Here are a few photos from an afternoon date exploring an area of slot canyons and washes about 30 minutes north of Socorro. Great geology with lots of nice stratigraphy cut by normal faults. It was a cool breezy afternoon- perfect for it. We hiked and climbed through some of the more interesting features in the canyon and then climbed up on top of the canyon for a sunset picnic dinner. Although not extensive, it is a pretty area to explore and my impression is it is one of the more scenic areas in our immediate vicinity. A great place for bonfires too. Thanks to Sara for showing me around.
The infamous Salome Jug. This short stretch of canyon is one of the most classic canyon trips in Arizona and has been on my list of places for years. Being stunningly beautiful and not overly challenging, for many The Jug is their introduction to canyoning. For us it would be the icing on the weekend cake. I carefully drove Sara's low slung Mazda along A Cross Road's windy path to the carpark. Here an old road contours its way around ridges, taking its time dropping in height. It took 2 miles of trail to go what was probably a crow flight distance of less than a mile- it was the antithesis of an NZ trail and kind of frustrating to meander in and out of a valley only to see the car only slightly further away. Nevertheless the scenery posed by the saguaro forest and high cliffs of Salome made it all worth it as we snaked our way down to the creek.
Upper Salome, miles and miles upstream is a canyon in its own right. Below this the valley flattens for many miles, with the creek dissolving into its streambed except in times of high flow. Then at The Jug the water appears again to cut a deep notch through the pink granite. The canyon deepens through its whole length and then abruptly ends at a normal fault where the granite has been offset. The desert oasis then slowly reverts back to its desert wash downstream.
The start
We were warm by the time we reached the creek and were all but ready to suit up and jump into the refreshing water. This weekend I had been continually amazed at how much water there was in this southern Arizonan desert and Salome Jug was no exception. There was a veritable oasis of life that crowded around the creek. The contrast of the wet and wild canyon with the saguaro cacti just beyond was forever present. The harsh unclouded sun on the bright canyon walls meant harsh light and brutal photo conditions but also meant comfortable temperatures and beautiful water reflections in the canyon's shadows.
We slid, jumped, climbed and swam through the canyon, savoring its beautiful features. Despite the late season, the canyon was in great shape and we saw very little algae clouding the clear pools. The pink granite made for one of the least slippery wet canyons I have ever been in. It was just pure fun!
All too soon it seemed, we reached the falls which drops into the Jug itself, an enormous pothole shaped pool over 3m deep in places. Sara opted to rappel down the falls. After she scouted the pool with goggles, I traversed out and jumped into the pool. There was a great granite ledge just above the water so we relaxed and swam for a bit. Sara spotted some shiny objects in the pool. After a couple attempts I made a ear-bending dive to retrieve two locking carabiners, an anchor plate and a pair on sunglasses. Score! My best canyon haul yet! We then swam out of the Jug, admiring the play of watery reflections on the wall. It really was a beautiful spot!
The Jug
A couple more pools and one last turn in the canyon presented a vertical wall-framed view of the desert beyond and the canyon's abrupt end. We swam this last pool and changed in the shade of a tree. Turns out I was standing on a small log with a coiled rattlesnake underneath. Luckily it did not seem too perturbed. Sara and I were both feeling a little reluctant to leave
this oasis for the uphill desert sweatfest and so stayed a bit longer to
enjoy the cool spot. Then the inevitable hike back to the car. Thanks to Sara for a fun trip.
The Gateway to the Desert (the abrupt end of the canyon)
For Sunday the plan was to descend another granite creek with a nice set of narrows, return up a second creek, and then loop back to our starting point on a good trail. It would be a more leisurely day than the day before and we did not need any gear other than a wetsuit for this trip. The canyon started as a wide open valley with a peaceful creek in it. Rocks towered overhead at intervals but essentially the route involved crossing back and forth across the stream and cutting through the vegetation to find the path of least resistance.
Everywhere we looked we saw lots of frogs, happily sitting on the warm rocks in clusters. After skirting several deep pools we came to one that would be a shame to not jump into, and so we suited up and jumped in. The water was surprisingly cold.
And then the fun began. Several slides led to an awesome flooded corridor. I found a sketchy way to climb above the deep pool and jump in. The good stuff kept going for at least another half hour. Jumps, slides, swims. A really pretty bit of canyon.
Eventually it abated though and turned its water boulder scrambling for quite a while. The narrows opened to give great views of the ever deepening valley, lined with trees and rock formations. We reached our tributary creek and started on up it. To my surprise this creek too was very pretty. It even had a waterfall where we had to climb out of the drainage to bypass. The canyon had some great sculpted granite.
