Here's the trip report from our March 24-25, 2012 overnight wheelin' trip to Box Canyon near Florence, AZ and beyond. Participants were: Dave and Jessica A. in the '79 Cruiser, Bob P. in the '86 Blazer, Rick M. in the '91 4Runner, John H. and Cameron T. in the '02 Avalanche, plus Jon R. as a roving passenger.
Saturday started with a hearty breakfast at Claire's Cafe in Catalina. Breakfast was at 9:30, so you can tell an astronomer scheduled the trip. After topping up with gas at the Florence Chevron station, we headed East on Price Rd to Box Canyon. The first problem was that trip leader John's GPS had only one waypoint in it, and that was in Utah. Thus, this trip was navigated the old-fashioned way with memory and paper maps. It was a beautiful sunny day with temperatures in the upper 80's. As we entered Box Canyon it became immediately clear that everybody and his uncle, aunt, brother, sister was out to enjoy the weather. We encountered all manner of trail bikes, ATVs, XUVs, and even a few Jeeps. It was a traffic nightmare, however I did notice a trend for them all to scatter out of the way when they encountered a 3/4-ton Avalanche coming in the opposite direction. Traffic continued to be heavy the whole way to the coke ovens. We are still debating: Were they really charcoal ovens? Or did they start with coal? (see this article) By this time Jessica says "my bones are vibrating", and it was an accurate statement since the trail to the coke ovens is quite rough even though it has only one technical spot.
The first truck problems of the day happened after John led the group into a dead-end mesquite bosque near the coke ovens. John dented the side of his hood and bent the hinge on a broken mesquite branch (one of the few parts of the truck that wasn't already dented). Then Dave's engine wouldn't run for lack of gas. After fiddling with it for 20 minutes the diagnosis was "partial vapor lock?", but it was running.
Heading East along the Gila after the coke ovens led us through some nice mudholes. They were easy to cross, but they put enough mud on the trucks that you could tell we'd been out having fun (don't tell Isaac). The mud also filtered out all the ATVs, so there was no traffic for the rest of the day. We headed up the Red Mountain Mine Rd away from the Gila. We crossed over the spine about 20 minutes before sunset and made camp in White Canyon near the confluence with Walnut Canyon. The area is just on the boundary between saquaro forest and riparian area with stunning cliffs. It was a beautiful warm night, so the oak/cholla campfire was mainly symbolic. Even though we drove all day to get there, we were still camped fairly close to town from the other side. Another group about 300 yards away was playing their stereo at 2AM. I guess we will have to find more inaccessible campsites in the future (minimum trail rating 3.5). There were also a few mosquitos left over from last Monday's rains. The night was warm enough that leaving your face exposed to watch stars, meteors and satellites was a pleasant activity.
We broke camp about 8:15 on Sunday morning and headed upstream in Walnut Canyon. In about 3/4 mile we encountered a huge group with about 20 vehicles just starting to break their own camp. They turned out to be a Boy Scout troop (109) from Phoenix. They politely opened the gate for us, so we didn't have to use our own Boy Scout. We followed Battle Axe Rd out to the highway. Bob left us to go to work on Mt. Lemmon in the afternoon.
The remaining 3 trucks headed to Superior on the highway to top off with gas. Gas became a topic of interest when John's gage transitioned from "stuck at 3/4" to "stuck at zero". After Superior, we took the turnoff opposite the Arboretum to follow the loop made by Forest Roads 8, 650, 172 and 357 going counter-clockwise. We made it about half way around the loop before we encountered the morning wave of ATVs and XUVs coming in the other direction. Fire ("650 Fire" in August 2011) has burned the upper regions of the pass east of Roger's Trough, so some of the high shelf road is scarily exposed. We stopped for lunch with a nice view of the Superstitions although the day was quite hazy and overcast. The wildflowers were nice with a variety of colors, but not spectacular. We aired up and got back on pavement near Florence Junction about 2:30 PM.
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South Entrance to Box Canyon.
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This is what the oncoming ATV sees.
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Note the very tall saguaro without arms.
There are a few boulders to crawl over in Box Canyon.
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Rock steps along the way to the Coke Ovens.
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We didn't bag any zombies, but we had our permits.
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"Coke" (charcoal) Ovens near the Gila River.
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The Cochran townsite on the other side (south) of the Gila River.
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Crossing Walnut Creek on Sunday morning.
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Some of the many switchbacks climbing up FR 650.
What kind of Juniper is this?.
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Alligator Juniper.
Stopped here for lunch.
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This web page maintained by John M. Hill: jhill@as.arizona.edu
Last modified: Mon Apr 2 23:45:23 2012