It
was a warm and pleasant winter day when six Skyliners hiked from
Cornville Road to Oak Creek on 17 December 2016. We followed Cactus
Road south from Cornville Road for about 0.3 miles to the point where
the road crosses a wash on a rock ledge. There is an approximate
ten-foot dropoff on the downstream side of the ledge and we left the
road, climbed down to the bottom of the wash and followed it all the
way to Oak Creek.
Today's
hikers were: Dave Beach, Lila Wright, Jim Manning, Joanne Hennings,
Daisy Williams, and a one hiker, Dana Smith, new to our group, who is
planning to hike on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2018 and was seeking
advice on how to prepare for that adventure.
Although
today's hike was routinely scheduled, this route is also a popular
alternative for the Skyliners when other plans fall through. I have
hiked it twice before, in 2006 and again in 2010, both times as an
alternative to other hikes. A report of the 2010 hike is included in
“Hiking in and Around Verde Valley”.1
This
is a loop hike in that we normally follow one route to Oak Creek and
another one on the return trip. One route follows Cactus Road and
the other follows a wash. Today we followed a GPS track made during
the 2010 hike, although in the opposite direction. For that hike we
had followed Cactus Road almost to its end at a gated community and
then turned down a side wash (map at right)
to join the main wash (the same wash that Cactus Road crosses on the
ledge with a ten-foot drop near Cornville Road) about 0.6 miles from
Oak Creek; today we would follow the wash downstream to the creek and
would return by way of Cactus Road.
After
leaving Cactus Road at the rock ledge, we climbed down a rocky bank
to the dry streambed of the wash. The sides of the wash (or arroyo)
varied in height and sloped from gentle to vertical as we made our
way south toward Oak Creek. The wash we followed, located at the
northwest end of an area called the White Hills is not named on any
maps we found. We elected to call it Cactus Canyon after the Forest
Service road that it parallels. It is surely deep enough and the
sides close enough together to deserve the name canyon.
For
much of the way we were walking in the shade of high canyon walls
such as the large rock with patches of moss and a bush growing on top
(below left)
and the sheer water-cut cliff at right (below
right).
 |
Solid rock forming canyon wall Sheer water-carved canyon wall
|
At
one place in the canyon a high dropoff (sometimes called a dryfall or
pour-off.) required us to climb up the canyon wall and then back down
in order to detour around it and continue our journey. I was so busy
climbing around the dryfall that I neglected to photograph it. The
two following photographs, the lip of the dryfall in the canyon floor
(below left)
and one of the side wall of the canyon adjacent to the dryfall (below
right) were taken in 2010.
 |
Lip of the dryfall in Cactus Canyon Canyon wall adjacent to the dryfall
|
About
1.8 miles from the point where we entered the wash, and still around
0.6 miles from Oak Creek, we passed a side wash flowing in from the
west. That was the route we intended to take to reach Cactus Road
for our return trip. Just a short distance below the side wash, we
came to a teepee-like structure, located high atop the canyon wall,
apparently used by one of the landowners in the gated community at
the end of Cactus Road for an outbuilding.
 |
Teepee atop the canyon wall near the junction of Cactus Canyon and Oak Creek
|
A
little further along the canyon turned sharply to the west. Just
beyond the bend we crossed under a fence and arrived at Oak Creek.
 |
Oak Creek at the mouth of Cactus Canyon
|
We
paused at a tree alongside the creek for a snack with the pleasant
sound of the stream in our ears and a mesmerizing view of flowing
water lulling our senses. Looking up we could see through the
branches of our tree a windmill (left)
standing like a sentinel outlined against the blue sky.
This
was indeed a pleasant spot in which to linger and had Ellis been with
us, he would surely have insisted on a nap. However, he wasn't and
we soon donned our packs and resumed our hike, retracing our steps up
the canyon to the side wash and climbing the hill to reconnect with
Cactus Road.
On
our way up the hill we passed a cluster of Soaptree Yuccas and then
several Christmas Chollas (right).
Just
a short distance along Cactus Road we turned onto Forest Road 9205J
which leads out to a viewpoint high above Oak Creek. The below
photograph, taken from the viewpoint, shows Lower Oak Creek Estates,
just across the creek, Mingus Mountain (left
of center)
and Woodchute Mountain (right of
center) in the Black Hills range.
The round hump in the foreground just to the right of Woodchute is
Sugarloaf.
 |
Looking across Oak Creek and Verde Valley to the Black Hills Mountain range
|
Leaving
the viewpoint we returned to Cactus Road and continued on to our
vehicles, stopping along the way to eat lunch on a hill at a spot
surrounded by crucifixion thorns.
This
hike was 5.7 miles long, the highest elevation was 3504 feet and the
total ascent was 494 feet.
The
GPS track for this hike is shown in red on the included map (below).
The yellow track at upper right is Cornville Road and the blue track
at lower left shows Cactus Road as it continues to its end at a gated
community overlooking Oak Creek.
This
report was written by Daisy Williams and assembled, edited and posted
online by Ellis Price with help from Lila Wright.
