Cottonwood Canyon, Whetstone Peak Ridge Loop Trail (Whetstone Mts, AZ)

Distance: 10.6 miles

Elevation: 4709' -6665'; 2429'

Significance: oak-pinon canyon with creek; views from saddle

https://www.strava.com/activities/4632406642

https://www.strava.com/activities/4632406642

The Cottonwood Canyon trail #360, which joins the Guindani Trail in Karchner Caverns SP two miles up the trail when walking counterclock wise, is a beautiful oak-pinon agave manzanita scrub forest.  I was last here five years ago with HollyO and MaureenL and Sadie, but we turned around when we couldn't find the trail after the first mile.  I've been wanting to go back there since to explore the trail some more.  When Rod hosted this hike today, I jumped on the chance. I invited Ellen. This is her first time here as well.

We met in town at the Pizza Hut Bistro and then at 0800 hours caravanned to the state park where Rod, the official leader, was watiing for us.  We were eight people: RodC, SteveS, DougB, JohnS, BillC (first time we meet),  JimA, Ellen and I.  This is my first hiking club hike with the old gang this year.

I was dressed for 55F weather, but both John and Steve warned me that the forecasted high would be in the 70s.  That is not what my weather app told me earlier, but since it was already 44F at 8:30am, I took their word. I left my stuffed vest in the car and I'm glad I did.  I removed my wind breaker shortly before we got to the saddle and hiked the rest of the way in my beloved white hiking shirt with a white tshirt underneath, with jeans to prevent me from getting scratched up from shin daggers. 

Cottonwood Canyon had been chosen by the Forest Service to be Proposed Wilderness Area, or PWA.  No roads go into this canyon. The trail #386 meets up with the Guindani trail two miles into the hike. In a normal year, there is plenty of water.  Today the creek, springs and trough were all dry. Rock walls from the hillsides would create dramatic waterfalls.  I would have to come back here after a rain to explore the beauty.   Lots of bears live back here, as evidence in the over 50 piles of bear scat along the trail.  The more remote location had made this canyon a popular smuggle route going north, but today we didn't see any migrant trash.

We met a lone trail maintenance man near the 3.5-mile mark.  Originally from Pennsylvania, he moved to the area and single-handedly cuts down the overgrowth each spring.  The trail was easy to follow with the cairns along the way.  We only briefly lost the trail twice, and both times Ellen saw the cairns when the rest of us did not.

At 0.25 mile from the saddle we rested briefly at a dry trough.  I gave Zeke his water. (Ellen took photo)

We arrived at the saddle in 2:15 hours.  We could see to the northwest, with Rincon peak in the distance and the town of Mescal and I-10 below.  The trail here continues downhill few more miles to a green tank, which we could see below.  

A barbed wire with opening divides the national forest from private property at the sunny saddle.  We rested and had lunch here before starting our return hike via an ascent up Whetstone and East Peaks before the brutal descent and last two miles.

We followed a faint trail along the barbed wire and now were walking north, up an exposed hillside with plenty of shin daggers and catclaw at the peaks.  The soil itself was firm, though, and allowed for secure footing. From here we could see all the tall peaks of the Whetstones, this pristine beauty.  We rested near Whetstone Peak, where ladybugs adorned me, before now turning southwest along a ridgeline. 

We were now heading to our second peak, East Peak.  We could see parts of the Guindani trail and Rickets mine to our northeast.

 We saw a group of about eight people below in another saddle, all wearing red shirts and huddled by an oak tree.  Who were these people and what were they doing here?  We sure have met quite a few people in a remote canyon!  As we got closer to them we learned they were a search and rescue team out of Ajo, AZ, Paralelo 31, who were looking for a body near a water tank farther downhill.  We had seen the tank but didn't descend yet.  Paraleo 31 travels every month to find bodies of reported missing migrants so that families can have closure.  They are volunteers who pay for their own expenses, but do take donations as this work is not easy.  They all looked exhausted.  We chatted a bit before departing, we going uphill for a bit as they descended to the tank.  From this high point one can clearly see the north-south elongated uplift in the rock, a mixture of sedimentary and granite.

We were now on the steep descent once we made it past East Peak, and Zeke and I were getting exhausted.  The grade at times was 34%.  We advanced only 1.4 miles in the last two hours and we had the warming afternoon sun over us.  My knees were starting to hurt.  Rod fell and injured the same hand he broke a few years ago.  We didn't get back on tierra firma until we hit the 9,4 mile mark.  This last mile was at a much more humane grade, but but now we were all exhausted.  We stopped briefly at an old  ore processing mill but by now we were all in going home mode. We got to our cars shortly after 4pm and I attacked my cranberry juice while Zeke got his canned meal and ice water.

 

All of us were exhausted.  I thanked Rod for leading this hike and we quickly departed.  I stopped to get dinner for Kevin and me and went straight home, where excited dogs were glad to see me.  Hansel insisted I walk him around the block, so he, Sweetie and Gretel got a mini walk but now my legs were hurting.  My body needed to rest but I couldn't say no to the dogs. Once I got my boots off, I was in bed.

***

The UK variant of the coronavirus, B-117, is now showing up in the US in 14 states and is expected to create another C.  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/transmission/variant-cases.html

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