Sometime after that, the ranch was sold to members of the Hills Brothers Coffee family and was again listed for sale, in 2007, for $29,000,000. The article called it the El Rojo Grande Ranch while Google Earth labels it Dos Leos Ranch but also includes the name El Rojo Grande Ranch on the road leading to it.

We returned using the same trail we ascended on, but continued on past the point where we had joined it before. It led us into a saddle between the butte and a smaller outcropping just below. From that saddle we had our best view of the ranch. We could see very little of the house, located just right of center directly below Scheurman Mountain in the photograph below. Just to the left of the main house is what appears to be the caretakers house and just below that is a large green-roofed building, probably a barn. To the right of that, hidden by the trees, are two additional structures, matching the large building in style, that we presumed to be stables. Below and to the left of what I have called a barn can be seen a green meadow with a cluster of sheltered picnic tables located at its edge. Although the ranch is obviously set up as an equestrian facility we saw nothing to indicate that horses are presently stabled there.

El Rojo Grande Ranch

In summary, this appears to be a meticulously well-maintained “horseless” ranch that could be called Wrigley Ranch, Hills Brothers Ranch, El Rojo Grande Ranch or possible even Dos Leos Ranch.

We next turned our attention to the slender red butte. I had hoped that someone would be able to provide a name for it, but even Lila who has spent most of her life in the area didn't know. It has a very distinctive nose when viewed from the southwest, so we decided to just call it “Who Nose” Butte.

Who Nose Butte at El Rojo Grande Ranch

We followed the trail we were on down the spine of the hill until we intersected with Dry Creek Wash at the upper end of the dyke. We then continued down the wash to the lower end and exited where we had entered. As can be seen by the messy looking track at the bottom of the included map (next page), we returned to the parking area by way of Loop Drive rather than along the top of the dyke.

The red line is our GPS for this hike. The short blue line to the left of Who Nose Butte shows a path to take that should avoid bushwhacking altogether.

This hike was 4.0 miles total. The highest elevation was 4654 feet and the total ascent was 1126 feet.

1http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/stories/2007/07/16/daily8.html