Long Canyon Trail to Long Canyon Tank

The author and thirteen other hikers left Cottonwood at 0800 on 26 March 2016 to hike on Long Canyon Trail. We planned to hike to Long Canyon Tank, about three miles from the trailhead at Forest Road 618H, and return. To reach the trailhead, we drove east on SR 260 to I-17 and turned north. We exited I-17 at the SR 179 exit and turned right to follow FR 618 across Wet Beaver Creek to the junction with FR 618H. The road is paved all the way to the FR 618H turnoff which is, itself, a well-maintained dirt road. About 0.7 miles after turning onto FR 618H, we came to the Long Canyon Trailhead. Parking is on the left side of the road and a chain is stretched across the road limiting access beyond this point to those with business at Southwest Academy. A gate (right), providing access to the trail, is located on the right.

The trail runs up to the mesa, now looming high above us, that lies between Deadwood Draw and the Canyon that carries Wet Beaver Creek and we knew that we had a steep climb ahead. A trailhead sign (left) posted a few yards from the gate warned us that the trail would be difficult to follow after the first two miles. Lettering on the sign that said “Bell Trail #13 – 10 miles” was confusing and I never determined the meaning. If intended to provide the length of Bell Trail, it is incorrect. Bell Trail, according to the Forest Service description¹, is 11 miles long, ending at Forest Road 214 about a mile east of Cedar Flat Tank. However, all other sources I found, including the Coconino National Forest Motor Vehicle Usage Map² and Garmin's Topo U.S. 24K Southwest map³ show it ending at Roundup Basin Tank which would make it around 7.6 miles long. It also couldn't mean that it was 10 miles by way of Long Canyon Trail to Bell Trail because, although both trails, on most maps, do end at Roundup Basin Tank, that is only about 7.8 miles.

As we continued along the trail, we found ourselves climbing steeply along a rough, rocky trail. It was a much more difficult hike than we had expected and two of our hikers turned back before we reached the top of the mesa. The rest of us continued on our way, going quite slowly and resting often. Flowers were a good excuse to stop and we paused frequently to admire those found along the way. Just a short distance up the trail we noted a bunch of blackfoot daisies (below left) followed closely by a somewhat scraggly globemallow (below right).

Blackfoot daisies                     Globemallow

As implied by the trailhead sign, the trail was easy to follow as we made our way toward the rim of the mesa. Behind us we had an ever-changing view, at first of the Wet Beaver Creek and the area around the Beaver Creek Ranger Station, then, as we climbed higher, of Capitol Butte, on the other side of Sedona, as it gradually became visible above White Mesa. The photograph (below) shows this view.

Looking back from the shelf below the rim of the mesa

The above photograph was taken somewhere around the first of two steep climbs required to reach the top of the mesa. As can be seen in the map insert (below), the first climb is followed by a fairly level hike along a ridge before a second steep climb to the rim of the mesa.

Map insert showing two sharp climbs to reach the rim of the mesa

As we continued up the trail to the mesa we could at times look down on the campus of Southwest Academy, nestled alongside Wet Beaver Creek at the old Beaver Creek Ranch Headquarters. You may find either of those names, sometimes both, depending on what map you are using. I later did a little online research and found the following description:

Southwestern Academy is a nonprofit, coeducational college preparatory school for grades 6-12, with two campuses—one in San Marino, California, and the other in Rimrock, Arizona, USA. The school is accredited by WASC. The school offers boarding and day enrollment for 145 students for grades 6-12 in San Marino and 40 students for grades 9-12 at the Rimrock campus. A year of postgraduate studies is offered at both campuses. Students can transfer between the two campuses. The school was founded in 1924 by Maurice Veronda, father of the current headmaster, Kenneth Veronda.⁴

The school was founded, as noted above, in 1924 in San Marino, California. The Arizona campus, at the old Beaver Creek Ranch, was added in 1963. The ranch was homesteaded in the 1880s by the Casner family; the Broken A-4 brand was registered for the ranch in 1889. The present stone buildings were constructed after the ranch became a private hunting lodge in 1929. Southwestern Academy opened at the site in 1963⁵.

The sign at the trailhead had warned that the trail became indistinct after 2 miles and at 1.7 miles we found another sign (right) indicating that we had arrived at that spot.

