From Squaw Peak Road to Salt mine Road

There are a number of interesting trails in the southeast section of the Black Hills Mountain Range south of Copper Canyon (the canyon followed by Interstate Hwy 17 going south from Camp Verde). I have hiked some of these trails beginning in early 2008 when I first started carrying a GPS to record my hikes with the Skyliners. I have written reports and recorded GPS tracks for the following hikes:

Chasm Creek #164

Tompkins Trail #513 (partial)

Ryal Canyon Trail #521

Goat Springs Trail #542

Lower Cedar Bench Trail #540

Oxbow Trail #163

Pine Mountain Verde Rim Loop (multiple trails)

We, Lila Wright and I, looked at the trails in the area while we were preparing the Skyliner's April 2016 schedule. We had two empty slots to fill on our schedule of weekly hikes. I did some online research, primarily using HikeArizon.com¹, as the Prescott National Trail descriptions are more noticeable for their lack of information than anything else. Usually they just provide the starting point, the ending point and the length of the trail. HikeArizon.com (HAZ), on the other hand, usually provides trail descriptions along with downloadable GPS tracks.

It appeared that we could complete our April schedule quite nicely by splitting Trail 511 at Box T Spring and hiking it in two separate sections. An alternative would be to hike on one section of Trail 511 (Box T Trail) on one weekend hike then complete the part of Trail 513 (Tompkins Trail) that we had not already hiked on the second open date. Because these trails were new to us we would need to scout them before actually leading hikes on them.

Our first thought was to do the two hikes on Trail 511 and we decided to scout what appeared to be the most difficult section of Trail 511 first. That was the section between Box T Spring and Salt Mine Road. From the available data, that appeared to involve hiking 2 miles on a forest road to reach Box T Spring and then hiking 7.1 miles on Trail 511 to its end on Salt Mine Road. The rest of this report describes our 2 March 2016 scouting hike on that selected portion of Trail 511

Leaving Cottonwood at 0700, Lila, Karl Sink and the author drove on SR 260 through Camp Verde, continued past I-17 for 0.7 miles, turned right on Oasis Drive and followed it for 0.4 miles, turned right onto Salt Mine Road and continued for 2.2 miles before again turning right and passing through a gate to park one of our two vehicles at position N34 31 30.6 W111 51 53.2. The wire gate was open and the end support piece to which the gate wires were attached was broken; we could not close it behind us as instructed by a posted sign, so left it as was. We then drove in the second vehicle back to I-17, entering at the General Crook Trail Intersection, and drove south to the SR 169 Exit. There, instead of turning west toward Dewey-Humboldt, we turned east onto Forest Road 732 and drove 2.9 miles to park at the junction with FR 9602G.

Forest Road 732 (also shown on some maps as FR 68D or even as SR 169), although dirt, was in first class condition for the first 2.5 miles. At that point it crossed a cattleguard and turned down a short, steep hill, becoming a lot rougher as it descended. It was still usable by a regular passenger vehicle; it would just require a bit of care. As we made our descent down the hill, we could see a thriving community, shown in the photograph (below), and a section of our road (denoted in the photograph by a red arrow) as it climbed the far side of a wash that empties into Cienega Creek. The dwellings and other buildings were nestled closely alongside Cienega Creek. I saw power lines between the various buildings in the community but no line leading into the area and at first assumed they operated a privately-owned generator. However, I did locate the supply line on a later hike.

Community of Flowerpot? - at least some of the buildings in the right half of the photograph are located on Bald Hill Ranch

The name of the community is unclear. Garmin's Topo U.S. 24K Southwest map displays the name “Flowerpot” at a point just 0.4 miles to the northwest and shows a Flowerpot Tank about 2 miles directly west. On the other hand, the location where the tank is situated is labeled Flowerpot Ranch on the National Topographic map.

Adding even more confusion, going straight ahead at the bottom of the hill, where the forest road turns left on entering the community, would take one through a gate (right) into Bald Hill Ranch. This appears to be the ranch headquarters. Bald Hill Peak, presumable the source of the name, lies over three miles south by east from this point.