We de-suited at just the right point, walked about a hundred meters to the trail, and followed the trail back to our cars in the blazing heat. We had another superb leisurely afternoon at camp. In the morning we said goodbye to Tom and Megan before we drove to get in one last adventure. Thanks to Tom and Megan for fantastic company and a great weekend, and to Todd for secret canyon beta.
I had already started planning this weekend of southern Arizona canyons before I even left NZ. I knew these desert canyons were best done in the spring when flows were highest and the canyons least scummy with algae so the sooner we got to them, the better. Fortunately canyoning friends Tom and Megan were keen and recruited Rich and Todd, the guidebook author himself, to join us for a day of canyoning.
Sara and I left Socorro late afternoon and drove straight west towards dark clouds, rain, and even short-lived patches of snow. We drove past the Very Large Array, across an expansive basin, and through volcanic hills. We steadily dropped elevation on our way to Arizona. There were surprisingly few towns along the way, and only a couple places to get gasoline. Past Show Low we drove across the impressive Salt Creek Canyon, an impressive feat of road building which snakes down to the bottom of the canyon before snaking back up the other side. Late in the night we finally reached our campground past Globe. It was a warm night in the Arizona Uplands.
First up for the weekend was Waterslides Canyon, a semi-secret canyon with a reputation for fun waterslides and jumps. Only one of us in the group had been to it before so we were all looking forward to it. We drove a long winding back road through forests of healthy saguaro cacti, eventually parking in an innocuous wash. Several miles of hiking in another dry wash provided no indication of the canyon we would soon reach. By the heat of mid-morning we had reached the top of the canyon, meters away from our first waterslide into a beautiful deep pool (photo above). Fortunately we had just hit the tail end of the season and the water in the stream was just barely running.
The canyon was an open pool-drop pothole chain type canyon with no real sustained narrows and plenty of opportunities for escape. It quickly became obvious this would not be a committing adventure, but rather the type of canyon that was best appreciated at a leisurely pace. Virtually every fun feature in the canyon was repeatable, so every possible variation of a slide or jump was repeated until we had our fill. The pools were in great shape- deep and fresh- it was only in a few open sections near the top of the canyon that we found copious green sludgy algae. A little disgusting but also kind of cool.
The granite was sculpted into many fantastic features. Thankfully the granite had amazing grip except where we wanted it to be nice and slippery. It was a well-behaved canyon and a true playground. After several smaller features and pools we came to the top of a steep and smooth chute into a dark pool. After an initial assessment thinking this was one of the abseils, I decided it was actually a slide. I got into position and gave myself a good push. This was the best slide! A smooth and fast chute that ended in a 1m drop at the end. I repeated this slide almost a half dozen times before we moved on.
The best slide!
The best slide from below
We shortly came to another big drop (15m?) into one of the biggest, and definitely deepest, pools in the canyon. Here we were overwhelmed with options. I started us off with a sideways jump onto a slide. Tom found a great running side-wall jump. Sara found a bypass. And at last I found a clean 15m jump from the very top. Good fun and again several rounds were had before more sliding and jumping down to the next pool.
After this, at roughly the halfway point, the canyon opened up for a couple hundred meters and descended slowly across granite slickrock, which provided fantastic views of the surrounding saguaro and ocotillo forest. Frogs with spots and tan coloration were perfectly camouflaged to the coarsely crystalline granite. By now the day was hot and the pools did a superb job of keeping us refreshed.
The canyon then began to build up momentum for its shorter second half. More jumps and slides found us at the top of a 17m drop that we rigged as an abseil. Up to this point I was the only one in the group that had gone this far through the canyon without wearing harness and abseiling gear. I wanted to see if the canyon could be done without gear so I used the rope as a handline to get to a prominent ledge from which I could launch myself far out into the deep part of the pool. We stopped for lunch on the pool's edge. Beyond we could see the last stretch of narrows.
The last narrows went around a couple bends with only a few more short jumps and some swims before we reached the horizon line at the end of the canyon. Here we set up a handline to aid descent down the slippery last waterfall. One final pool to swim and the fun was over. We de-wetsuited and hiked our way back down the bone-dry wash, a great contrast to the secret oasis in the Arizona desert.
After saying goodbye to Todd and Rich, the four remaining drove up to be in the pines trees where the cooler night would aid sleep. After some searching, we found a great campsite in the trees next to a meadow and had a nice relaxing evening by the fire.