I set the scale on my GPS to 120 feet to make sure we didn't inadvertently deviate too far from the downloaded track we were following. As it turned out, however, we really didn't need the GPS track which, in any case, turned out to vary as much as 0.2 miles from the actual trail. We just followed the well-traveled cattle trail. We assumed that the cows knew the most direct path to the tank we were aiming for. They did, however, tend to wander a bit, shifting the trail so that it passed under low-lying tree branches (below left) to brush off flies. But the general direction never varied; they were headed to the watering hole. Verifying our decision to follow the cattle trail instead of the GPS track, we found ancient wire-bound cairns (below right) at intervals all along the way.

Trail detours to pass under limbs              Old wire-bound cairns        

We had started the hike climbing a steep slope covered with juniper and a variety of low-growing plants such as cactus, snakeweed and cliffrose. Now we were hiking along an essentially level trail with widely-spaced junipers and pinon pines growing in high desert grassland. We knew that the area was grazed by antelope as well as cows but we saw neither. We did, however, find some fairly recent droppings from both (right) scattered along the trail.

From the top of the mesa as we neared Long Canyon Tank we had an excellent view to the north, across the canyon that carries Wet Beaver Creek and on to the San Francisco Peaks in the far distance.

Looking north from Long Canyon Trail on the mesa near Long Canyon Tank

It was almost noon when we arrived at Long Canyon Tank (below) and we stopped there for lunch.

Long Canyon Tank – a dreary-looking place but it did have water

We still had not reached Long Canyon; its rim was at least another half mile to the east, as shown in the map insert (below). As the map shows, were we to follow Long Canyon Trail to its end at Roundup Basin Tank, we would hike along the canyon's western rim for some distance and then cross it to meet with Bell Trail which also, according to most of the maps I consulted, ends at Roundup Basin Tank.

The magenta line shows Long Canyon Trail from Long Canyon Tank to its end at Roundup Basin Trail – most of this track was downloaded from HikeArizona.com

On our way back we passed the only standard trail marker (below left) we saw on this hike. We pushed right along and were starting the descent from the mesa rim (below right) by 1340.

Trail 63 Marker                       Hikers starting the descent

On our way back down Daisy pointed out a really nice indigo plant (below left) that I had not seen on the way up and, when we were almost at the bottom of the trail, we passed through a patch of unusually aromatic cliffrose bushes. I stopped to photograph one of them (below right). It was certainly not the most impressive specimen we saw but others were too far off the trail and I was tired.

Indigo plant                             Cliffrose                   

My pack had become unbalanced when we stopped just before we began the last steep descent. I had removed a filled thermos and apparently restowed it improperly causing it to list to the right. Being too pig-headed to stop and correct the problem, thus descending with an unbalanced load, I found that I had some very sore muscles and was walking with a decided list to starboard when I got back to the trailhead.

The total hike distance was 6.6 miles, the highest elevation was 5126 feet and the total ascent was 1296 feet.

Our GPS Track is shown in red on the included map (following). The cyan track at the top is Bell Trail and the dark magenta track continuing east from Long Canyon Tank is the continuation of Long Canyon Trail as it makes its way to Roundup Basin Tank.

1http://www.fs.usda.gov/recarea/coconino/recreation/hiking/recarea/?recid=55234&actid=50

2 http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprd3834451.pdf

3 http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-MapSource-Southwest-Topographic-Coverage/dp/B001RYK0JE

4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southwestern_Academy

5 http://www.southwesternacademy.edu/pdfs/StudHdbk%202015-16.pdf

Hike to Thirteen-Mile Rock Butte

On 21 March 2016, Jim Manning led a hike that included the author and six others to the top of Thirteen-Mile Rock Butte. We left Cottonwood at about 0800, drove east on SR 260 through Camp Verde and parked alongside the highway just 16.2 miles from the I-17/SR 260 interchange in Camp Verde.

Thirteen-Mile Rock, a marker on the General Crook Trail, is actually located about a tenth of a mile west of the parking area and we briefly paused there, in a spacious, graveled area, to read a sign posted by the Camp Verde Historical Society in conjunction with the Coconino National Forest. The sign identifies and explains the significance of the rock. The inscription reads:

Each mile was marked on the trail from Camp Verde to Camp Apache by the soldiers under General George Crook.

