Schoolmarm Trail on Mingus

The only background information I have on what I am calling Schoolmarm Trail came from a now-deceased leader of the Cottonwood Skyliners hiking group. According to her the trail was built for the use of a teacher who rode a mule up and down the trail to teach the children of miners. That would imply, of course, that miners' families were living in the vicinity of the Copper Chief/Iron King Mines on the slope of Mingus. It would also seem to imply that Schoolmarm was constructed before Trail 106 which runs from the overlook at the Mingus Mountain Campground to Allen Spring Road, just above Iron King Mine.

We drove up Mingus on FR 493 and parked on the ridge between Iron King and Copper Chief Mines, just at the intersection of FR 493 with an old jeep road that runs south from there and joins Allen Spring Road 0.3 miles north of Allen Spring.

Eight Skyliners participated in this hike; seven are identified in the below photograph, the eighth hiker, choosing to remain unidentified, used my camera to take the photograph.

Left to right: Anita Jackson, Daisy Williams, Lila Wright, the author, 

Frank Lombardo, Donna Davis and Betty Wolters

– photograph with author's camera

Leaving the parking area, we headed down the old jeep road, paused briefly at the Grand Island Mine site, described as a “former underground Cu-Au mine on 14 claims.”¹

After briefly examining the old mine shaft, we continued on our way along the jeep trail, soon arriving at the turnoff to the crossover trail that would take us to Allen Spring Road (FR 413). I call this crossover trail Schoolmarm Extended, as I normally use it when hiking Schoolmarm. The turnoff is located 0.57 miles from FR 493 where we were parked and was marked by a dead tree the last time I hiked Schoolmarm four and a half years ago. The tree has now fallen and only a rotting piece of it remains (right).

The trail, always faint at best, had been subtly modified by animals and hikers who had made diverging paths along the way and I had to refer to an old track on my GPS to keep us on course. We did, however, emerge in good order at the expected point on Allen Spring Road, about 0.3 miles from the beginning of Schoolmarm Trail.

When we arrived at the Schoolmarm Trailhead, located at a sharp bend in the road where the piping from Twin Springs ties into the Jerome waterline, I left the rest of the group waiting at the trailhead and continued south on Allen Spring Road for about 150 yards to verify that the faucet located in the waterline at Copper Chief Spring was still operable. I am planning an overnight camping trip that will involve hiking from Quail Springs Ranch Road to this area and camping overnight before returning home. The spigot was still in place and working, so I will not have to carry a lot of water.

The following photograph, displaying colorful maples and the greenish-yellow of Arizona walnut trees, was taken on Allen Spring Road between Copper Chief Spring and Twin springs.

Maples and Arizona walnuts sporting fall colors along Allen Spring Road

We found the lower end of Schoolmarm to be a little difficult to follow. Small maples have overgrown the trail and the combination of fallen leaves with those still clinging to the two-to-three-foot high trees combined to completely hide the trail in spots. Nevertheless, wrong turns soon became apparent, and there was little chance of going seriously wrong.

The trail starts out following along the hillside on the south side of the wash at Twin Springs, crosses over the waterline leading from the southernmost of the twin springs, and then crosses the wash to continue up the mountain toward the communications towers on top of Mingus. After it crosses the wash the trail is easy to follow; it just continues close alongside the wash for about 0.3 miles before switchbacking to the north back along the slope. The beginning of the switchback is marked by a row of rocks and a small cairn.

The below photograph, showing the morning sun hidden behind the towering ponderosa pines and a carpet of maples showing off their fall foliage below, was taken from the trail just below the switchback.

Sun hidden by ponderosa pines and colorful maples below

I remembered most of the trail through this section and previous trail markers were mostly still in place, so we had little difficulty in following it as it led out of the tall trees and wound its way up the hillside, before returning to the wash and crossing back over. We were now once again in the tall trees and the shade felt pretty good. Although I will say that whenever we stopped to rest, I sought out a sunny spot. To me it seemed pretty chilly when we were not moving.

The photograph shown below, taken just before we entered the tall trees and crossed the wash again, provides a look at the way we would make our way on up the mountain. The wash runs from bottom left to top right, ending on top of the mountain at the low point to the right of the towers. Our trail zigzags it way up the steep slope to come out on the rim just where the shoulder of the mountain juts up to the left of the towers.

A look ahead at the way to the top of Mingus

Once we had crossed the wash, we started climbing at a fairly steep, unrelenting incline and the trail became ever more faint and difficult to follow. I was not concerned as I had been this way several times before and knew basically where it ran. But the steep climb together with having to slow down to search for the trail had slowed us down and noon was upon us long before we reached the top of Mingus. Five of our hikers decided to stop for lunch and wait for the rest of us to return from the top.

Along with two other hikers, I continued to the top for lunch, staying in touch with the rest of the group by cellphone. When we reached the top, we were at an elevation of about 6750 feet and had an unobstructed view across the Mogollon Rim all the way to the San Francisco Peaks as shown below.

San Francisco Peaks beyond the Mogollon Rim

By the time we had finished our lunch and were ready to start back, the shade of the mountain had reached the hikers below and, now chilly from inactivity, they had started moving back down the trail seeking the sun. They waited for us at a sunny spot on the south slope of the wash. We joined them there and we all retraced our way back down the trial to Allen Spring Road.

As we traveled back down the wash above Twin Springs, we noted that the colors were now all subtly different in the late afternoon sun. Note the deep red of the maple shown below and the contrast with the surrounding lighter-colored maple and oak trees.

Deep red maple in center with lighter contrasting maples and oaks

When we reached Allen Spring Road, we chose to follow it back to FR 493 and down to where we had parked rather than take the half-mile shorter route along the jeep trail below below Allen Spring.

Our hike was 5.5 miles total, counting the extra half mile added by returning along Allen Spring Road but not my side trip to check the faucet below Copper Chief Spring. The total elevation gain (lowest to highest point) was about 2000 feet

The GPS track is shown on the included map (below). Note that the section along Allen Spring Road is shown in yellow while the rest of the hike is in red. The short green line is my route to the water spigot.

The one-way distance from the parking lot to the top of Mingus, traveling along the old Jeep Trail, was 2.5 miles; the maximum elevation was 7638 feet and the total ascent was 2060 feet.

1 From: http:www.mindat.org/loc-48598.html