Eagle Creek

Eagle Creek, November 16-18, 2007

Here's the trip report from our 16-18 November 2007 trip to Lower Eagle Creek near Morenci, AZ. Participants were John H. and Jon R. in John's Avalanche 2500, Bob P. and Don E. in Bob's fullsize Blazer, Ron P. and Jesse S. in Ron's Toyota P/U and Harry A. with dogs Chief and Casey in his Samurai. I counted 7 lockers and 3 winches among this set of 4 trucks. We left Houghton & I-10 about 12:15 on Friday and got to the Conoco station in Morenci about 3:15. By the time we finished with gas, restrooms, airing down and jalapeno poppers it was close to 4PM when we got to the Lower Eagle Creek road turnoff from Hwy 191. The sharp-eyed in the group had already seen some bighorn sheep standing along the side of the road before we got out of the Morenci mine area.

I must make the disclaimer that none of the information in this trip report may be true (an inside joke around the campfire). We headed downstream on Eagle Creek starting from the pump station for the mine. The second water crossing was already 30-inches deep as the beavers have been active in the area directly below the pump station. The creek was fairly low (about 25 cfs), so the deepest crossing we did all weekend was about 32 inches deep. We stopped for a brief visit to the slot canyon at Gold Gulch. As expected, the scenery was fantastic with high cliffs and changing leaves. We made it to our camping spot at the Bat Cave a few minutes after sunset. There wasn't any bat flight as the bats have gone south, or are hibernating, or something for the winter. Temperature got down to the low 40's overnight and the sky was clear, so it was a lovely evening for sitting around the campfire. We looked at the bright (magnitude 2.5) comet 17P/Holmes in the constellation of Perseus with binoculars.

We got to see a bighorn ram scaling the steep cliff above our camp while eating breakfast on Saturday morning. We would have all bet that he couldn't go where he actually went. We continued downstream (south) on Eagle Creek on Saturday. We stopped to repair a leaking oil gauge line on the Samurai. Note to John W.: Harry managed to keep the Samurai rubber-side-down for the entire trip, although we did have to strap him out of the mud once. Since we had finished re-cutting the trail down to the Gila on the last trip, we made it down to the confluence with the Gila River before 3PM. Only light pruning of the trail was needed where beaver-cut trees had fallen. We spent about an hour hiking around the confluence area and looking at the native american ruins up on the hill. Then we headed about 2 miles back up Eagle Creek for the Saturday night camp. Saturday night was a bit warmer with thin clouds in the sky. Despite the barely brisk weather we had a roaring mesquite fire. This spot has a sand bench, so there weren't any Eagle Creek exploding rocks in the fire.

Starting above the Gila, we had hopes for a quick exit on Sunday morning. These hopes were quickly dashed when one of the steering tie rods broke on the Avalanche. Fortunately, I had a spare tie rod and a passenger who's a mechanic, and the whole repair took little more than half an hour. Later the Toyata slipped on the edge of a gravel bank and we used the winch to save him from rolling down the small bank into the mud. Thanks Ron: every good wheelin' trip should include some winching. We stopped for a break at the Bat Cave on the way out, and saw a bighorn ewe standing on the cliff posing for backlit photos. We saw a diversity of wildlife including bighorns, quail, squirrel, javelinas, and a fox of some kind. We got back to Morenci about 2PM and saw a couple more bighorns there along the highway going down to Clifton. We finished the trip with Carne Adovada burritos at Chalo's in Safford. Total off-pavement travel: 24 miles

Trail rating: This trips starts out a "3", and slowly ramps up to "4". Two lockers are a good idea if you want to do the last four miles in a fullsize truck. Besides water crossings, the main obstacles are climbing gravel banks on the upper side of stream crossings. Except in two noteable places with mud, the bottom of the creek is solid and pretty easy to cross.