First traveled in 1871, the road was improved and used by wagons in 1873. It was the principal supply route from Fort Whipple at Prescott to Camp Verde and Camp Apache.

The following information is from an Arizona State Parks online article titled General Crook Road¹:

In 1871, General George Crook came to Arizona Territory as Commander of the Department of Arizona. His orders were to subdue the Indians of the Territory and place them on reservations. General Crook realized at once that in order to accomplish this goal he must be able to move troops and supplies into the haunts of the Indians with swiftness and surprise.

In August of that year, General Crook left Fort Apache with a unit of cavalry troops to locate and mark a supply road from Fort Apache to Fort Whipple in Prescott. As they moved westerly across the Mogollon Rim, then called Black Mesa, Crook realized quickly that he must stay close to the edge of the escarpment, otherwise, when he moved north, he encountered deep and rugged canyons. It was rough going but the trekkers found water in small lakes. Crook pushed on, and in early September of 1871, he reached Fort Whipple in Prescott. Actual construction of a road started in the spring of 1872. By 1873, supplies began moving by pack train from Fort Verde to Fort Apache. One year later in September 1874, the first wagon supply train left Fort Whipple for Fort Apache. Martha Summerhayes, the first woman to travel over the road, was on that trip. She later wrote the book, Vanished Arizona, telling of her experiences on the road and describing her travels in Arizona Territory.

During the next twenty-two years, Crook Road was used by troops patrolling across the Territory and the northern boundary of the Apache Reservation. The road was in continual use for thirty-two more years, until the Rim Road was built in 1928.

But our purpose on this hike was not primarily to hike on a section of General Crook Trail; it was rather to ascend to the summit of Thirteen-Mile Butte. To do this, we would first ascend the ridge that lies behind the butte, connecting it with the Mogollon Rim escarpment, and then follow the ridge back to the butte summit which towered some 500 feet above us on the north side of SR 260. Along the way, we would follow old roads, including parts of Crook Trail, and cow paths and also do some straightforward bushwhacking along the spine of the ridge.

Leaving the 13-Mile Rock sign behind, we continued about another tenth of a mile to our parking area, arriving at about 0840. We parked for the hike at a wide shoulder between two rocks on the south side of the highway. Just across the road is an access point for Crook Trail, as well as for Strawberry Road², a later but now abandoned road, that paralleled Crook Trail up the ridge at a more gentle gradient.

Crossing the road, we scrambled up the steep, rocky slope on the other side and crossed a fence. A pedestrian gate was once provided at this spot; however it has since been removed and is lying on the ground, having been replaced by fixed strands of barbed wire. Nevertheless, the fence was easy enough to crawl through and we soon found ourselves on the other side.

From this point, the hiker can take the abandoned Strawberry Road, heading in a northeast direction, and hike up the ridge at a rather gentle slope. On the other hand, General Crook Trail can be accessed by climbing around some large rocks straight ahead. One then travels northwest for about 0.1 mile before turning to the northeast at a higher level along the ridge. If this route is chosen, one arrives at another decision point as shown in the photograph (right) after climbing a further 0.1 mile.

We chose the easier route and followed Old Strawberry Road up the slope, passing numerous old bits of broken culvert along the way. One of these (left) was composed of two-foot sections fitted together to form the desired length. None of the several culverts we saw were still in operation, having either been washed out or filled in at the uphill side. There were no signs of the road ever having been paved and I think it may have preceded an old General Crook Trail Road that was in turn replaced by SR 260.

We saw a few flowers along the way. Among them a colorful stand of Indian paintbrush (below left) and a ceanothus shrub in full bloom (below right).

                               Indian Paintbrush                     Ceanothus shrub

From the old road we could look down on 13-Mile Tank, long breached, and now certainly dry. Thirteen-Mile Spring, possibly still a water source, is located about 0.2 miles below the spring.

Thirteen-Mile Tank

After 1.6 miles on Old Strawberry Road we came to the top of the ridge, the point at which Crook Trail joins the road and is contiguous with it for the next 1.1 miles going east. But that was not our route; we left the trail and walked about a 100 yards directly to the edge of the ridge for a view into Black Mountain Canyon and the rugged mountains to the north.

Looking to the rugged mountains across Black Mountain Canyon

Returning to Crook Trail we turned southwest, soon making another detour, this time on a dead-end road, for another look to the north. About 0.2 miles, not counting the two detours, from the intersection of Old Strawberry Road and Crook Trail, we came to a fork (right) in the road we were following. The path to the left was Crook Trail; however, we chose to go right because the official trail is, as can be seen, quite rocky and wherever the other trail ended we had only to continue along the crest of the ridge to reach our goal. That turned out to be a good decision because the smooth dirt road continued for a good distance and when it did end we found ourselves hiking through open, grassy country broken only by scattered junipers.

Had we taken the rocky Crook Trail, we would have come to another fork about 0.5 miles ahead. I photographed this fork (below left), along with the remains of a sign (below right) identifying the left fork as the easier route down the slope, on a December 2014 hike. Having hiked the upper trail in 2008, I chose the lower trail for the 2014 hike, finding it much easier. Since we had chosen a route for today's hike that bypassed this section of Crook Trail altogether and were anyway continuing on to Thirteen-Mile Rock Butte Summit, we had no choice to make.

                               Original Trail to right;             Sign once posted at the fork

                                  easier trail at left

That detour from the trail added an extra 0.1 miles to our hike but allowed us to avoid most of the rocky upper trail. We returned to the official Crook Trail at a trail marker (left) just 0.9 miles after leaving it and just before we dipped into a saddle that rose on the other side to Thirteen-Mile Rock Butte Summit.

Continuing southwest on upper Crook Trail, we came, after another 0.1 miles, to the place where the trail turns sharply down hill, joining first with the easier lower Crook Trail and then finally with Old Strawberry Road where we started our hike. However, saving that for later we left the trail and continued on our southwest course, now following old cow paths. Luckily there were not too many trees with low growing branches of the sort that cows tend to use for brushing flies off their backs, so we had little trouble following these readymade paths all the way to the summit. The top of the butte has two separate high spots, lined up in a northeast to southwest direction. We climbed first to the north-easternmost high spot, beyond the rocks shown in the photograph (below), still about 120 feet below the summit, and stopped there for an early lunch, eating just before 1100. Somehow, the cows had found way up and around the rocks shown below to reach the grass above.

Ascent to the northeastern part of the butte.

After lunch, we continued across a small saddle to climb to the summit, which rises to an elevation of 5520 feet. We found a survey marker (right) mounted in a rock outcropping at the highest point. No elevation was engraved on the marker but my map indicated it was 5520 feet and my GPS read the elevation as 5516 feet. From this position we had a view all the way from Pine Mountain in the southwest to Black Hills in the west and on to the San Francisco Peaks in the north. Having recently hiked some new trails in the Black Hills Mountain Range, l was particularly interested in the comprehensive view of that range, anchored in the northwest by Woodchute Mountain and in the southwest by Pine Mountain. As shown in the photograph (below), Mingus Mountain, Copper Canyon and Squaw Peak all stood out prominently in between those two anchors. With a pair of binoculars one could make out the antlike progress of vehicles making their way along the interstate highway as it snakes its way up Copper Canyon.

Looking across Verde Valley to the Black Hills

I watched closely for any flowers that might be found on the way back and did note a few such as Wright's deervetch (below left) and goatsbeard (below right).

                               Wright's deervetch                  Yellow goatsbeard seed

Growing at the very top of the butte, near the survey marker, we saw a banana yucca (below left) that was in the process of opening up. On the way back to the saddle where would rejoin Crook Trail for the descent we found a verbena plant (below right) growing alongside a line of rocks that apparently formed part of the foundation of an ancient fortification.

                               Banana yucca                           Verbena

I had been a little disappointed in the number and quality of flowers we had found on the hike so far but, after we rejoined Crook Trail and started our descent back to our cars, we saw a few more. Such as the milkweed antelope horn (below left), standing all alone awaiting the first monarch butterfly of the season and one fairly decent clump of mallow (below right) growing at the lower fork between the original Crook Trail and the “Later Wagon Reroute.”

