A Different Path to Geronimo Spring and Cabin

Geronimo's Spring and Cabin are located in the upper reaches of Burnt Canyon. Burnt Canyon, located west of Gaddes Canyon along the southern rim of Mingus Mountain, consists of three separate branches at its head. The three branches join together and run southeast, parallel to Gaddes Canyon. Burnt Canyon and Gaddes Canyon eventually run together to form Black Canyon which continues to the east and empties into the Verde River. Geronimo Peña Lived in a cabin in the east branch of Burnt Canyon, about 0.2 miles below the water source that I have called Geronimo's Spring.

In company with various other members of the Skyliner Hiking Group, I had made four previous trips to the cabin, the earliest in August 2008. These trips had all started at the end of Forest Road 9003T near Burnt Tank.

Now, having explored the area and found an old trail that wound its way down the canyon wall above the spring, Jim Manning was leading a hike to the spring and cabin that would begin at the junction of Forest Roads 104 and 9003N on top of Mingus. On 9 May 2016, the group left the Cottonwood Safeway parking lot, drove to the top of Mingus on SR 89A, turned left onto Forest Road 104 and followed it around the head of Haywood Canyon, turned right onto FR 413, continued to the junction with FR 9003T and turned left. We then found a place to park, left one vehicle there and returned to the junction of FR 104/413, turned right and continued for about 100 yards to the junction with FR 9003N (right). From there we began our hike.

As we hiked along FR 9003N, we found that the road ran very close to the top of the ridge that lies between Burnt Canyon and Gaddes Canyon.

At first the road ran through a rather thick stand of ponderosa pines. After a short distance we encountered a fence with one of those new pedestrian cattleguard gates (left). I had not seen these devices before this spring but have recently noted several of them, all in Prescott National Forest. They are just wide enough for pedestrians, mountain bikes and perhaps some ATVs and all seem to be painted international orange.

We followed FR 9003N for about 0.8 miles, along the ridge between Burnt Canyon and Gaddes Canyon, before turning to the right to make our way to the rim above the spring. We were now hiking through an area with a lot of loose rocks that made footing a little precarious; but there was little undergrowth, just scattered pines and the occasional alligator juniper. There was no discernible trail from the forest road to the canyon rim above the spring; but Jim had already scouted the route, so we just followed him, recording a GPS track for future reference as we went.

We found a pine tree (right) that was ringed by a circle of rocks piled closely against its trunk. Four engraved, evenly-spaced metal plates were affixed to the trunk at about hip level. The plates had been nearly subsumed by the tree as it grew out and around them, so we were unable to make out the markings on the plates; however, I assume the tree was a boundary corner marker, perhaps marking the point where four mining claims cornered.

Our elevation was above 7000 feet and it was a little too early for most of the spring flowers. We did find a very attractive growth of mistletoe high in a pine tree (below left) and, just as we dipped below the rim, a fairly decent groundsel (below right).

Mistletoe                                 Groundsel                           

The distance from FR 104 to the rim above the Geronimo's Spring was about one mile. Now, Jim led us along a discernible, if little-used, trail that switchbacked its way down the steep wall of Burnt Canyon into the east fork. Looking northwest as we descended, we could see across Chino Valley to the mountains beyond.

Looking northwest from the trail above Geronimo's Spring

The trail down the canyon wall was faint but still discernible. It obviously had at one time been fairly well used. Any wrong turn would soon become obvious because of steep cliffs or impassable clumps of underbrush. The photograph (left) shows a section of the trail looking back.

Water flows (seeps might be a better term) from several different points along a broken, jumbled seam running down the mountain. The flow at each point is such as to be reabsorbed almost immediately. Geronimo's contribution was to capture the separate flows, channeling each to the next source below it until he reached a final collection point at the foot of the canyon wall. Shown here are the uppermost source (below left) that had a trail to it and the next seep (below right) into which the flow from above is channeled. I did not try climbing higher to look for more seeps above this point. However, judging from the metal chute, obviously placed to funnel water from above into the topmost source I did investigate, there were additional seeps.

          Uppermost seep with a          Next (or intermediate)            
 trail to it                                     seep                                      

All of our previous trips to the spring had ended at a lower point in the wash and we had never seen any water.

Now, looking at Geronimo's final collection point after having examined the channeling system above, we understood why we had not seen water before. The piping between the intermediate seep and the collection point, a tank placed in the last seep (right), had been disrupted; the water was being reabsorbed into the thirsty earth.

From the spring it is a mere 0.2 miles along a well-worn but now slightly overgrown trail to Geronimo's Cabin. On a 23 August 2008 visit to the cabin I had photographed (below) a poster, located on the inside of the then-intact cabin door, showing various photographs of Geronimo and his burros. The poster is no longer there but I have been told that it can viewed at the Charlotte Hall Museum.

Poster photographed at Geronimo's Cabin in August 2008

The, not very legible, inscription on the poster is shown here in a more easily-read photograph (below).

Information on display at Geronimo's Cabin in 2008

The alert reader will have noted that I have used the spelling “Geronimo” throughout this report whereas the inscription above, along with all of my previous reports, uses the spelling “Jeronimo.” That is because I did a little additional research and found the below information at Charlotte Hall Museum¹ in Prescott.

Geronimo Pena

Born: Mexico c 1877

Died: Mingus Mountain, Yavapai, Arizona c 6 Feb 1957

Buried: Cottonwood cemetery.

Plot:AZTECA

Spouse: Unknown

Parents: Unknown

Occupation: Woodcutter

Remarks: Westcott. Information: residence was on Mingus Mt.
Death certificate: had lived in the area for about 40 years. Cause of death: myocardial infarction due to arteriosclerotic heart disease. Arrangements.

There is also a Geronimo Pena listed in the 1920 census; although he is listed as living in Cedar Glade precinct, north of Prescott, he is of the right age and is also listed as a woodcutter. He may have temporarily been in the area at the time of the census. In any case, I think it is most likely that “Geronimo” is the correct spelling.

We stopped to pose for a group photograph (below) in front of the old cabin. The author and one other hiker are not shown.

Left to right: George Everman, Wayne Schwetje (front), David Murrill (rear), Jim Manning, Gary Neil and Tana Allman

For those who may be interested, there is a set of photographs, taken in 2009, of the cabin, its interior and the surrounding yard posted online at a blog maintained by one Mary Leavitt.²

Although all accounts I have heard claim that Geronimo used only his burros for delivering his wood to Jerome, I think that he may have sometimes either hired a truck or sold wood to someone else who delivered it by truck. This idea is supported by the existence of wire cable anchors at the cabin (below left) and at the end of an old road at the foot of the steep hill (below right) on which the cabin is located. The cable anchors could be all that remains of a high-wire system used to move wood from a staging area at the cabin to a waiting truck below.

Upper cable anchor                 Lower cable anchor

Logging was underway in the area below Geronimo's Cabin and the brush left over from the logging operation was being used to check erosion by filling in the old, no longer used, roads in the area.

Close to where we had parked near FR 413 we stopped for awhile to observe the loggers operations at the loading area.

Truck moving forward to be loaded

The total one way length of this hike was 2.6 miles, the highest elevation was 7579 feet and the total descent was 879 feet.

On the included map (below), the red track shows our hike, the blue track is an alternate trail that is smoother and less steep than the normal trail to the cabin and the green track shows an old road leading from the site of the lower cable anchor. The faint yellow track at left shows the route we drove between the two trailheads.

1 http://www.sharlot.org/archives/gene/cemetery/cem_show.pl?id=30393&nxt=index.html

2 http://maryleavitt.blogspot.com/2009/08/mingus-mountain-legend_21.html