Hiking through the White Tank Mountains – Part 1

In the twenty-plus years that I lived in the Phoenix area before moving north for a few years, I had only “hiked” at these mountains once…and had driven to the “White Tank Mountain Regional Park” only once or twice more.  I used to look at the mountains from afar and considered that they were just part of the landscape, and to be honest, I considered them to be a rather bleak and unappealing part of the landscape…the far western boundary of the Valley of the Sun that was my desert home…grayish brown lumps of rock…out there.

(I made the below photo while in the parking lot of the Ford Canyon Trail-head…about four minutes before sunrise proper.)

After moving to Utah and experiencing the Wasatch Mountains as my “back yard,” I began to reflect even less favorably on the White Tank “Mountains,” because they were so much less than the new and real mountains in my life.  My hiking sons who lived with me in Utah for those few years had actually frequented the White Tanks more than I had…and after hiking to our favorite waterfall in the Wasatch, we all had something like a growing, playful contempt for what could be found at the end of the “Waterfall Trail” in the White Tanks.

(I made the next photo about six minutes later, walking northwest on the trail that would take me to Ford Canyon where I would have a wonderful climb.)

As the twists and turns of Life would have it, my family and I moved back to this metropolitan desert…and I still have the yearning to be out hiking mountains…and it just so happens that the White Tank Mountains are probably the closest “mountains” to where I presently live.

(And still another six minutes later, I had rounded a bend in the trail and had a clear view of the antennas that one can see for miles across the desert.)

So after being here again for just over a year, I figured that I was probably overdue in heading west and learning more about these mountains.  I will admit that from afar, from the dozens of miles away that I usually view them, they still don’t look like much, still don’t appear inviting in the least…and still aren’t very compelling as far as “mountains” are concerned.  But now, after having spent the better part of a winter’s day climbing, hiking, and walking among them, I do have a greater appreciation for the White Tanks…I can consider them to be “mountains” in my hiking experience…because I did have to actually “hike” and “climb” up them to get where I wanted to go on that particular Sunday.

(The next photo is what it looks like facing northeast from the trail, with the White Tanks behind us, before actually getting into the canyon.)

And as I have mentioned in a previous post, it was in looking closer at my surroundings that I found the beauty of this particular spot of desert.

The above and below images were made probably within a few yards of each other…approaching three miles into the hike…heading mostly west, but north, as well, hiking what would be the right side of a slightly oblong loop that comprised my route for the day.  The vegetation above consists of the large Saguaro cactus, some variety of Cholla cactus immediately to the right of the Saguaro and in the closer right-hand foreground of the image…some brighter green Creosote to the bottom left, and Ironwood and Palo Verde on the far right side and moving inward.  There are also some grayish-green shrubs that are a variety of Sage and some Brittlebush.

In the below image you’ll notice the skeleton of a fallen Saguaro…what’s left of it anyway.

The trail is climbing up into the canyon now…slowly gaining elevation…moving up into the rockier aspects of the mountainside.

Hmm…cause for concern?  I’ve never seen a sign like this on any previous hike…not here, or in Utah.

And that’s where we’re going…that bit of trail that you can discern at the foot of the closest Saguaro on the left…

Looking back down the draw…down the dry waterway that must be something fierce and wonderful after a summer monsoon….  The trail will be toward the right and out of frame.  At 8:55 in the morning, the sun was still a ways behind the ridge and lighting only a portion of the canyon…and making it difficult to make a good image.

To the right of the bottom right corner/protuberance of that large rock in the center of the image, you can see a first glimpse of a “white tank” with the water streaks below it.

I was familiar with white granite from the mountains and boulders of Little Cottonwood Canyon in Utah…the rock that locals had termed “Temple Granite,” as it was used to build the Mormon’s temple in Salt Lake City…so it was something of a surprise to find it so out of context here in the middle of the desert…

…but there it is, worn smooth by thousands of thousands of summer floods crashing down the mountains….

The trail has disappeared into an understood sense of direction, a knowing of where one ought to go simply because the land suggests it.  A marker has been stuck into the ground at a wider spot among the boulders…its information tells us that we are on the Ford Canyon Trail and have traveled four miles and that we should go in the direction of the arrow, more or less….

Sometimes the physical trail is nothing more than footprints left by those who wandered here before us…we have to look down and around…to imagine the moving water that lives and travels here and not become lost in the enormity of our surroundings, but to focus and understand…and even hope….

…and look for the unnatural, odd stacking of stones whose alignment means more than just direction…affirmation…relief…. (Do you see the cairn just right of the center of the photo?)

The only trail, really, was the waterway, the drainage, the silt and sand and gravel, rocks, and boulders, green trees and grasses that lead ever uphill from our location…to worn slabs of granite steps to climb and go further…that lead to a damn wall…

…rather a dam wall, a contrivance reminiscent of alpine reservoirs maintained in former times to catch winter waters for summer times.  I don’t know the history of this place, don’t know if it was used for livestock…or whatever, but the former pool has been filled with sand and dirt and other whatnot.  I’m not sure if it occurred naturally with the rains, or if it was filled intentionally by the builder or someone who came afterward.

There were several clumps of this beautifully tufted “fountain grass,” in the waterway.

It’s hard for me to imagine a river of flood waters coursing over this area, but I know it has, and at numerous times over the eons, in order for these slabs to have so many of their rough edges smoothed away to the rounded surfaces that now exist on these exposed masses of rock.

This is the point where the path became a literal trail again and climbed out of the waterway of Ford Canyon….this is also a natural ending place for this first post, as the next one will share images of vast open hillsides that dominated the second half of the hike.

Thank you for visiting with me and enduring to the end of this unusually long post.  I hope you’ve enjoyed these several glimpses at the Ford Canyon Trail in the White Tank Mountains.

December 26, 2015 | Categories: Photos - Outdoors, White Tank Mountains | Tags: Ford Canyon Trail, hiking, hiking Arizona, images made 12-6-2015, Maricopa County Arizona, Maricopa County Parks, photography, seekraz photography, Sonora Desert, sunrise, White Tank Mountain Regional Park, White Tank Mountains, windmill | 28 Comments