                               Antelope horn                           Mallow

The hike had gone pretty much as Jim had planned and we were back at our cars by 1245, having hiked 5.1 miles as recorded by my GPS. Our maximum elevation for the hike was 5552 feet, recorded at the point where Old Strawberry Road joins with Crook Trail atop the ridge, and the total ascent was 1195 feet.

To properly display our GPS track for this hike and place the different trails discussed in the report in perspective, I have included parts of GPS tracks from three separate hikes on the included map (following). The first track, recorded on 21 March 2016 and shown in red, follows the route we took on this most recent hike; the second track, recorded on 4 December 2014 and shown in green, follows the lower wagon road and the third track, recorded on 10 May 2008 and shown in blue, follows the part of the original Crook Trail not included in either of the other two hikes.

1 http://azstateparks.com/trails/historic/trail_08.html

2Garmin's Topo U.S. 24K Southwest map. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/Garmin-MapSource-Southwest-Topographic-Coverage/dp/B001RYK0JE

Wilbur Canyon North Rim Loop

Twelve Skyliners gathered at 0800 on 19 March 2016 for the last winter hike of the year. Tomorrow would be the first day of spring, the earliest since 1896. The Vernal Equinox marking the event actually would occur today at 2040, making tomorrow the first full day of the spring season.

Leaving Cottonwood, we drove 4.7 miles east on SR 260 and turned right on Forest Road 147 (This forest road may not be marked but the turnoff is almost directly across the highway from Thousand Trails Road which is marked.) Shortly after turning onto FR 147, an old road leads off to the left. It is only a stub, being a remainder of Old SR 279 (since replaced by SR 260). FR 147 then turns to the right and ends at a fork, the left fork being FR 361 and the right being FR 360. We chose the right fork, heading northwest, because it crosses Wilbur Canyon and then turns up the north rim of the canyon, forming the first leg of our loop hike.

Since passing the turnoff that I said was a stub of Old SR 279 we had actually been following the course of that old road, at first for a short distance on FR 147, then after the fork, on FR 360. We now continued across Wilbur Canyon on FR 360/Old SR 279 and parked at a fork in the road where FR 360 turns to run in the southwest direction along the rim of the canyon. The old SR 279 Road (see magenta track at right) continues straight ahead, now becoming FR 9604D, a designation it keeps as it continues across Black Canyon and on to a junction with FR 359 (Ogden Ranch Road), which it crosses and continues as Old SR 279, now a paved road, until it reaches East Arrowhead Lane in Verde Village 7. There it connects with Camino Real which runs on into Cottonwood to end at Main Street (SR 89A) just 0.2 miles from the intersection of SR 89A and SR 260.

Leaving our cars parked at the junction of FR 360 with FR 9604D, we donned our packs and headed up the Wilbur Canyon rim on FR 360. Although we would ascend about 750 feet as we followed FR 360 toward the Black Hills, we had 3.5 miles in which to do it and the slope was gradual. We scarcely noted that we were climbing.

The steepest and roughest section of FR 360 running up the Wilbur Canyon rim

Although the day had started out just a bit chilly, the sun was now bearing down and we were all in shirtsleeves. The warm sun and the fact that spring was upon us meant that we should be seeing wild flowers, so we started looking for them. Unfortunately, except for patches of blackfoot daisies, flowers were few. I did find one particularly attractive clump of daisies (below left) and a somewhat faded verbena (below right) as made our way up the road.

Blackfoot daisy                      Verbena

 At about 1000 we reached the junction with Forest Road 9710H, which we would follow for 0.4 miles to connect with FR 9406C for the trip back down the mountain.

Junction of FR 360 (left fork) and FR 9710H (right fork)

The left fork in the road shown in the above photograph is FR 360 which continues for another 0.8 miles, crossing Wilbur Canyon and ending at a place called Goat Camp Springs. Wilbur Canyon, itself continues west-southwest for about another mile and then turns to run south to its origin below Cherry Peak in the Black Hills.

Before continuing our hike, we stopped in a shady spot at the junction of the forest roads for a short rest, a snack and to pose for the group photograph shown here (below). The author, acting as photographer, does not appear in the group photograph but is shown separately (left), lounging under a tree.

