#1: [22-Jul-01]

15-Jun-2016 -- This was going to be an adventure with one of my daughters who was home on leave. I had been planning to visit this point for a few years but the timing was never right.

My mom has a summer place in Pinetop and we drove up the day before and would depart there for our visit the following morning.

This confluence is located on the White Mountain Apache Reservation and you can purchase a recreation permit online from their Game and Fish Department for $10 per person. It was an easy process and granted access as long as you follow all of their terms and conditions.

We turned west off of AZ-73 here on to Faught Ridge Road and then turned south onto a smaller dirt road here. Following the serpentine path of this road through the woods eventually got us to within 90 meters due east of the point. We did make a turn onto a smaller road heading back to the southwest here.

After turning our confluence vehicle around, I hiked up an easterly facing slope and managed to zero out the point. The entire area was heavily treed and there was evidence of a past fire that the first visitors had noted some 15 years earlier. I did not see a cairn and it took some time to finally zero out my location. I sent out a SPOT message announcing our successful visit and continued to collect TerraSync position data on my Trimble GPS.

In the distance off to the east, a very steep eroded sandstone slope is visible. In picture #1 you can see a very tall dead tree whose shadow is visible at the center of this Google Image. This distinctive tree is also visible in Picture 7. Visibility in most directions was limited by bushes and trees. There were dozens of large annoying black biting flies that followed me the entire time I was away from my vehicle.

During our adventure on the Reservation, we had seen lots of wildlife. A single elk and several deer on the way in, and dozens of wild turkeys on the way out.

Post processing of the GPS data reveals that my GPS receiver was 2.7 meters northeast of the actual confluence with a Horizontal Precision of 2.6 meters.

My round trip hike took 21 minutes and was 360 meters weaving around the trees to and from the point. Our total trip time off of AZ-73 was 3:22 and 47km.

On our way back home we noticed smoke coming up to our west. As we approached US-60 we turned north to get a closer look. The authorities were just in the process of closing the road to Show Low. Picture 8 shows the Cedar Fire when it was only a couple hours old. This fire would be a major concern to the communities of Show Low and Pinetop dominating the news for the next several days as it continued to grow before it was finally contained.

It’s hard to believe that we were only the second visitors to this point and the first visit was 15 years ago! Another great confluence adventure!

In the Fort Apache Indian Reservation.