Pioneer Pass in the Tonto National Forest

Hikes: 

To Pinal Peak on the Pioneer Trail (196)
and East Mountain Trail

We drove down from Arcadia Campground in the Coronado National Forest Pinaleno Mountains early in the morning (there is supposed to be a little squiggly over the second n in Pinaleno, but the IPad won't let me). We traveled at this time of day to avoid traffic, as the road is very steep and winding, and I thought it would be easier if I was the only vehicle on the road.

Then, later in the afternoon drove up another mountain road that was worse.

That would be Forest Road 112 up to Pioneer Pass in the Tonto National Forest.

It is steeper, more winding, narrower, and to add to the fun, dirt. Of course this means ruts and that wonderful feeling of driving over a washboard.







The drop offs are at least 1000 feet of straight down. No guard rails of course. Gulp. Driving up all I could think about was the drive down in a few days where I knew that even driving in 1st gear would not be slow enough, and I would have to be very careful about not riding the brakes. There are some areas where it is possible for two cars to pass, but they are few and far between.

If you are reading this, we made it. If you are not reading this, send help--we are somewhere deep in a ravine in the Tonto National Forest.

As has been the case so often recently, we are the only people in the campground. It is an interesting campground because it consists of several small campground enclaves spread over approximately one mile of the road. We are in the second little enclave, with sites numbered 7-11. And once again no trash receptacles-- grrr.

Each enclave has well maintained bathroom. Since the sites are numbered (printed on the concrete picnic tables) one wonders whether the campground used to be one where you had to pay.



We noticed that there appears to have been water provided here at one time. This is something we have seen frequently on this trip--evidence that a campground used to have a water source but no longer does. Have all the water sources dried up or did they become too expensive to maintain?




Since we are the only people here I cleaned the bathroom for our use. Here I am with cleaner and disinfectant. The next day, while hiking, someone came and thoroughly cleaned the bathroom, stocking with new rolls of toilet paper. I guess they thought I hadn't done an adequate job.



On our first day we hiked to Pinal Peak on Pioneer Trail (196). We had to walk a mile up the road to the trailhead. Beautiful fall colors.



Overall the hike was 6.5 miles with a substantial amount of gain--1800 feet--some of it on the mile walk to the trailhead.

The first mile of the trail was dirt and soft, and very easy to follow. And it provided stunning views of the Superstition Mountains.







Then we went through a small stand of what looked to be Arizona's version of Madrona (sp) trees, with bright red trunks.


Then we went through the section that reminded me of fall in the Midwest--fallen leaves and brightly colored ones still on the trees and bushes. We walked on a carpet of fallen leaves, making a lot of noise as we walked.











The last mile or so was not our favorite part of the hike. More evidence of burn.



For hiking purposes what burn does is that it destroys the forest canopy. The first part of our hike, where there was the canopy, was lovely because you could see through the woods to the other hills. But when the canopy is gone bushes spring up, so you are hiking through brush. It is hard to even see the trail at times, and occasionally we had to walk around a bit to find it. Vicky caught one of those times when I am perplexed as to where to go.


Toward the top was a spring that I'm guessing was originally the source of the water for the campground.

We surprised a deer drinking there. It surprised us too.


This cleared up (sorta) a puzzle about an old trail sign we saw near the beginning of the hike. Although the trail is called the Pioneer Trail on all of the printed and on-line literature, it appears that a long time ago it was named the Squaw Springs Trail. Unusual. The spring we found is or used to be named Squaw Springs apparently.




A bit later we reached what we thought was the end of the trail, an open area with LOTS of horse droppings, indicating that people have spent the night there in the past. Found another great place for lunch.


And then started back down. Sometimes when hiking back down to the trailhead one can enjoy the views more because you aren't hunting for the trail and because you aren't huffing and puffing as much.



On our way down we saw a fox. I couldn't get a photo, drat, because it was so small. But we followed it for awhile in the woods.

At the end of a hike--drying things out and having chips and our unique-recipe salsa and fruit dip. Yum. So refreshing.






Hike Report:  Pioneer Pass (Squaw Spring) Trail  196.

(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)



East Mountain Trail

Our hike the next day began, again, with the one-mile trek up the road to the trail head, except today we went left rather than right at the top.






The trail went up for about 1/4 of a mile, and then leveled off.






We ran into a guy hunting bear. He was sitting on a hillside, with field glasses trained to the following hillside. About an hour later we heard the retort of a rifle, so apparently he got off a shot.




We walked some more along the trail until the views to our south, east, and west opened up. Stunning.



















We went through another small Madrona forest.





Another great place for a lunch--this time at the top of the hike, just before about a mile of descent on a few dozen switchbacks.






On our descent we could frequently see the road, our goal, through the trees.



We found another spring which had been capped several years before.



We continued down until we reached the road, about half a mile below our campground.


Because today's hike was a loop, and because we had a hiking map, it was an opportunity to check one of the features of my Garmin Foretrex 401 hiking GPS.

One of its screens is of an energetic little man dropping bread crumbs. We have already tested to see if creates a trail that could be followed back if one gets lost (verdict: it does).

Today we wanted to see if it would create a trail in the shape of the trail map. As can be seen, it does a great job.






Today's wildlife photo: a tarantula. Isn't he cute?

Hike Report:  East Mountain Trail, Pioneer Pass AZ


(Note that the elevation gain changes a bit when one disables the elevation correction.  Note also that, as is typical with both my hiking and biking Garmins, elevation gain does not equal elevation loss, even though we always start and stop in the same exact location;  I basically take an average of all of these figures to arrive at what I believe to be the best estimate of elevation gain.  It is probably accurate to within 50 feet or so, which is pretty good.  Usually it is within a few feet of elevation gains provided on the occasional trail map that reports elevation gains of hikes, which makes us feel confident in what we estimate when this information is not provided by trail maps.)