Left to right: Dolly Yapp, Floyd Gardner, Jim McGinnis, Ellen McGinnis, Betty Wolters,Karl Sink, Joanne Hennings, Collene Maktenieks, Jim Gibson, Daisy Williams and Jim Manning

From the junction, FR 9710H led us 0.3 miles west southwest before turning northwest by north for 0.1 mile to the junction with FR 9604C. At this point FR 9710H becomes ATV Trail 514 (note, however, that the Prescott National Forest Motor Vehicle Usage Map shows FR 9710H extending for another 100 yards and also shows ATV Trail 514 as ATV Trail 509).

In another deviation from the Motor Vehicle Usage Map, which shows our intended return path, FR 9604C, as open to motorized vehicle traffic with camping permitted all along the way, the road is now blocked off and closed to all motorized vehicles. At the beginning of the closed section of road, the roadbed is filled with brush cut from manzanita shrubs, as shown in the photograph (left).

This closure didn't, at first, appear to be a serious problem for us as we were on foot, not using motorized vehicles. We just continued on our way, following the old roadbed as closely as possible. Hiking did become a bit more difficult as the manzanita was supplanted by catclaw plants growing closely alongside the old road. These plants are vicious, seemingly reaching out to snare the unwary passerby. Once caught by the plant's grasping, clawlike hooks, any attempt to pull loose is met by even deeper penetration. The victim's only recourse is to stop and patiently release the claws one by one. Even then it is not uncommon to find that, while working to free an arm or leg, another part of ones anatomy has been ensnared.

As we descended the mountain, plant growth changed and thinned. We left the manzanitas behind and were surrounded by scrub oak, ceanothus and other desert plants. The larger junipers appeared to have been removed some time ago, probably in an attempt to encourage the growth of grass for grazing. The plants that had been cut and piled on the old roadbed changed to reflect what was available and also became more sparse.

Our view stretched across the Verde Valley to the Mogollon Rim in the distance. Below is shown a view looking north across the upper valley toward Sycamore Canyon with a slice of the Black Hills to the left and a bit of the Mogollon Rim to the right

View looking across upper Verde Valley toward Sycamore Canyon

We also saw a few more flowers. Shown below are a solitary desert marigold (left) and a desert hyacinth (right)

Desert marigold           Desert hyacinth

A total of 2.2 miles of FR 9604C, from its start at the intersection with FR9710H to Goddard Tank Two, was closed off. Near the lower end, when vegetation to cut and place in the roadbed had become very sparse, the Forest Service had used an entirely different, but very effective, technique. They had simply used some sort of power shovel to scoop large buckets of soil from one track of the road and deposit them in the adjacent track. They had alternated scooping from one side to the other, so that each track of the road now consists of alternating humps and pits. Each pit in a track is matched by a hump in the adjacent track. This alternating hump and pit pattern can be seen in the photograph (below).

Alternating pits and humps used closing a section of FR 9604C to motorized traffic

Climbing in and out of the pits and over the humps made hiking a bit tedious; on the other hand vegetation had now thinned out so that we could just walk alongside the old road a large part of the time.

When we reached Goddard Tank Two the road closure ended and the remaining 1.8 miles of FR 9604C back to FR 9604D, being used to access the tank, was now in good condition.

Just one mile below Goddard Tank Two, where an overhead powerline crosses the road we found the other (unmarked) end of ATV Trail 514 (or 509). We could have taken that trail from the top and avoided the closed section of FR 9604C. However, it would have been 2.1 miles farther than the way we came.

When we arrived at the end of FR 9604C where it joins FR 9604D (old SR 279) we were just 0.3 miles from our cars and could see them clearly on the far bank of the wash we had looped around on this hike. As a reminder of its past import-ance as a major thorough-fare we noted a small section of pavement (right) still existent on the Old SR 279 roadbed.

We were soon back at our vehicles and ready to head home. I had driven my pickup because I intended to return home by way of Old SR 279. By that route it was only about 3.8 miles to my home in Verde Village 7.

The total hike distance was 8.2 miles, the highest elevation was 4209 feet and the total ascent was 919 feet.

Our GPS track is shown in red on the included map (below).

