Hike to Tavasci Marsh

Lila Wright, leader of the Skyliners hiking group, recently added a separate weekly hike that she calls a “walk” to the regular October through May schedule of hikes. The regular hikes are still scheduled for Saturdays. The weekly walks, however, are scheduled for Wednesdays, thus allowing those who wish to participate in both activities to do so.

Today, 10 May 2017, the Wednesday “walk” was scheduled to be along the river starting at the old Jail in Cottonwood and ending at Tuzigoot Bridge. However, the day was a little chilly and that trail would be largely shaded by the trees growing along the river. Because of this, she switched hikes and we hiked from Tuzigoot National Monument to Tavasci Marsh instead, delaying the hike along the river until next Wednesday. Never having been to Tavasci Marsh before, I was pleased with the change.

We carpooled from the Safeway parking lot in Cottonwood through Old Town, turned onto Tuzigoot Road and were shortly at the Tuzigoot National Monument parking area. There is a $10.00 per person charge for entering the monument but, luckily no charge for parking. We were thus able to park there for free, skirt the monument entrance, and hike along a concrete walkway that leads about 0.35 miles from the north end of the visitors center down the spine of a ridge to an overlook on the west side of the marsh. We turned off the concrete walkway about 0.1 miles from the visitor center onto what was once a section of Tuzigoot Road and descended the ridge.

This overlook and the concrete walkway to it are described in an article posted at gjhikes.com¹. That article notes that there is a $5.00 fee for persons over the age of 15. Our leader told the ranger at Tuzigoot what we were doing and we did not pay a fee, perhaps because we were not going all the way to the overlook on the west ridge. The same article also notes that the marsh is named after the Tavasci family who “ran a farm there from 1928 to 1991.”

Biologist and local resident Doug Von Gausig, is quoted in a 23 April 2001 article in the Verde Independent Newspaper as follows:

"It was a cattle pasture," He explains. "A dairy reclaimed it as pasture land and that destroyed Tavasci Marsh for 50 years." 

According to Von Gausig when Arizona Game and Fish along with the land's owner Phelps Dodge allowed the beaver dams to return, the marsh slowly, "recreated itself in a natural fashion. They created a new habitat that had to gather new species."²

The following photograph of the concrete walkway to the marsh overlook on the west ridge was taken looking back toward the Tuzigoot Visitors Center. The walkway is almost completely hidden from the parking lot.

Looking back toward visitors center and parking lot from concrete walkway

A number of plants growing along the walkway were identified by signs. Some of these are shown below along with identification and usage information.

Catclaw Acacia (right). This is a plant with claw-like thorns that you will never forget if you stumble into one while on a hike. The associated sign includes the following information: “On long journeys, ancient travelers relied on the fruits for food. The green seed pods can be eaten fresh or dried, or ground into flour to make mush, cakes or bread. The branches make good drumsticks and furniture. Bees that feed on the blossoms produce a delicate and distinctive honey.”

Four-Wing Saltbush (left). The associated sign provides the following information: “Named for the four-winged bracts on its fruit, this common high desert shrub provides food and medicine and is burned during ceremonies. The leaves, young shoots, seeds, and fruit are edible.” The sign goes on to say that the ashes from burned leaves make a baking soda that fortifies “baked goods with calcium and minerals.” Additionally, it says the leaves can relieve pain when chewed and applied to insect stings.

That use of saltbush leaves reminded me of an old folk remedy from my childhood. Grandmaw chewed tobacco leaves and applied them to bee stings when we children got too close to Grandpaw's bee hives. What made this use of tobacco leaves so memorable was that Grandmaw was adamantly opposed to the chewing of tobacco, declaring it to be the nastiest of habits, and would not allow the men in the family to do so in her house. She would have no nasty spittoons scattered about the premises and would not allow anyone to spit tobacco juice in the fireplace. Strangely enough, we later learned that she put aside a couple of hands of tobacco leaves each year and kept them hidden in the back room along with a small silver knife. She would then, on rare occasions, quietly sneak into the backroom, use the silver knife to cut a dainty plug and chew away to her heart's content. We never did find out where she expelled the chewed leaves and the juice except, of course, on those occasions when it was for medicinal purposes.