After the short, rough section passing through the community, the road becomes fairly smooth again and follows along a short, pleasant stretch of Cienega Creek that actually has flowing water, apparently year round. The water emerges from the streambed at a clump of sycamore trees, flows strongly for a short distance and then is reabsorbed into the thirsty creekbed. Just as the traveler enters this oasis-like area, Forest Road 9602G originates, heading sharply up the steep bank on the left to make its way to Box T Spring.

Beginning of FR 9602G to Box T Spring. The road seen at left, running past the cattleguard, is FR 732 heading back to I-17; FR 9602G runs directly up the hill. Note that the sign indicates the distance back to I-17 is 4 miles. It is really only 2.9 miles.

We parked our vehicle here and started our hike up FR 9602G to join Trail 511 at Box T Spring. A 4-wheel drive vehicle could easily handle this road, although there are some areas of close-growing brush that might add a few scratches to one's paint job. There was some climbing along the way as the road descended into and climbed out of washes and we encountered a few stretches of loose rock, making walking difficult. The distance to the spring turned out to be 2.0 miles as advertised. The road actually intersects Trail 511 about a 100 yards west of the spring and we didn't even see it on the way through. We did investigate the spring more closely a week later while scouting the rest of Trail 511. On first approach, no spring was visible, just a large rectangular metal tank setting in an open grassy area. However, a closer look disclosed that the tank actually formed part of the spring. There are no above-ground pipes feeding water to the tank; it has apparently been fitted over the mouth of the spring so that the water flows into the bottom of the tank and fills it up before overflowing from the top as shown in the below photograph. I suppose it is possible the spring might be located farther up the mountain and the water piped underground to the tank. But we saw no signs of that.

Box T Spring – the tank is fitted over the opening of the spring

There were no cattle in the area when we passed through on this 2 March scouting hike and we saw no wildlife other than a few birds.

However, when we again visited the area a week later, we did see a jackrabbit. He seemed entirely undisturbed by our presence and loped on down the trail in a leisurely fashion, giving me time to take my first ever jackrabbit photograph (left).

We left the spring following Trail 511 up the mountain to Box T Tank. The trek up the mountain was along a steep, well-defined trail that was littered with loose rock much of the way. We found a few flowers along the way and I stopped to photograph a particularly striking patch of Indian paintbrush (right) hiding under some brush.

We climbed over 800 feet in 1.7 miles to reach the tank. With still another hundred feet to go before we reached the summit, we paused to look at the tank before continuing our climb. The tank, shown below, is actually located about over 100 yards from the trail.

Box T Tank

Look closely at the photograph above and you can see a fence that crosses the tank in line with the dead tree, neatly dividing it approximately in half and permitting watering from two different pastures.

Leaving the tank behind we climbed the remaining 100 feet in the next 0.2 miles and were at the summit of the Black Hills Range. The elevation was 5867 feet, we had climbed over 1200 feet and hiked 4.1 miles. From here we would descend 2574 feet to the end our hike at an elevation of 3293 feet.

After a short rest stop we started our descent, at first descending quite rapidly along a trail that was littered with loose rocks (below left), eventually leveling off to a more moderate descent with fewer rocks (below right).

After the first 0.4 miles of steep rocky trail, we found ourselves descending at a somewhat more leisurely pace along the upper slope of Allen Canyon. None of us had seen the Verde Valley from this perspective before and we paused occasionally to try and pick out points of interest that were familiar to us. About 1.2 miles from the summit at an elevation of 5362 feet, we passed along the brow of a high ridge that separates Allen Canyon from Ryal Canyon. It was now time for lunch and this looked like an ideal spot, so we detoured a few yards to a good viewing area and stopped to eat.

After lunch I managed to get in a quick nap and take photographs to stitch into a panoramic view across Verde Valley to the Mogollon Rim. In the scene below, looking northeast down Allen Canyon, the San Francisco Peaks can be seen at left and Wingfield Mesa at right.

