Pueblo Park Interpretive Trail

Apache National Forest

(map link)
I decided to start out small and since I was camping right next to the trailhead, it was easy to find the interpretive trail in Pueblo Park Campground. (Maybe soon to be a fee campground, but free for now.) The box held a single well used, one time repaired, brochure with a long note about how it is the very last one, so do not, under any circumstances, keep it. (The brochure is titled: Trail to the Past... Prehistoric and Historic Settlement in the Pueblo Creek Area. It is a Gila National Forest publication since they are in administrative control of this part of Apache.) It said just follow the mounded cairns and stop at the numbered signs, but I found the map on the second page necessary in a few spots. I even started off following the faint track of an old road before noting and calibrating to the cairns going up a path to the left. Right, those big mounded rock piles of cairns. From there, I was set through the first couple stops.

A notice board and brochure box mark the start of the interpretive trail.

We start big with the remains of a great kiva. It is not the intact or even rebuilt structure one might find in the more famous locations. This trail is dealing with the more common reality, but it does manage to cover quite far ranging aspects of life along the creek over at least 1500 years. The heaps of rocks and depressions left in these marked locals are generally plain enough to see what they are talking about.

A particularly regular depression surrounded by a greater number of stones than generally found is what is left of the great kiva.

The trail had traveled up to a wide ridge, a "park" if you will, with some views. I took it in while reading about why it would be hard to find walls instead of mounds in this area.

Some mounds that once were walls, perhaps even two story ones.

A little bit of view through the trees.

A peak peeks up while the trail descends.

I came to a fork and consulted the map before taking what seemed to be the lesser used trail. People were failing to step over the water bar and the next cairn was hidden until taking a few steps forward. So I go to the next stop, a somewhat more modern and somewhat more intact piece of history. They were even able to ask the people who were part of using it what it was and still couldn't get a single answer for what it was for.

Incinerator or headquarters for the CCC camp that was here not quite 100 years ago.

I had to consult the map once more as the trail loops back through another part of the campground. It joins up briefly with the Dangerous Park Trail, then forks off to the left. (Currently only Dangerous Park is marked.) It forks again as it encounters a dry gully where it officially becomes the most adventurous interpretive trail that I have ever encountered. Signs indicate to follow that gully right on down to Pueblo Creek.

Past the coral and take the left at the fork.

Farming outbuildings must have been lesser built things then too, for I found little bit more view here.

There's a second sign up at the corner ahead to help indicate that, yes, one should walk the wash.

I found a single flower and here it is.

The gully lets out into Pueblo Creek and so does the trail. It was just as dry as the gully. It turns downstream and climbs up the left side to get past the fence that crosses the creek. Since the fence is broken and stretched across the left side, I only managed to have to deal with it by taking this short segment of trail.

The map shows year round water here, but I see none upstream.

I went too far downstream and consulted the map again. I should have crossed. The trail climbing out was a little eroded and I wasn't sure of it. The tread above has a layer of pine needles. People tend not to get this far.

No water downstream either, but it is the sort of surface that can easily have water running underground. Note the cairn on the right to mark trail going up.

There are more views from this side. The benches in the shade are all intact.

There is a long stretch that is high and with views through the trees before it comes down again and meets the road. I wasn't sure what to do there, but there seemed to be trail on the other side, and that much better used. It must be cow path because once I consulted the map, it indicated that I should have turned at the road and followed the campground road back to the start. All interpreting was over.

It can be such a jumble that the archeologists are trying to make sense of.

I had meant to visit the spring and expected the trail would have a stop there. No such luck. I had to make my own stop. Behind the main notice board and register for the campground, there are some steps down that get to the spring, which was built around at some time. It was also completely dry.

Structures at the spring. There are more uphill. There just seems to be a lack of water.

Then I walked back and slipped the precious single last brochure back in the box a little more used.

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addendum, 4 Jun 2022

The next day, I learned that as dry as it seems, there really could be water underneath because if you hike up "quite a ways" you can find it flowing and even a little waterfall. The day after, I decided to have a go at it. I first went and found the nearby geocache, which has a photocopy of the brochure, then walked up the creek and kept on walking for, well, quite a while. First I found a monkey flower that looked very much like the "seep" type, generally found where there is a bit of water. Then, I found water. It is not quite so dry as it looks. Unfortunately, I only had my pocket computer along for photos and there was no track generated.

The monkey flower that suggested that there might be water here after all.

Not much flow, but there is some.

With that encouragement, I kept on going to see this waterfall. I wasn't expecting much. A little drop and not quite vertical would be enough. There was more water as I went.

The character of the canyon changes a little.

And then I saw it. It was short and not quite vertical, but not so bad as I feared it might be. There is a bit of a waterfall coming into a pool that has been deepened a little by a rock dam.

Canyon and waterfall. It's quite a nice canyon at this point too.

So lovely to see water flowing.

The waterfall from the right.

The waterfall from the left. It really is a slanted thing.

I rather liked the look of the canyon above, but not the way to get there. I was surprised not to see any well worn rock showing how those before me passed the waterfally. It didn't look that hard, but when I started, it didn't seem quite easy enough. I did not end up exploring the canyon above.

A nightshade that was growing near the waterfall.

On the way back, just after the water was gone again, I investigated a bearing tree that seemed to indicate a corner was out in the creek. All I could see in the creek was the cairn that had got my attention to see the bearing tree. It is probably there to mark the trail that climbs up and out of the canyon below the bearing tree. I followed it back and found that it is the one that splits off from the interpretive trail when that trail follows the gully down. It does make for easier walking to where the water is and I expect is being kept up rather well by the cattle that graze the area.

*photo album*




©2022 Valerie Norton
Written 17 Jun 2022