Coleman-Gaddes Loop

Undeterred by the threat of rain, eight of us gathered to hike on Mingus Mountain on July 9, 2011. Our plan was to hike up Gaddes Canyon on Trail 9073 and then turn off and follow a faint unnamed trail up the north wall the Canyon to connect with Coleman Trail for the hike back down. Lynne Tingley had led us this way a few years ago and we were pretty sure that we had identified the turnoff while on a recent hike down Gaddes.

We left the Safeway parking lot in Cottonwood at 0600, hoping to beat the showers that were predicted for after 1100, drove through Jerome to the top of Mingus Mountain on Hwy 89A and turned left on Forest Road 104. We then turned right on Forest Road 413 (the road to Cherry), drove around to the south of Mingus and parked at the Black Canyon Trailhead, just across FR 413 from Trail 9073 trailhead, in the mouth of Gaddes Canyon.

We donned our packs and stopped for a group photograph before heading up the canyon.

Left to right: Name Withheld, Betty Wolters, Miriam Sterling, Dolly Yapp, 

Gordon Bice, Kwi Johnson, Kenneth Anderson

Following Trail 9073 up Gaddes Canyon we found that the recent rains had led to rapid growth of the foliage along the trail and that it was still wet from yesterday’s rain. Our pants legs were soon soaked from about the knee down. However, the temperature was in the seventies and we were not uncomfortable. We followed the trail up the canyon for about 1.8 miles, crossing the wash ten times, before we found the trail we were looking for leading up the north canyon wall. I had estimated that it would be between 1.6 and 1.7 miles. However, Ken provided me with a cleaned-up GPS track of the hike and, upon isolating and measuring the section from the trailhead to the turnoff, I found it to be 1.8 miles. It is located at: 34° 40.907'N, 112° 7.866'W. At the turnoff, Trail 90737 is located on the south side of the wash and a large, partially decayed, downed tree is located directly across the wash and lying parallel to it.

Crossing the wash (for the eleventh time) and going around the root end of the downed tree we found that we had to turn right for a few yards to locate the trail leading up the wall. It is pretty faint at first then becomes more clearly defined and quite steep for about 0.3 of a mile. As we neared the end of the steepest section of trail we lost it temporarily, following some misplaced cairns, and had to retrace our steps for 50 yards or so. Luckily David had noted cairns marking the correct trail, so we weren’t lost for long.

After following the unnamed trail for about three quarters of a mile, we came to Dry Lake Tank. We had climbed almost 900 feet along Trail 9037 and about another 400 feet on the unnamed trail and were now some 1300 feet above our starting point at FR 413. This was the high point of our hike and Coleman Trail was only about 0.2 miles away at a bearing of 122 degrees. We headed in that direction and found ourselves following the faint trace of an old road with cairns marking the way. A little more than a hundred yards from the tank we crossed an old road (a now little traveled section of road FR 104 that ends at an old heliport) and continued straight ahead to connect with Coleman Trail just 0.2 miles from Dry Lake Tank.

Connecting with Coleman Trail we followed it as it zigzagged down the mountain to connect with FR 413 about half a mile north of where we were parked at Black Canyon Trailhead. Although it was only a little after 1000, we stopped along the way for lunch; after all we had eaten breakfast between 0500 and 0530 in order to gather and leave at 0600. We didn’t linger long over lunch because we wanted to be back at our vehicles before the predicted showers arrived. We were soon on FR 413 and heading toward Black Canyon Trailhead. We noted a very pretty Century Plant along FR 413 between the end of Coleman Trail and out Black Canyon Trailhead (right).

The total length of the hike was 5.4 miles according to the cleaned-up GPS track provided by Ken. The maximum elevation was 1405 feet ant the total ascent was 1297 feet.

The included map (below) shows the GPS track for this hike.