This is our second hike in the Magdalena Mountains during a 3-night stay in the campground in our R-Pod camper. The first day we did the Mesa Trai l#15 hike. We planned to stay only two nights, taking a “short hike” before heading home. But looking at opportunities near the campground, on the Topo maps (courtesy USTopo on our Android tablet), we noticed springs and -mines- up Fork Canyon, on a two-track leaving the campground. Since that sounded interesting, we headed out for a “short” hike.
The Hike
North Fork Water Canyon Hike.Pat.2018-09-13
Our ‘trail’ followed an old two-track going up the bottom of the North Fork canyon. Hardly suitable today for any but the best off-road vehicle as it meandered back and forth across the creek, it made for easy hiking. At about 1.5 miles up the canyon, as expected from the Topo map, we came to a Y in the canyon. Although the mines were further up the canyon to the right, we turned left up Dark Canyon towards a spring marked on the Topo map. We didn’t find the spring, and to return to the canyon towards the Cabin Spring and the mines, we climbed a side canyon (with a couple of good sized rock faces) and over a saddle to the “mine canyon”.
About 2.7 miles into the hike, back on a sometimes rough two-track (apparently this provided access to the mines), we spied the first mine, on the far wall of the canyon below the two-track – a cave with tailings. We continued on up the canyon to the second mine site, finding a large cave with standing water in its entrance. And .. many tracks in the mud along with droppings – we surmised that this was a gathering place for elk. The return to the campsite was a most pleasant part of the hike, stopping to admire the flowers and a view across Water Canyon of the outcrops that make it’s eastern cliffs (and encountering some droppings which we concluded were bear scat).
This turned out to be not such a -short- hike, so we stayed another night in the campground.
Statistics
Total Distance: 5.72 miles
Elevation: start 6,909 ft, maximum 7,940 ft, minimum 6,909 ft
Gross gain: 1,034 ft. Aggregate ascending 1,602 ft, descending 1,605 ft
Maximum slope: 29% ascending, 29% descending, 8.8 % average
Duration: 7:12
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I urge you to explore our hiking tracks with Google Earth. With the virtual 3-dimensional presentation, achieved by panning and tilting the view, you can get a much better idea of the hikes and terrain than you can get from the 2-dimensional screenshot above. For assistance: Using Google Earth Track Files.
