Horse Mountain Wilderness Study Area - Horse Mountain Gorge

 

Horse Mountain Gorge

 I did two hikes back in mid-October in the Horse Mountain WSA which is conveniently located adjacent to my cabin property in Teepee Ranch. Technically I began both my walks on intervening non-WSA BLM lands,  but they really are just a de-facto extension of the WSA parcel. On the Saturday I did a loop following the canyon that runs through our parcel back onto BLM lands. When I reached the intervening ridge, I began to circle around the upper part of Log Canyon. There was some scrambling at first getting down off the ridge a bit, but then I hit on a great wildlife trail that brought me all the way around to the plateau that's centered between the two ridges of the mountain and at the top of two canyons running in opposite directions.

 I got a much different look at a massive rock pillar that we had seen last year when doing loop hike using Nance and Log Canyons. It was even more impressive. This time, unlike last year, I found the wildlife drinker at the top of Log Canyon and so used the old road route to connect to the main canyon which took me back to the WSA entrance just down the road from the cabin, where my wife picked me up. It was a good hike although a bit warm for October. The fall color was hardly evident throughout most of hike which was a bit disappointing (we would return the following weekend to find it peaking).

 On Sunday, I left around nine beginning the same way, but then migrating over to the canyon just to east. It was cool and shaded as I made my way along the old trail that winds through the pines, oaks and tall grasses. 

Pine cones were so abundant on the ground they became a bit of nuisance at times. I took my time zigzagging up the steep slopes to get to the top of the ridge, but I was pleased when I checked the time to see that less than a half hour had even elapsed. I came off the ridge on some very steep gravel patches among the piñons and junipers, all the while drifting to the east to catch the canyon that I knew would lead directly into the gorge. At the head were thick grasses just beginning to fade from their summertime green, and large well-spaced ponderosa pines. An enchanting scene that seemed to beckon me downward to my destination.

A couple of deer ran across this scene adding to the magic.

I felt pulled as if into a funnel and gravity took over lightening my steps through this welcoming passage. Abundant downfall, brush and boulders in the now enlarged dry creek bed ended my idyl, but I pushed on scrambling my down and down as cliffs rose at the sides of the ever-narrowing defile. The pines stretched ridiculously higher and higher toward the sun. Crenulated bare cliffs of crusty volcanic rock where many hoodoos emerged were in the near distance as I approached the point where the two branches of the gorge meet. Nearer at hand were isolated towers and pillars stretching directly overhead. I carefully rounded the vertex to have a look up the other canyon. On my left was massive wall of gray rock looming over the canyon bottom thick with green shrubbery.  On my right a treacherous slope of crumbly white rock that precluded further advancement.

 I retreated and carefully got myself down to the stream course and began heading down. Here there were some nice oaks beginning in their fall color, plus more formations above and the tallest ponderosa pines I've ever seen close at hand. I turned around when I caught site of an old well because I knew I was at the boundary between private and public land.

 Before leaving altogether I explored up the south branch. Vegetation was thick and green and there was even a couple of puddles where small dams had been built into the natural cascade in an effort to retain any bit of water possible. A little further upstream I came to some large boulders wedged into the narrow cliff opening, where it appears on Google Earth that a waterfall sometimes occurs. It did not seem readily scalable for this 64 year old and I quickly decided to explore the area above another day. 

The return trip had me marching up the long "arm" that comes down from the ridge between the two branches. This much more gradual ascent (as opposed to returning the way I came) made the uphill both ways truth of the hike a little easier to swallow. It was all over and done in a total of almost exactly three hours, but down in that wonderful canyon, time stood still for a little while.

Gila National Forest - Hidden Springs, Cox Canyon

The dike

The dike

Behind the dam

Collins Park

West side

The dam

Oak growing out of the rock

Dam and dike

I look at Google Earth a lot. One of the fun things to do is look at the satellite images  going back through the years Not every area has an image every year or even every  two or three and as you go back in time the resolution gets significantly less sharp and zooming in for detail is pointless. However, photos from about 2010 on, there can be seen many small changes in the landscape. In one instance I believe I was able to bracket when the bulldozing of an archaeological site occurred to four months.  I have also been able to pinpoint hidden areas of deciduous trees ( aspens, oaks and maples) especially with the rare pictures taken in October (most of the images are taken in early spring or winter it seems for the greater chance of cloudless skies), or at the right moment in April or May when they are at their most electric green.

So while looking through this particular area of the Gila National Forest (part of my new stomping ground: a circle with a radius of 50 miles with the center point being our cabin on Horse Mountain) at least 2 photos showed quite clearly a waterfall in a rocky passage just downstream from Hidden Springs in Cox Canyon. Now the very straight line at the top of falls gave me reason to believe that it was not a natural one, but rather water flowing over a now filled in dam site. Still, one can always have hope.

 Well, on an overcast early October day that threatened rain, we went out on the very long drive using FR 94 out of Apache Creek. The road is mostly good, although very narrow as it approaches a couple of passes. It also contains enough typically pleasant Gila scenery (especially the section along Cox Canyon, which had many nice oaks in Fall color, and the entrance into Collins Park) that it could qualify as a worthwhile diversion just for the drive.

 We did the short hike westward through a landscape that been burned (I'm not sure if from a natural fire or prescribed fire) fairly recently and was now an unappealing mix of slash, black stumps, weeds and juvenile junipers. Hopefully grasses will reassert themselves in the long run. On the low rise a short ways in, it was bit nicer as we approached the precipice of Cox Canyon (a major tributary to the North Fork Negrito Creek).

Looking across Cox Canyon

Elk Mountain

Collins Park

Elk Mountain

Somewhere near the spring

Behind the dam

Elk Mountain

From there I made my way very steeply (although with the aid of a sometimes livestock trail) down to the bottom to discover with only small amount of disappointment that it was indeed an old, but very stoutly built dam that was wedged in among the crags and weathered humps of a natural dike across the canyon. I easily crossed over to the upstream side where weeds flourished in the now filled in completely pond that. once backed up behind the dam. 

Top of the dam

Behind the dam

I walked on in search of any flow from Hidden Springs on the west side of the canyon There was a fence, perhaps built at one time to keep livestock out of the spring area, but I neither saw nor heard any water anywhere (even though I'm sure I was at the location of the spring) save for a puddle beneath dam. Going back over to the other side of the dike, I used an odd improvised "gate" of sticks and wire to get a look at the dam. 

Near Hidden Springs

Gate

The continuation of the canyon downstream looked nicely lush and scenic, but  my time was limited, and shortly thereafter I made the short, lung-tester of a hike back up to the mesa where Andrea and Nessie had been waiting for me. 

Collins Park, Elk Mountain

Back at the 4Runner we decided to make the drive to see the impressive expanse of treeless grassland known as Collins Park. The hulking, mass of Elk Mountain loomed large with the orange of scrubby oaks growing in the burn scars stained the upper ridges.