But enough of this trip down memory lane. One other plant that was identified along the walkway to Tavasci Overlook was Mormon Tea (right). The sign in this case was so far from the plant being identified that one could choose from several different plants. In other words had we not already known what Mormon tea looked like, we would not have learned to identify it from this sign. According to the sign, “Southwesterners add the dried stems of this shrub to hot water to brew a popular and tasty tea. Slightly bitter to the taste, it is a mild stimulant similar to coffee. Medicinally, Mormon tea is an antihistamine and relieves cough and allergy symptoms.” I have tasted Mormon tea and can attest to its slightly bitter taste. I did not find it unpleasant; however, I prefer green tea. As to the medicinal properties, I have never tried using it as an antihistamine.

As already noted we followed the concrete walkway for only about 0.1 mile and and turned down a dirt trail (an old road) to descend the ridge. This was the only part of the hike that was not essentially level. Even here the descent was only around 35 feet in about 150 yards.

We were traveling almost directly south as we descended the ridge. At the bottom we turned generally northeast and continued for about 0.3 miles to very near the southwest corner of the marsh. The trail then made a sharp turn to the south (actually ,at first, a bit to the southwest) and continued for 0.5 miles before turning back north to the southeast corner of the marsh where we found the below sign.

Sign posted at the edge of Tavasci marsh

In effect our track had formed the shape of a large jug about half-a-mile deep with an opening at the top that was about a tenth-of-mile wide. In looking at old maps, I determined that the top of the jug was once closed by a section of Old Tuzigoot Road, shown by the short straight yellow line in the map below map.

The trail takes the form of a large jug with a quarter-mile opening at the top

I am not sure whether it would still be possible to follow Old Tuzigoot Road directly across the neck of the bottle, The marsh may have reclaimed that section of road. In any case, the walk around the bottle was a pleasant stroll along a level section of trail, so there was really no great incentive to shorten the hike.

About 0.2 miles beyond the Tavasci Marsh welcome sign, we came to the east overlook, a sturdy, recently-built platform from which one could view the marsh and the wildlife it supports. Unfortunately, at the time of our visit wildlife was scarce. We saw only a couple of redwing blackbirds. However, I understand that the marsh is normally a great place for bird watching. We paused for a time at the outlook looking out over the marsh.

Across the way we could see the west over-look (telephoto view, left) at the end of the con-crete walkway. It was perched high on the ridge west of the marsh as opposed to being at the very edge of the marsh as was true of the one where we stood.

The photo-graph shown here (right) shows a bit of the marsh and a corner of the east overlook platform located at its very edge.

Before leaving the viewing platform, I took a series of photographs that I could stitch together into a panoramic view of the marsh.

Panoramic view of Tavasci Marsh

On the return trip just past the southernmost tip of the trail (that is just past the bottom of the jar), several of the hikers broke off and followed the Old Tuzigoot Road along the river to the river access point (boat ramp) near Tuzigoot Bridge. One member of the breakaway party carried my GPS so that we would have a recorded track for that route. They came out at the large parking area provided for the river access point. The trail ends at the posts shown in the photograph (left), taken from the parking lot.

The included map (below) shows the track from the visitor center to the east overlook (heavy red track), the route along the river to the river access point (light red track) and other points of interest mentioned in this report.

The hike from the visitor center to the east overlook and then on to the river access parking area was 3.5 miles. The highest elevation was 3380 feet and the total ascent was 218 feet.

1http://www.gjhikes.com/2013/03/tavasci-marsh-overlook.html

2 https://www.verdenews.com/news/2001/apr/23/the-bird-man-of-tavasci-marsh