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| Old Original Trail #151-Logging Road Meander, AZ | |
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| | Old Original Trail #151-Logging Road Meander, AZ | | | |
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Old Original Trail #151-Logging Road Meander, AZ
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| Hiking | 5.90 Miles |
1,045 AEG |
| | Hiking | 5.90 Miles | | | |
| 1,045 ft AEG | | 12 LBS Pack | | |
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| partners | | There is an old road which isn't shown on many topo maps leading north off of FR487 about 0.3 miles east past Workman Creek Falls in the Sierra Ancha. I have often been curious about where this road goes and for what purpose. While discussing additional hikes for the day with Grasshopper after we had finished exploring the site of Peterson Ranch, I was surprised to find out that Grasshopper had also been thinking about exploring this road so off we went. This old road shows up on our Garmin Southwest Topo maps and is labeled as Tr 151. So either the Garmin map which I believe is based on old USGS topo maps has the road incorrectly labeled or perhaps this old road had been turned into hiking trail #151 by the Forest Service some time ago when the road was closed. (The 1986 USGS topo for Aztec Peak shows this "trail" as a 4WD road.) Then later this trail was discontinued and trail number 151 was assigned to the current Abbey Way Trail.
We found the start of the road on the east side of the drainage which has the flow measurement weir. The old road has a row of small boulders blocking it at FR 487 and a larger barrier of dirt and big boulders about 50 yds up the road. We would continue to find about 3 to 5 large vehicle barriers spaced along the road as it climbed up to the top of the ridge. Seems like one barrier would have been enough. The road was fairly easy to follow as it climbed up hill although we lost the track on the way back a couple of times, perhaps because the sun was lower behind the trees. It obviously has not been used by vehicles for some time as it had trees up to about 4-6 inches in diameter growing up in the middle of it in several places. As the road climbs up the hillside it passes through a forest of small oak trees with scattered pines. As it breaks out on top of the ridge the pines take over predominance.
We found that the road closely follows the location shown on the Garmin topo map. I had thought this was just another of the many old mining roads but we saw no evidence of mining activity. Once on top of the ridge the road followed the crest of the ridge and we saw a fork in the road which followed another ridge line. This is typical of logging roads in tree harvest areas. We saw a number of very old stumps but either it had not been heavily logged or many stumps had rotted away with time. A couple of pieces of heavy cable left along the road provided further evidence that this had been a logging area. I found this surprising considering how risky it must have been to drive logging trucks down the road past Workman Falls. Perhaps it had been a small operation to provide timbers for the many uranium mines scattered along Workman Creek Canyon in the early 1950s. The road up Workman Creek at that time would have been improved for use by ore trucks, maybe with funding from the government (AEC). Two days later we would visit two of these old uranium mines and found one had many rough timbers made from logs of various diameters supporting the roof. Based on the appearance of the bark, I think these logs/beams were pine like the trees along the old logging road.
I would not rate this hike high on the list of places to go although it makes for a nice shaded stroll in a forest of tall pines. The allure for us had been the mystery of where the road went and what had been it's purpose. |
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