Mine Canyon in the Whetstones

 

The small mountain range north of Whetstone, AZ has only two official trails and both are accessible via Kartchner Caverns State Park.  All other trails are old mining trails popular with ATVers.

Ellen and I agreed to meet at 6am at the big Circle K gas station near her home. It was going to be a hot day and we knew we had to be done by 9am to avoid being out in the exposed heat.  It didn't quite work out that way.

Getting to Mine Canyon is not easy, as roads in the Whetstone foothills are a chaotic network of unmarked trails through catclaw and mesquite.  Access Road is Sands Ranch Road off SR82, the third street on the north side of the highway.  It turns into a dirt road as it passes by new ranch homes.  You drive through two fences and continue in a northeasterly direction for three miles before the road accends the dry hills.  This is National Forest property, but cattle can graze here.

I was driving up front, watching the rutted road and being careful to straddle the high parts.  I hit a bowling ball-sized rock which was thrown against my driveshaft, causing damage to both my splashguard and the driveshaft, creating a horrific metal-on-metal grinding.  I told Ellen we had to park our cars and start walking.  This meant that we had to walk 1.7 miles before we even hit the hills, losing time we could have spent in the hills.

It was now 7am and already 70F.  Gretchen and Sweetie took off running along the road.  It took another hour when the heat started getting noticeable and I had to stop to give them water.  These are dry hills with no water source.  Even a large cattle tank was empty and I only had a gallon of water.

This was Ellen's first time in these hills.  She agreed that this hike today was best down in the fall or winter, and we will be back to explore the side trails that mostly dead end at what used to be mines.

It had been over 11 years since I was last here.  The road into the hills is now badly rutted, and the main route near the high point apparently has experienced flash flooding and turned a road into an overgrown cholla-infested barrier.  We turned around at the cholla because it was painful on the dogs' paws.  Sweetie at one point refused to walk any farther because her front paws were covered in those prickly cactus with the fine thorns that easily embed in skin.

I was also feeling the heat.  I should have brought more water as I had to conserve what I had for the dogs.  We stopped at the three-mile point by a large boulder that offered cooling shade, but which I discovered was also surrounded by dead but still very prickly cholla.

The views from the main route are to the southwest.  Recent rains have made the vista green, but it was hazy today.  It's an area I still haven't fully explored in all my years living nearby.  Ellen wants to come back when it's cooler so we can check out the many mines along the route.

We never saw another person or vehicle, but we did see fresh tire tracks. But it was the increasing heat that kept us to six miles.  It was 84F  at 10:30am and the high for today was expected to reach the upper 90s.  This was too dangerous for human and dog.  We turned around at three miles.

While Gretchen didn't seem bothered by the heat--she's turned into quite an athletic dog--Sweetie was clearly hurting.  We stopped two more times on the return walk to give them water.

We made it back to the cars just before 11am.  I was sweating, but my concern now was getting home safely.  I feared losing my front anxle on the return drive and needing a tow truck to come get me.  I called Steve who lives nearby but he didn't answer his phone, but Ellen agreed we should still stop by in case he was outside tinkering on his new motorcycle.

And sure enough, he was outside with his friend Kel.  Both he and Kel took time out from their bike work to look at the Ridgeline, crawling underneath the chassis on the hot gravel to diagnose a broken driveshaft.  Both men said I could drive the truck home, but to avoid high speeds.  The high grinding noise and heavy vibration both only got louder the faster I drove.

The heat and the depressing news that I need to now get the truck fixed before school starts up again in two weeks depressed me for the rest of the day.  Ellen and I stopped at Culver's for a late lunch, but once I was home at 2pm, spent a few hours trying to cool off in the bedroom while the dogs napped underneath the RV.  

I got a surprise phone call from TheresaD in the early afternoon.  She moved down with her husband from Montana, but her husband Gene died December 26, 2020.  She called to let me know she is now ready to hike again, move out of the house she shared with Gene, and start taking care of herself again.  She has a house in Ramsey Canyon she is hoping to bid on.  She is a fast hiker and has an adventurous spirit, but like me has gone through many losses these last three years.