Medlar Spring Trail

This 13 February 2014 outing was originally planned as a scouting hike for both Ash Creek and Medlar Spring Trails. However, like many of the trails in Prescott National Forest, there is little available information from the Forest Service. The web page just says, “The Medlar Springs trail is 2.4 miles long. It begins at Forest Road 531 and ends at Medlar Springs.” A web search disclosed an unverified GPS track. But this track showed the trail running through the private property of Bottle Ranch. Finally, we decided to just drive to the area and search for the trailhead.

We drove east on Hwy 260 to Camp Verde, took I-17 south to Hwy 169 and followed it for 10.3 miles, turned right onto Old Cherry Road and continued for 1.73 miles then turned left onto FR 153 and drove 3.8 miles to Bottle Ranch.

As we approached the ranch we came to a sign (right) warning that the road ended ahead. There was a nice, spacious shoulder at the spot, so we parked there and proceeded on foot toward the ranch. After about 100 yards we found a gate (see below) in the fence alongside the road that appeared to be designed for pedestrians. Although large enough to drive stock through, it was too narrow to permit other than perhaps all terrain vehicles. In any case, the gate was still on Forest Service land, as opposed to private property, and we decided that it was probably the trailhead. Someone had securely tied the gate with many turns of rope. Perhaps to discourage its use? We retied it just as securely.

Gate in the fence alongside the road

We were unsure as to the Bottle Ranch private property boundary, so we went far out of our way to avoid it on the trip up the canyon. This was partly because we hesitated to cross a fairly new fence, thinking that the other side might be private property. The red track on the map (left) shows our path. Later we learned that the actual private holdings were much smaller than we had thought and that the fence we had hesitated to cross actually runs through National Forest land.

The blue track shows the way I returned from the hike. See also the magenta line running close to the creek. I actually hiked about half way down this magenta track on my return, but decided that I might have entered private land and turned back in favor of continuing the track shown in blue. However, I have since checked the Western Ownership topographic map and found that I likely could have hiked the entire length of the magenta track without entering private land. I will give it a try the next time I hike this way. It would be a little shorter than following the blue line all the way. Finally, note the “bearing tree” shown near the top of the map. That marks the northwest corner of the plot of private property.

But back to the hike at hand. We followed the circuitous red track shown above until we joined a road, apparently used for ranch maintenance, running through Forest Service land. We then followed this road upstream to Ash Creek Well, a site marked by the ruin of an old windmill. At this point the trail forks with Ash Creek Trail leading straight ahead and Medlar Spring Trail turning right up a wash. I think of the two trails as running together from FR 531 to this point; however, I believe that, technically, the Ash Creek Trail may start here at the well with the trail below this point being just part of Medlar Spring Trail. The following photograph shows the old windmill as we approached.

Old windmill ruin at Ash Creek Well

As already noted, Ash Creek Trail continues straight ahead while Medlar Spring Trail turns to the right, passing through a wire gate. The old road essentially ends just beyond the gate and one is left to basically bushwhack ones way up the wash below Medlar Spring. We had decided that we would do Medlar Spring Trail today and leave Ash Creek Trail for another day. The area is pastured and cattle traveling up and down the wash have served to keep the trail from completely disappearing. We also noted that the trail had been trimmed sometime in the past (photograph above). In places this was the only indication that it had ever existed.

About half way up the wash we came to an old galvanized watering tank. It had once been fenced so as to permit use by cattle in two separate pastures. It does not appear to have been used for some time.

Long unused watering tank

We arrived at Medlar Spring to find no sign of water and soon headed back the way we had come.

We found no water at Medlar Spring

The return trip down the wash went a bit faster as we were now familiar with the trail and wasted less time finding our way. We paused again at the old windmill on the way back to take a group photograph.

Left to right: Lila Wright, Collene Maktenieks, Frank Lombardo and Jim Manning

While milling about someone discovered a stone fire pit (left) built on the stream bank.

The actual hike to Medlar Spring and back is about 5.8 miles. We did at least another mile due to the circuitous route we took hiking in. The trailhead elevation was 5266 feet and the elevation gain was 494 feet. The Medlar spring Trail is shown in blue on the attached map (below).