Looking across the Verde Valley from a ridge between Allen Canyon and Ryal Canyon. The elevation is 5362 feet

As we continued our trail turned at first northwest and then north and finally east as we descended into Ryal Canyon at the spring. Some maps refer to it as just Spring, others call it Ryal Water. I supposed it would be accurate enough if one were to just call it Ryal Spring and be done with it. The descent into the canyon, like the initial descent from the summit, was quite steep and the trail surface was composed of gravel or small rocks. I slipped twice and sat down heavily. Luckily I am practiced in the art of sitting down suddenly and as always

managed to do it with grace and little damage. Lila and Karl are shown here (left) picking their footing carefully as they descend Trail 511 just above the junction with Ryal Canyon Trail #521.

From their Junction, Trails 511 and 521 run together for a few yards down toward the stream below Ryal Spring. There Trail 521 ends while Trail 511 continues along the bank of the stream for a few yards and crosses the stream at a tidy, well-constructed little bridge.

Bridge over the stream below Ryal Spring

I had hiked to Ryal Spring with the Skyliners before. However, we had just accessed the stream where Trail 521 ended and never even saw the bridge. Now, following Trail 511, we crossed the bridge, climbed out of Ryal Canyon, crossed over the dividing ridge and followed along the Allen Canyon side of the ridge down the mountain. Along the way we passed an old mine site that I could not identify in the literature. A gorgeous stand of California poppies was growing on the bank below the mine works and they continued along the trail for a considerable distance, culminating in the dense stand seen here (above right).

The trail now descended steeply from the mine site (left) and was covered with loose gravel, again making travel pretty precarious. Ceanothus (white lilac) shrubs lined both sides of the road and were in full bloom, enveloping the area with a distinctive lilac-like scent.

An excellent example of the ceanothus is shown here (below left) along with a hardy desert hyacinth (below right), the hyacinth thrusting its way out of a safe spot between two rocks while the ceanothus stands boldly alone.

Still about 2.2 miles from the end of our hike and a little over half a mile above Cottonwood Spring, the trail turned to follow in an easterly direction along the spine of a gently-sloping ridge. It then turned north to descend the flank of the ridge, crossed the wash and climbed out the other side heading northwest. It then turned north by east in a straight line to where we were parked just 0.4 miles ahead.

I have described the twists and turns of the lower portion of the trail in some detail because there are several places where one can go wrong in this area. The trail follows along old roads, signage is nonexistent and there are several side roads that would appear to be a more direct route. It is best to refer to a good map or, as in our case, a GPS track to avoid wrong turns.

When we arrived back at our vehicle, we found that the gate had been repaired, using a short length of iron pipe and duct tape to bind the two pieces of the broken post together. It worked well and looked quite sturdy.

We decided that this section of Box T Trail #511 was not a good candidate for a Skyliner hike and that I should go ahead and write a report describing our this scouting hike for inclusion in the Skyliner library of reports. That meant, of course, that we would need to scout both of the other alternatives discussed at the beginning of this report, the section of Trail 511 from Joe Best Spring to Box T Spring and the section of Trail 513 from Box T Spring to the end of a 12 February 2008 hike on Trail 513 hike that ended above Tompkins Tank. For scouting purposes we combined those two alternatives into a single hike which Lila and I did on 9 March 2016. That hike is the source of the description of Box T Spring included above.

Our GPS track is shown in red on the included map (below). The track includes the short side trips (to inspect Box T Tank and to a view point at lunch) we made along the way. The total hike distance was 9.9 miles, the highest elevation was 5867 feet, the total ascent was 1675 feet and the total descent was 3047 feet.

1 https://www.bing.com/search?q=hikearizona.com&qs=LC&pq=hike&sc=8-4&sp=1&cvid=2C5EB71C71A3474ABB18206F0595E19E&FORM=CHRDEF