Windmill Mountain Hike

Windmill Mountain, rising to 4849 feet at its highest point, is not a very impressive sight from a distance. Cockscomb and Doe Mountain to the northeast are both slightly higher and sport attractive red cliffs as opposed to Windmill Mountain's drab juniper-covered slopes. It does rise slightly higher than nearby Rosies Volcano, 1.7 miles to the east and Windmill Mountain has one very attractive feature that makes a climb to its summit worthwhile: standing apart from other formations in the area, it has spectacular 360 degree views.

We had considered a hike on the mountain for some time and George Everman and I did an initial scouting hike last November, climbing up the southwest slope from Forest Road 525. That, however, turned out to be a very short hike, only 1.3 miles round trip, and all of it was bushwhacking through scattered junipers and thick stands of cactus. From near the top we could see that a series of old roads, apparently used by ranchers to service tanks in the area, led in from the area of the Sedona Wastewater Plant located on SR 89A.

A few days later while returning home from a hike in the Sedona area, we stopped at the entrance to the wastewater treatment plant and hiked about half a mile along an old road just to make sure we could access the mountain from that point. We decided that we could do so and scheduled the hike without further ado.

When we gathered on 12 March 2016 at the Cottonwood Safeway parking lot, the sky was cloudy and a chill wind was blowing. But the weather forecast promised clearing skies starting about noon and we pressed on undeterred. Leaving Cottonwood, we drove north on SR 89A and turned right onto Forest Road 9845A, directly across the highway from the entrance to the wastewater plant. A spacious parking area is located alongside the forest road at the junction with SR 89A, so we parked there and crossed the road to start our hike.

The actual entry to the wastewater facility is set back several yards from the highway and a parking area is provided to the right of the entry gate. We didn't park there because one of our hikers told us that a friend had recently been ticketed for parking in that area.

In the below photograph, the entry gate to the facility is shown at left, the graveled parking area is shown to the right of the driveway, behind the white street address sign, and the dirt road that we would follow to start our hike is shown in the foreground at right.

Start of Windmill Mountain hike at 7500 W SR 89A (Sedona Wastewater Treatment Plant). The dirt road at right is the start of the hike.

I had laid out a track that would allow us to follow an old road up the mountain as far as possible. That turned out to be a distance of 1.3 miles from where we parked. We then followed a track I had drawn along the spine of a ridge, running in the northwest-southeast direction, that ascends at a moderate slope to reach the relatively flat area on top of the mountain at the northeast corner. I had chosen the spine of the ridge because the cactus that grows profusely all over the mountain would likely be less dense there and because it a less steep ascent. As it turned out we were able to follow the track almost exactly, deviating only to avoid thick stands of cactus and a few large rock ledges.

As we approached the point where we would leave the old road and hike up the ridge spine, we paused to look at some familiar nearby landmarks. Lined up from the left (right) are Doe Mountain, the Cockscomb and Rosies Volcano.

We saw a couple of deer moving horizontally along the slope as we approached the mountain and found deer tracks just about everywhere we looked. Near the top of the mountain we flushed a cottontail rabbit from his hiding place in a tangle of brush and cactus.

There was a lot of desert hyacinth in bloom, usually only a single stalk at a time, although I did note one spot where several bunched stalks had pushed up together from behind a rock. Unfortunately, the blooms were not yet well-developed enough for a good photograph. There were also a few banana yucca plants (left) scattered among the cacti.

The wind was blowing steadily during the first part of the hike and, looking for shelter, we chose a spot just below the rim for a snack break. That seemed to work well enough; however, when we climbed on up to the rim after our break, we found that the wind had died down and the sun was struggling to break through the cloud cover.

The essentially flat top of the mountain is a roughly oval-shaped area, orientated almost north-south but with the top bulging to the northeast as though pulled by some unseen force. The area, varying in elevation by no more than about 50 feet, measures about 440 yards long and 120 yards wide at its greatest dimensions. It was covered with grass, isolated patches of scrub oak and scattered junipers. Prickly pear cactus was also present, though growing in smaller, more widely-scattered patches than we had contended with on the climb to the summit.

As expected we had a commanding view in all directions; however, because of the scattered junipers growing on the mountain top, not in all directions from the same point. I thought the most appealing view was to be had looking north-northwest. In this photograph (below) the view extends from Black Mountain at the left to Oak Creek Canyon at the right.

