Thursday, May 1, 2008

Pueblo Creek, Apache National Forest: Thursday, May 1


The road that we came into the campground on is a gravel two track which crosses Pueblo Creek over the wreckage of a bridge and continues west to Arizona, no town listed on the sign, just Arizona. There bridge washed out at some point fairly recently and has been marginally repaired with gravel pushed over the wreckage. The crossing is marked as closed but we have seen several vehicles cross it and go on west. If we had the time we might have tried it but we need to have the tire fixed before we venture anywhere as we now have no spare.


Today we walked along Pueblo Creek which runs past the campground. The creek bed is wide and paved with huge jumbles of cobbles and boulders. The torrent that washed out the bridge is now mostly invisible. There is a small pool at one end of the base of the bridge and occasionally a small trickle of water showed itself among the cobbles. But for most of the walk the creek bed was dry. Part of the way we walked in the creek bed but later ventured onto a trail that climbed high on the face of the valley wall.

Part way along our walk we met two men with a small group of Pack Goats and a couple of dogs and chatted briefly. It was interesting to learn that Pack Goats are a growing "industry". There are a number of outfitters that use them in the back country. They are strong, and you do not need to carry any food for them. The dogs seemed to be pretty good at keeping the goats. The link above is the one they gave us.

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