Saturday, April 3, 2010

Ford Canyon White Tank Mountains

We have hiked in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park many times before. It is close to the place we stay at when in Phoenix and it has some nice hiking trails. Previously we have hiked the Goat Camp Trail (7 Miles) and the Water Falls Canyon trail (1-2 miles).

If you look up Ford canyon trail on the map it connects to Goat Canyon Trail at the top of the White Tank Mountains. The round trip is roughly 13-14 miles. Today we are not going to go that far, we are just going to hike up to the abandon dam roughly 3.5 to 4 miles one way or 8 miles roundtrip.

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We started our hike at about 8:30 in the morning at the trail head in parking spot # 9. Its a mile or 2 around the end of the mountain range to the beginning of the Ford Canyon trail where the hiking gets interesting.

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With the recent rains in Arizona the wild flowers are in bloom and the beginning of the trail is very colorful.

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All along the trail the Bluebells are in bloom.

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About mile marker 2 the flat Horse, Biking, Hiking trail gives way to a more rugged trail restricted to hiking only.

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I guess that the previous sign was not kidding about the rugged trail ahead!

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As we move higher into the canyon there are signs of water and under some rocks we find some Desert Ferns.

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Around mile marker 4 on the rocky trail pools of water can be seen collecting in low spots.

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At about 4.5 miles is the old abandoned dam that used to collect water. Now it is all silted in behind the low dam and the water runs over the top during heavy rains

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Panorama of the abandon Ford Canyon Dampano Ford Canyon Dam

Going up steep rocky faces is all ways easier than coming down and Margaret shows how it is done.

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The rock scampering queen takes a break in this shady spot by one of the stagnant pools.

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We stopped for lunch on a bluff overlooking the desert floor before hiking out of the canyon on the walk back to the trailhead.

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We hiked into the trailhead at a few minutes after 1:00PM roughly 4 hours round trip.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing!