Coleman-Gaddes Loop Hike

Eleven hikers from the Skyliners group hiked on the Coleman and Gaddes Canyon Trails on Mingus on Saturday, October 30, 2010

We drove through Jerome to the top of Mingus Mountain on Hwy 89A and turned left on Forest Road 104. We then turned on Forest Road 413 (marked as the road to Cherry at the turn off), drove around the to south of Mingus and parked at the Black Canyon Trailhead in the mouth of Gaddis Canyon. After parking, we hiked 0.6 miles further north on FR 413 (Allen Spring Road) to the Coleman Trailhead. The below photograph was taken at that point.

Left to right (standing): Kwi Johnson, Dolly Yapp, Betty Wolters, Daisy 

Williams, Miriam Sterling, Virginia Driscoll, Donna Goodman, David Nelson,

 Lila Wright, Ellis Price, Linda Tovar and John McInerney; 

Sitting: George Everman

We followed Coleman rail as it snaked up the south slope of Mingus, pausing frequently to catch out breath.

To our left as we ascended was a high ridge, with a sheer cliff facing us. Beyond this ridge lay Gaddes Canyon, our intended return route. After we had climbed about 950 feet (of a total climb of around 1370 feet) and just after the trail turned sharply to the west, we left it and traveled for about 50 yards north to come out atop a sheer cliff overlooking Verde Valley. Kwi is shown (below) eating her snack at the rim.

Kwi perched at the rim eating her snack

The wind was quite strong and a bit chilly on the cliff top; however we were able to find adequate shelter and the view was excellent.

From atop the south end of Mingus, looking across Verde Valley and the

Mogollon Rim to the San Francisco Peaks beyond.

After our snack we continued on, climbing about around another 350 feet to arrive at Forest Service Road 104 near the south set of communications towers on Mingus.

At this point we went wrong. Instead of turning right on the road and following it to the Gaddes Canyon Trailhead, we turned left, intending to intersect with the trail further along. We then came to a fork and took the left branch which led us in a circle back the way we had come. Upon discovering our error we retraced our steps to the fork and took the other branch. This however led us just about directly south while we should have gone directly west to intersect with the trail into Gaddes Canyon. John pointed this out to us several times along the way; however, I felt sure that we could intersect with the trail by traveling southwest and others wanted to find a viewpoint on the rim of Gaddes Canyon for our lunch stop.

I turned out that we did find a good viewpoint on the canyon rim. Unfortunately, because of the steep drop into the canyon, we then had to turn back north along the canyon rim searching for a way down. We eventually came to a very faint trail, marked by cairns, which seemed to lead into the canyon. We decided to try that instead of traveling further in hopes of striking the main trail. That turned out to be a pretty good decision. Although the trail, at least as marked by cairns, ended part way down the slope, we were able to continue our descent to the bottom of the canyon without too much effort and connect with Trail 9037 leading back to where we had parked.

One interesting site we found shortly after starting our cross-country odyssey was a round concrete foundation about 40 feet in circumference. My first thought was that it must have been a fairly elaborate foundation for an above ground tank of some sort. Then David pointed out that there were tie-downs installed in the concrete. That along with the discovery of a nearby metal pole, set in concrete, that would have served admirably to hold a windsock, led us to think that the pad must have been constructed as a helicopter-landing pad.

See the mothership yet? Or perhaps it's just a helicopter-landing pad?

– photo by George

Although we did have trouble finding a way down into the canyon and we never did intersect with the trail we were looking for, we were never in danger of getting lost. We had Gaddes Canyon to our left, we knew the direction to the Mingus Campground and we could actually see the communication towers much of the time. The route we followed was on relative open terrain; however, there were some portions that were fairly rough hiking in that we were walking on loose rocks. This caused a couple of minor falls, but no injuries that couldn’t be taken care of by the application of a few band-aids.

First aid station

The lack of a clearly defined trail did at times cause some confusion among our hikers. I think we were all missing the late Lynne Tingley a bit. She would have known exactly where we were.

OK…there must be a trail here somewhere.

After we at last found our way on Trail 9037 in the floor of the canyon, the going was easy and we made good time for the rest of the hike.

There were several interesting sightings along the way. Several tarantulas were sighted and the trail down Gaddes canyon was virtually littered with bear scat.

Tarantula 

Black bear scat

John and I actually saw a large black bear ahead on the trail at one point. John thought it might weigh 300 to 400 pounds. Neither of us had a camera ready at the time and the bear had hightailed it on down the rail before we could snap a picture. John went ahead by himself in an attempt to get close enough for a good photograph. Although he did get another glimpse of the bear, it was never visible long enough for him to focus and snap a picture.

This hike left us still unsure of the best way to hike the Coleman-Gaddes Canyon Loop and I think that we shall soon be scheduling an exploratory hike to find out. This would involve hiking the entire length of both Gaddes Canyon Trail 110 and Trail 9037.

A review of the Garmin file after downloading it to my computer shows that we hiked 6.6 miles (not counting taking the wrong trail and having to double back or the wandering around some of us did during the lunch stop), that the highest elevation was 7631 feet and the total ascent was 1672 feet. Our GPS track is shown on the included map (below)