Looking north-northwest from the top of Windmill Mountain

I wondered how the mountain came to be named Windmill. We saw nothing indicating that a windmill had ever existed at the top of the mountain. That does not, of course, mean that one did not once exist there or further down on its slope. Other uses of the name in the area, according to the USGS National Topo Map, are Windmill Ranch which lies about 1.6 miles miles west by southwest of the summit and Windmill Tank about one mile away in the east-southeast direction.

It was too early to eat lunch at the summit, especially as we had just eaten our midmorning snack, so we decided to gather for a group photograph and then head back down the mountain. In the below photograph the hikers are posed with the red rock flanks of Bear Mountain, below a still-cloudy sky, showing in the background.

Left to right: Anita Jackson, Jim Manning, Daisy Williams (front), Joanne Hennings, Roger Fenske, Dolly Yapp (front), Karl Sink, Lila Wright, Collene Maktenieks (front), Jim Gibson (rear), Karalee Schmidt and Mary Beth Hopperstead

I had laid out a return path down the south slope of the mountain that, according to the map I was using, Arizona Topo, downloaded from GPSFileDepot¹, would lead us to an old road which would in turn connect us to the route we had followed at the start of the hike. At that point we would be just one mile from where we had parked and could simply retrace the path we had followed before.

As fate would have it, we came immediately to one of the most sturdy, well-constructed barbed wire fences I have ever seen. The wires running between the steel posts had regularly-spaced wooden spacers and boulders were affixed to the bottom wires to hold them tautly in place. We could, with a bit of effort, have crossed the fence and followed the track I had drawn; but the entire south slope was steep and covered with dense patches of cactus. As it really didn't seem to make much difference what route we took, we just followed the fence line down the mountain, deviating often to find a path between clumps of cactus.

We soon realized that we should simply have returned by the route we had used on the way up the mountain. But that would now mean climbing back to the top, so we forged ahead, gathering cactus spines along the way. One particularly nasty spine inserted itself into my boot through the leather upper just above the sole. It was placed so that it only bothered me when I put my foot down at a certain angle, so I just lived with it for the remainder of the hike.

When we arrived at the foot on Windmill Mountain, it appeared that we would need to cross the fence after all to connect to the old road I had identified on the Arizona Topo map. I crossed the fence by lying on my side close to it, lifting the bottom wire, pushing my back, under the wire and then simply rolling over. This is my favorite method for crossing fences. Usually I can accomplish it without even removing my pack. About half of the group followed me across at this spot.

Jim Manning, on the other hand, noting a power line that crossed the fence about 100 yards away, investigated and found a service gate. He, along with the rest of the group, simply walked through the gate. We regrouped on the other side and set a course to intersect my hand- drawn track at the closest point.

This required us to climb to the top of a small knob across which the old road shown on my map ran. On arriving at the top of the knob we found that the old road simply wasn't there and there was no indication that it had ever existed. I was disappointed and quite surprised, as I had even verified the route using another map, Desert Southwest, from the same source. I later noted that Garmin's Topo U.S. 24K Southwest map shows the road running in a different area. But we had already crossed that track and found nothing, although Lila later told me that she had noted what was likely a part of that road running along the ridge east of our course as we neared the spot where we stopped for lunch. I will just call the road I was trying to follow a “ghost road.”

The red track on the included map shows our track to the summit and my advice to anyone hiking to the summit of Windmill Mountain is to return the same way. The blue track running between the summit and the point labeled “End of ghost road” is my intended return route. The copper-colored track, running down the mountain between the blue and red tracks is our actual return route. Finally, the short magenta track running between the labels “Lunch at ghost road” and “Rejoin track” is a part of the ghost road as well as being part of our return route.

The total hike distance was 4.5 miles by the route we actually took. Had we returned by the same route we took on the way to the summit, it would have been 4.8 miles. That extra 0.3 miles is well worth doing to avoid the steep, cactus-infested south slope of the mountain. The highest elevation, as recorded by my GPS, for this hike was was 4643 feet and the total ascent was 899 feet.

1 https://www.gpsfiledepot.com/