Trail: West Clear Creek & Blodgett Canyon Loop
Hiking buddy[ies]: Matt
Distance round trip: 14 miles
Hiked: September 18th, 2011
Total car-to-car time: 8.5 hours (8:30am - 5:00pm)
Weather: clear, breezy, 92F high
Vehicle: perpetually-abused sedan
Notes:
AZ Traildex lists difficulty as a 4 and trail finding a 3. The difficulty rating for two healthy, desert-acclimated people in their 20s was inflated. The uphill section would not make for comfortable hiking in July or August, but at 92F we're fairly confident feeling we haven't experienced the mildest version of the trail either. Take the ascent at a comfortable pace, bring enough water, take breaks, and the trail really does not present much technical difficulty.
Trail finding rating was spot on - cairns and metal arrows mark the creek crossings well, and the West Clear Creek Trails section is well marked and maintained. Trail finding from the parking lot up to the second sign-in box after the ascent should present no problems with very reasonable amounts of attention. Afterwards - GPS, good luck, or a very astute coon dog would not be amiss (we had to make do with luck alone). After the second sign-in box, with your back to the box take the left-most dirt road. Follow until the first major gravel-paved road intersection (road will be noticeably different from the washed out mud road you should be following), make a left following the new road down for a while. Trail will resume on the left hand side - reasonably easy to spot, will have a fair amount of rusted stock tanks. Pay attention to the trail despite its width at this point; it's easy to get ahead of yourself and miss the turn-off to a narrower fork. Sailed right on past the first time, spent about 10 minutes hunting around to get back on. Trail forks off to the left. From here on out it's a lot of easy to follow miles, great views, increasing amounts of cactus, and all down hill. The end of the trail presented problems; the trail is very narrow and the vegetation is sparse enough to make 'trail' and 'gaps between cactuses' difficult to differentiate. We lost the trail within roughly a half mile from the starting point and bush-whacked down to towards the river, located the original trail, signed out, and made it back to the car just in time to catch the full into-sunset blind-driving experience.
Exit off of the 260, coming west from the I-17 is not marked; sign only on the east-bound side. By good luck and chance noticed in rear view mirror, made a u-turn. Gravel road was dry at the time, noticeable wash-boarding, little rutting. Realistic for a sedan, though some sections do need to be taken slowly and carefully. Burned the breaks a bit in the final stretches; had to ride the breaks all the way down, even in low gear.
Cactus warning: prickly pear, spiky thorn bushes, spiky thorn trees. Hiked in tevas and shorts - definitely doable, recommended or not depending on your own heat-blood preferences.
Overall:
Definite thumbs up, interesting changes in scenery, not very busy - once we passed the first couple miles in and left the campers behind, saw only one hiker for the rest of the trail and three trucks on the forest roads. Would consider coming back in October or early November, taking the trail a bit slower, taking in more of the trail. The 14 miles are very doable in a day hike, provided you don't seriously lose the trail: if in doubt of your trail-finding skills (and/or without a GPS), best to pack some emergency overnight supplies.
