Back in October, I visited the beautiful Noonday Canyon Box, but on my way I took a longing look at Rabb Canyon wanting to explore its little box canyon as well. Well, on Sunday (4/14/19) we did just that. This time we didn't start by hiking down Noonday, but used an old, narrow and steep road which starts at a pullout right where NM 152 crosses into the Gila National Forest. It was pleasant walking in the piñons, junipers and ponderosa pines and in about a mile we were in the canyon bottom right at the Rabb and Noonday confluence. We ate our lunch and then began walking up the wide and open valley of lower Rabb Canyon.
There's more to this mostly treeless section that lasts for over a mile than one might think given the elevation(6,400f feet) and the location in the very dry Black Range. I noticed that surface flow was limited to a shallow channel a few feet wide, but the ground was soggy over a wider area and was green with moss and other clipped greenery. There was an occasional bit of bunch grass that had escaped bovine teeth and had grown up high, and if the summer rains go well the "stream" itself is invisible amidst four foot high grasses come the Fall as it was in October. I speculated that the lack of trees along the stream might have as much to do with the saturated ground as with persistent heavy grazing.
Further on we found a small wet meadow area, much abused but still green and surviving. Soon after that we came upon many seeping springs coming out of the low the cliffs on the west side of the stream and trickling waterfall from a side canyon ( most likely spring fed as well) that filled a deep pool. We had already seen several deep pools (2- 4 feet deep) fed by subsurface flow in the slow moving creek, and as we moved into the box canyon carved into the bedrock the pools got deeper still.
There were little falls that we had scramble around as we listened to their music in the previously nearly silent stream. Eventually we came to boulder strewn area that's was an obstacle to continuing with our short legged dogs, plus there was little room to maneuver on the stream sides that didn't involve hopping from rock to rock. Willows now grew and the grasses were thick in this stretch that is difficult for cattle to enter and the still pools looked to be over my head. It was warm, and had it been a little hotter we might have been tempted to get right in one of them. Seamus who tried to follow me as I scouted up ahead, appeared to have done just that. I knew we were going to have to turn around before my hoped for destination: where the Rabb Park Trail (FT 747) comes down to meet the stream.
On the return trip, walking on the banks which are nothing but dust and parched conifers, I began to get a little angry about the situation with this stream, where there has been zero attempt at conservation by both the Forest Service and whoever runs their cattle on this allotment. This stream and Noonday could be accessible little treasures of the Gila, instead they are just more of the sacrifice zone at the interface between private and public lands.
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