Turkey Creek: A Trip Report

[jbeegoode]

We explore upstream into Turkey Creek. The canyon leaves us in awe, as a spiritual connection takes over.

https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2017/04/07/turkey-creek-a-trip-report/

Jbee

[Greenbare Woods]

Thanks for the lovely trip reports.   That looks like a beautiful place. 


I guess that is Turkey Creek in Arizona rather than Turkey Creek in the Gila National Forest, NM, with all the hot springs. 

Some years ago I took my sons on a spring camping trip up Turkey Creek in NM.  From the little town of Gila take Turkey Creek road about 20 miles and ford the Gila River 3 times.  Park at an abandoned ranch house and hike about 3 miles up Turkey Creek Canyon to where it widens out into some beautiful meadows.  We passed another group hiking out while we were hiking in.  Several really nice hot springs are along the creek.  They are too hot but you can arrange the rocks to mix some creek water with the hot water.  We spent 3 naked days camping at the Turkey Creek hot springs before hiking out. 

Probably a different Turkey Creek.  If you can get to the NM Turkey Creek I'm sure you would enjoy it.  Be careful of high water at the fords this time of year. 

[nudewalker]

When you mentioned the divine silence the first thought that came to mind was the first time I stepped into St. Patrick's Cathedral in NYC. So a inspiring that tiptoes and whispers were needed as not to break that silence. I also must complement you on the picture choice with both of you to give a perspective to the size, or height of the canyon walls. Once again, as I watch the snow flurries swirl past my window, thanks for the time and effort!

[jbeegoode]

Bob, lots of Turkey Creeks, several in Arizona. This one flows into Aravaipa. The one in New Mexico is on the bucket list. I've got topos, write ups and have viewed the satellite images. Got the 4x4. You make it sound like a great place.

Nudewalker, next week, unless I do something this week, I'll publish the Muleshoe Ranch trip. Muleshoe is more wild, less friendly, but water trickles with sound, birds sing.

I haven't been to the NYC cathedral, just visited many in Europe. I suppose that they are the same-ish. Sound carries and it amplified against canyon walls. This canyon did that at times, even that echo acoustic, but there was mostly stark silence. Lots of trees and carpets of brush and grass do that there, like filling up an empty house. We were mostly in reverent, observant, mindful silence, as we often are in nature. Five toe shoes are more like moccasins, soft and quiet. A brush on a river rock, or a wobbly one cracking against another.   

I read that many of the cathedrals in Europe were built over the Druid tall oak groves, on the hills. I forget where the source was. The vaulted arches are like huge trees of stone with a meadow in between filled with seating. I wonder what the sound was like in a tall oak grove. Maybe there are some back east. One day, I'll return back east and make a point of one. I seem to remember something of echoes around trees, but it has been too long since I was around thick hardwoods. The only oak grove that I have been in was a circle of them along the creek in Sedona. They weren't so big, maybe a tiny twenty feet inside the circle, no sound effect, but the vortex was certainly there. I'm wandering here, but can anyone clue me in, refresh my memory, of sound and silence in a thick tall woods? Snow produces stark quiet in a forest.
Jbee

[nuduke]

One of your most mystical places yet, JBee!
Terrific report
John

[eyesup]

Photos are being taken, but many are left undone because the thin canyon floor and tall walls can’t fit into a lense. Other photos are abandoned, simply because I just can’t do the place justice with a camera. Something very special has overtaken us.

I have the same thing happen to me when I am out in the desert or mountains. Even when I go ahead and take the photo, it never captures what I see. If someone could invent a device that could capture all the sensations present, that might work.

Sight, sound, smell touch, all are part of those types of moments. I am always disappointed at the result. In an environment where you can taste the things you are smelling and the other senses are reacting to the scene, a graphic can only be a simple reminder of what you remember from the actual moment.

The large tree with the cavity at  the base looks like a sycamore. We were hiking in Montezuma’s Castle and Montezuma’s Well national monuments and saw some enormous sycamore trees like that. I remember those sycamores from where I grew up in East Texas but never saw any that size. When I see huge trees or extremely old trees I always want to walk up and touch them.

They are ancient and still living. It’s like touching part of what they have been witness to. When I see bristlecone trees I have the same reaction. You are touching history.

Duane

[jbeegoode]

Yup. There are those trees that you see in old photos with men in dark suits and women in corsets and can see the trees in their youth, but then there is the one grandpa that was old and impressive even back then.

I get that historical sense from places, from ruins, too. The pristine gives me that sense of history. I'm just another life passing by today.

This week, I'll be publishing about a visit to a raw wild preserve where nature reminds me of my place in the scheme of things and how we have taken so much of the richness from the Earth, not realizing what we do, nor the wisdom of the natural bounty.

I saw huge bright orange light on top of a ridge in the Catalina Mountains Saturday night. It concerned me. I want to revisit a particularly big old pine, in a grove of them up there a few times this year along the Wilderness of rock trail. I want to camp among trees by the brook, too. It is here the eighth pic down:

 https://thefreerangenaturist.org/2016/08/09/wilderness-of-rocks-trail-part-i-a-trip-report/

Old saguaros do this, too, but ya don't run up and touch those.

There is a particularly large desert rose vine in Tombstone that was there back in the days of the OK Corral. Cuttings have been placed all over southern Arizona. The patio covering for Elvis Pizza in Patagonia comes from one of the cuttings. People "get it" in their own way, or another.

Jbee

[eyesup]

Being at a ghost town that has been abandoned for less than a 100 yrs, or at Montezuma’s Castle ca. 1100 AD or standing next to and touching a tree that was a sapling in 3000 BC sort of makes me take stock of where I am in the stream of time.

These places always make stop and spend time thinking about that.

Duane